The Best Of The Year - Medical Romance
- -
- 100%
- +
‘Is she okay?’ Candy asked.
‘She will be. I’m going back in to talk to her,’ Steele said. ‘Macey saw you get a bit dizzy and has got you down as pregnant. I told her you’re not and that they don’t build nurses as strong these days.’ He gave her a grim smile and then explained what was happening. ‘As it turns out, she had a baby.’
‘Oh …’
‘Macey has never told anyone until now so it’s a huge deal to her. I’m just giving her a few moments to gather herself,’ Steele said, ‘and then I’m going to go in and speak with her. Would you tell Gloria to make sure that we’re not disturbed?’
‘Sure.’
‘If she has any visitors …’
‘I’ll say that the doctor’s in with her.’
‘Thanks.’
He walked back behind the curtains. Macey had stopped crying and she gave Steele a watery smile.
‘Sorry about that,’ she said.
‘Why should you be sorry?’ Steele asked, handing her the glass of sherry. ‘I’m glad that you told me. Would you like to talk about it?’ he offered.
‘I don’t know how to,’ Macey admitted. ‘It’s been a secret for so long.’
‘Not any more,’ Steele said. ‘It might help to talk about it.’
‘I got pregnant when I was twenty-seven,’ Macey said. ‘He was married. I was never much of a looker and I suppose I was flattered. Anyway, my parents would have been horrified. They would have said that I was old enough to know better. We’re never old enough to know better when it comes to matters of the heart, though. Instead of telling them, I confided in one of the matrons here. I thought she’d be shocked but she was more than used to it and took care of things. I was sent down to Bournemouth to have him. Everyone thought that I had polio and that was the reason I was away so long. Instead, I had my son and he was handed over for adoption.’
‘I’m sorry, Macey,’ Steele said. ‘That must have been so painful.’
‘It still is.’ She nodded. ‘I was very sick when he was delivered. I did everything I could not to push because I knew that as soon as he was born he would be taken away. I passed out when he was delivered and I never got to hold him and I never even got to see him. When I came around the next day I asked if I could have just one cuddle but I was told it was better that way. It wasn’t.’
‘Have you ever tried to look him up or make contact?’
‘Never,’ she said. ‘I’ve thought about it many times but I didn’t want to mess up his life if he didn’t know he was adopted. I was told that he had gone to a very good family and that I was to get on with my life. I came back to work and threw myself into my career, but I’ve thought about him every single day since.’
‘And his father?’
‘I had nothing to do with him after that,’ Macey said. ‘We worked alongside each other for a few years afterwards. I think at first he thought he could carry on with me as before but I soon put him right. I told him to concentrate on his marriage. I’m very ashamed that I had an affair with a married man.’
‘Try not to be ashamed,’ Steele suggested. ‘Perhaps it would be better to view that time with remorse but do your best to leave the shame out of it.
‘I know you must have felt very alone at the time but I can tell you from all my years doing this job that what happened to you happened to a lot of women from your generation.’
‘He was married, though.’
‘You weren’t the first and you certainly won’t be the last person to have an affair with a married man. My guess is you’ve more than paid the price.’
‘I have.’
‘Forgive yourself, then,’ Steele said. ‘Have you thought about discussing what happened with your nieces?’
‘Sometimes,’ Macey said. ‘I wake up some nights, imagining them finding out what happened after I’m gone and not being able to speak about it with me.’
‘Maybe consider speaking with them again,’ Steele suggested. ‘And if you want help telling them, or if you want me to do it for you, let me know.’ He watched as Macey frowned, though it wasn’t a dismissive frown. He could see that she was thinking about it. ‘And if you never want to discuss it again, then that’s fine too.’
‘I might think again about telling them …’ she said. ‘There’s just so much guilt. Sometimes when I’m enjoying myself I feel that I don’t deserve to.’
‘Let the guilt go, Macey,’ Steele said. ‘You are allowed to be happy.’
Candy sat at the nurses’ station, staring at Macey’s curtains, but, though usually she’d be curious, right now she wasn’t wondering what was going on behind closed curtains.
Steele’s throwaway comment about Macey thinking that Candy was pregnant had immediately been disregarded but now a small nagging voice was starting to make itself known.
She felt so tired.
Seriously tired.
There were many reasons that could account for that but the usually energetic Candy could barely walk past a bed without wanting to climb into it.
And she had felt sick a couple of times.
Actually, she’d had a bout of stomach flu a few weeks ago. Or she’d assumed it was stomach flu.
But she’d had her period, though it had been light, but she was sure that was because she had gone back on the Pill.
God, was it that fabulous bra that had given her such cleavage?
Stop it, Candy told herself.
Except she couldn’t stop it.
‘How is she?’ she asked, when Steele came out from behind Macey’s curtains.
‘She’s having a cry so keep them closed.’ He told her a little about it. ‘She doesn’t want her nieces to know at this stage but at least she seems to be thinking about telling them.’ He frowned at Candy’s distraction. ‘Are you okay?’
‘I’m fine,’ she said.
She wasn’t, though.
Macey’s words had seriously unsettled her.
Candy did her best not to let them.
She headed for home and looked around her flat. She opened the fridge to sort out the milk and things but let out a moan when she saw that it had already been done.
Her parents had been around.
Candy looked at a letter on her kitchen bench and saw that it had been opened.
It was her bank statement.
And there were flashing lights on her answering machine that Candy knew would be messages from her parents—they were really the only people who called her on her landline.
Candy took a breath and called her mum. She sat for five minutes wondering why it had to be like this as her mum demanded to know where she’d been and what she’d been doing.
‘I’ve been really busy with work,’ she said, loathing that she had to lie and then deciding not to. ‘I’ve been doing a lot of extra shifts,’ she explained, and took a deep breath. ‘I’ve booked a holiday. It was a last-minute thing.’
‘Where?’
‘Hawaii. I go next Friday for two weeks.’ Candy closed her eyes and tried to answer in calm tones as the questions started.
‘I’m going by myself,’ Candy said. ‘I just felt that I needed to get away.’
No, she couldn’t afford it and as she was told that Candy thought of the first day she had met Steele, who had simply said, ‘Good for you.’
‘Mum,’ Candy interrupted. ‘I’m going on holiday, I want to go and I’m not going to argue about it with you.’
‘You listen—’
‘No,’ she said. ‘I love you very much, you know that I do, but I’m not going to run everything that I do by you.’
It hurt to have this discussion but she knew it was way overdue. She knew they loved and cared for her and that they expected to be involved in every facet of her life. It just wasn’t the way Candy wanted to live any more.
‘Ma, I’m not arguing,’ she said. She took a breath, wanting to tell them to please ring in the future before dropping around. She wanted to ask for the return of her keys but baby steps, Candy decided, so she dealt with that morning’s events. ‘Mum, I don’t want you opening my mail and I’ve told you over and over that I don’t want you coming around and letting yourself in when I’m not here.’
She meant it. So much so that when her mother pointed out she was just trying to help and, anyway, she’d need someone to take care of the flat while she was in Hawaii, Candy snapped in frustration. ‘It’s not a stately home that needs taking care of. It’s a one-bedroom flat!’
It didn’t go well.
Candy knew her requests would be, as always, simply ignored so after she put down the phone she did what she didn’t want to but felt she had to.
She made a trip to the hardware store, but not just for locks. She also bought a drill.
Then she had to go back to the hardware store a second time because after numerous attempts her shiny new drill wouldn’t screw in a nail but a very nice guy explained what a drill bit was for!
She loathed that she’d done it.
She loathed more than that that she’d had to, but she had realised that despite the move she hadn’t really left home. Her parents saw her flat as a bedroom with a slightly longer hall to walk down. Candy thought of Steele hiding in her room that night and knew that was the reason they stayed at his place.
No, Candy thought as she turned the new lock on her door and then headed for Steele’s, it was her life.
It was a long day for Steele.
A very long day.
He stopped by Macey’s bed at the end of his shift and she asked if he would speak with her niece when she visited tomorrow.
‘Of course I will,’ Steele said.
Then he had a meeting to sit through, which really had nothing to do with him, given that he’d be gone in a few weeks. Not that it stopped him putting his point across about the lengthy waits in Emergency. Oh, and a few other things too.
By nine he should be more than ready for home but for once Steele was tentative.
There was no bread waiting for him in the toaster.
Steele walked through his apartment and put Candy’s case, which he had bought in from the car, down in the hallway. He knew she was here and he knew where she probably was.
He walked through to the bedroom and, sure enough, there was Candy, fast asleep in bed with the light still on. He looked at her black curls all splayed out on the pillow and he looked at the dark circles under her eyes and he stood there for a full two minutes, watching her sleep deeply.
Steele made his own toast and then had a shower and tried to watch a film. It was a film that he had been meaning to watch for ages but, unusually for him, he couldn’t concentrate.
There was something else, far deeper, on his mind.
He turned off the television and lights and got into bed next to Candy, and she rolled into him.
‘Sorry,’ she said sleepily. ‘I saw the bed and couldn’t resist. When did you get back?’
‘Just now,’ he said, though it had been a good hour.
‘I changed the lock on my front door.’ Her voice was groggy with sleep.
‘Good for you,’ Steele said. ‘Go back to sleep.’
She did.
He didn’t.
Instead, he lay staring at the ceiling.
Yes, there was a lot on his mind.
Macey’s words had now seriously rattled him too.
CHAPTER NINE
After
CANDY WOKE IN Steele’s arms and listened to the sound of his breathing.
She wanted him to wake and roll over and make love to her. She wanted the pregnancy thought in her head to be obliterated by his kiss.
Then she didn’t want his kiss because she felt sick.
Candy’s mind flicked over the past few weeks.
Yes, she’d been sick last month, but it had been one of those bugs.
Surely?
She really felt sick now and she crept to the bathroom and tried to throw up as quietly as she could.
It was exhaustion, Candy told herself, brushing her teeth and then showering, but when she glanced in the mirror she could see the fear in her eyes.
Steele lay there listening to Candy flush the toilet to drown out her gags and he blew out a breath.
‘Morning,’ he said a few moments later, when he came in and she was already in the shower.
‘Morning.’ Candy smiled but she couldn’t quite meet his eyes.
There was an elephant in the room that they both chose to ignore and they dashed around, getting dressed, finding keys, exclaiming they were running late when really they were actually doing quite well for time.
There was the first uncomfortable silence between them as Steele drove Candy and the massive elephant in the car to work.
There was no frantic kissing and they walked through the car park in silence, Candy making the decision to do a pregnancy test as soon as she got there, Steele wondering what the hell he should say.
If anything.
The sound of an ambulance siren had her look up and she saw Lydia standing in the forecourt, frantically gesturing for her to run. Clearly there was something big coming in.
‘I’ve got to go,’ she said.
‘Go!’ Steele said, and he watched her run through the car park and to the forecourt, where not one but three flashing-light ambulances were now pulling up. Kelly ran past him too and as Steele walked up the corridor the anaesthetists and trauma teams were running down it towards Emergency.
Candy, Steele thought, was in for one helluva morning.
She was.
She raced into the changing rooms and stripped off her jeans and T-shirt and got into scrubs as Kelly did the same.
‘What is it?’ Kelly asked.
‘Multi-traumas.’ Candy passed on the little Lydia had told her as she’d dashed past. ‘Four of them.’
‘Four are coming here?’
It was rare to get four all at once but apparently there were several more critically injured patients going to different emergency departments. A high-speed collision, involving several vehicles, meant there would be nothing to think about other than the patients any time soon.
It was on this morning that Candy fell back in love with Emergency.
Yes, it was busy and stressful but it was what she loved to do. Helping out with a little girl who had looked dire when she’d first arrived but who was now coughing as Rory, the anaesthetist, extubated her was an amazing feeling indeed.
‘It’s okay, Bethany,’ Candy said as the girl opened her eyes and started to cry. ‘I’m Candy. You’re in hospital but you’re going to be okay.’
Thank God! She looked up at Rory, who gave her a wide-eyed look back because it had been touch and go. Bethany had had a chest tube inserted as her lung had collapsed in the accident and her heart hadn’t been beating when she’d arrived in the department.
To see her coughing and crying and alive, Candy knew why she’d fought so hard to do a job she loved.
Rory and the thoracic surgeon started talking about sedation and getting Bethany up to ICU, and it all happened seamlessly.
‘Busy morning?’ Patrick, the head nurse in ICU, smiled when Candy came up with her patient.
‘Just a bit.’
‘You look exhausted,’ Patrick commented. ‘So this is Bethany?’ He looked down at the little girl, who was sedated but breathing on her own. He nudged Candy away for a moment. ‘I’m going to put her in a side room. I thought about putting her next to Mum but I think it’s going to scare her more for now.’
‘How is her mum doing?’ Candy asked, because she had been so busy working on Bethany that she didn’t really know what was going on with the rest of her family.
‘Won’t know for a while,’ Patrick said. ‘They’ll keep her in an induced coma for at least forty-eight hours. Is it settling down in Emergency now?’
‘I don’t know,’ she admitted. ‘I haven’t looked up yet.’
‘Go and grab a drink,’ Patrick said.
He was nice like that and Candy headed round to the little staffroom and had a quick drink from the fridge, pinched a few biscuits and then headed back to the unit.
It was quiet. One elderly man was being wheeled in on a stretcher and Candy rolled her eyes at Kelly as she walked into Resus to start the massive tidy up.
It was going to be a big job.
‘Let’s get one bed completely stocked and done,’ Kelly said, ‘just in case something comes in, then we can deal with the rest.’
They got one area cleared and restocked and were just about to commence with the rest when Lydia came in.
‘I’ve asked if everyone can come through to the staffroom.’
‘Now?’ Candy checked, because there was still an awful lot to do.
‘Just make sure that one crash bed is fully stocked,’ Lydia said, ‘and then come straight through. I need to speak to everyone.’
Steele’s morning flew by too.
He had a video meeting with some of his new colleagues in Kent and arranged to go there next Thursday as he wanted to see how the extension was coming along. He also had a house lined up with a real estate agent and wanted to take a second look.
Mr Worthington passed away just after eleven, his radio on, his family beside him. Steele spent a good hour with the family afterwards in his office at the end of the ward.
As they left, instead of heading back out, he sat and thought about Candy. He didn’t know how he felt and he didn’t know what to do.
He looked up when there was a knock at the door and he called for whoever it was to come in then remembered that he’d asked Gloria to send Macey’s niece in once the Worthington family had gone home.
‘Hello, Dr Steele.’ Catherine smiled. ‘Gloria said that you wanted to talk to me.’
‘I do,’ he said. ‘Come in.’
‘Aunt Macey has just gone for an occupational therapy assessment,’ Catherine said. ‘It’s nice to see her walking again.’ She took a seat and then looked at Steele. ‘It’s bad news, isn’t it …?’ she said, and her eyes filled up with tears.
‘No, no.’ Immediately Steele put her at ease. ‘I haven’t called you in to break bad news about your aunt’s health.’ He watched her let out a huge breath of relief. ‘Her physical health anyway,’ Steele amended. ‘But as you know, Macey’s been depressed.’
‘She seems to be getting better, though,’ Catherine said. ‘The tablets seem to be starting to work.’
‘They are,’ Steele said. ‘She’s talking a bit more and engaging with the staff. The thing is,’ he said, ‘it isn’t just medication that your aunt needs at the moment. She’s asked that I speak with you. There’s something that’s upsetting her greatly and it’s been pressing on her mind.’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘Your aunt has something she wishes to discuss with you, a secret that she has kept for many, many years, and it’s one she doesn’t want you to find out about after her death …’ He told her that Macey had had a baby more than fifty years ago and that he’d been given up for adoption at birth, but Catherine kept shaking her head, unable to take in the news. ‘We’d have known.’
‘Very few people knew,’ Steele said. ‘That’s what it was like in those days.’
‘But my aunt’s not like that …’ Catherine said, and then caught herself. ‘When I say that, I mean she’s so incredibly strict—she’s always saying that women should save themselves and …’ She stopped talking and simply sat there as she took the news in. ‘Poor Aunt Macey. How can we help?’
‘I think speak with Linda and then perhaps you can both come in together. Talk it over with Macey, maybe ask if she wants to look for her son, or if she simply wants it left. Her fear is that you’ll find out after her death, whenever that may be, and you might judge her.’
‘Never.’
‘I know it’s a shock,’ he said.
‘It is.’ Catherine smiled. ‘My mother would have had a fit if she knew. Is that why she’s been depressed?’
‘I think it’s a big part of it,’ Steele said. ‘Maybe when she’s got it off her chest and spoken with her family, things can really start to improve.’
He was about to head down to Emergency to check to see if his new admission had arrived, but before he left he quickly checked some lab results and then scrolled through his emails. Then he checked the intramail as they were hounding him to go and get another security shot for his lanyard. He saw an alert that the Emergency Department had been placed on bypass and let out a sigh of frustration, because he really didn’t want his patient ending up in another hospital.
He clicked on the intramail and, for a man who dealt with death extremely regularly, for a man who usually knew what to do in any given situation, Steele simply didn’t have a clue how to handle this.
We are greatly saddened to inform staff of the sudden death of Gerard (Gerry) O’Connor, a senior nurse in the Emergency Department.
Gerry passed away after sustaining a head injury in Greece. Currently the Emergency Department has been placed on bypass as his close colleagues process the news.
He blinked when his pager bleeped and saw that his patient had, in fact, arrived in Emergency.
Steele considered paging Donald, his registrar, to take it. He wanted some time to get his head around things.
Yet he wanted to see how Candy was.
Steele walked into the war zone of Emergency. Resus was in shambles, though some staff, called down from the wards, were trying to tidy it up.
There were just a few staff around and he was surprised when, after checking the board, he walked into the cubicle where his patient was, to see Candy checking Mr Elber’s observations.
‘I’m Steele,’ he said to his patient.
‘Dr Steele, if you want to be formal.’ Candy smiled at the elderly man as she checked his blood pressure. She was trying to keep her voice light but Steele could hear the shaken notes to it.
‘I thought the place was on bypass,’ he said to her as she pulled off her stethoscope.
‘Mr Elber arrived just before we closed.’
‘Can I have a brief word?’ he said, and he watched her eyes screw up at the sides a fraction but she nodded and followed him outside.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Steele said, but Candy shook her head.
‘Please, don’t.’
‘Candy—’
‘Please, don’t. I can’t talk about it. I think I’m going to go home,’ she said. ‘Lydia offered.’ She thought about it for a moment. ‘I think I just want to go home.’
‘Come round tonight,’ Steele said, ‘or I’ll come over to you.’
‘I don’t want you to,’ Candy said. ‘I don’t want to sit and cry over my ex with you. It’s too weird.’
‘It’s not,’ he said, but he didn’t push it. ‘Call me if you change your mind.’
‘Thanks.’
Candy headed off and spoke with Lydia and said that, yes, on second thoughts, she was going to go home.
The news had come completely out of the blue. All the staff were stunned. Candy had headed straight back out to the department, not really knowing what to do, when she’d seen that Mr Elber was sitting on a trolley and had been pretty much left to himself.
Now the complete numb shock that had hit her after finding out that Gerry was dead was wearing off and she was very close to tears.
And very scared too.
She changed and as she headed out of the department she saw Louise walking in on her way to work.
‘Candy.’ Louise came straight over. ‘I just heard about Gerry. It’s such terrible news …’
Candy started to cry but as Louise wrapped her in a hug, feeling Louise’s pregnant stomach nudging into her was just about the last straw.
‘I know you had a bit of a thing going on last year,’ Louise said. ‘It must be so—’
‘Louise,’ Candy begged, ‘it’s not that that I’m crying about.’ Well, it was, but she certainly wasn’t about to tell Louise the entire truth either. ‘I think that I might be pregnant and I don’t know what to do …’
‘Come on,’ Louise said, and led her to the canteen. There were groups sitting and talking, some from Emergency and in tears, so it didn’t look out of place that Candy was crying.
Louise went and got them both drinks and then came over.
‘How late are you?’ Louise asked, knowing full well that Candy was seeing Steele—she’d seen them in the car after all.
‘I’m not late,’ Candy said. ‘But I’ve been feeling sick and I’m so tired …’ She knew it didn’t sound much to go on. The awful thing was that she knew that she was. ‘I simply can’t be pregnant,’