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CHAPTER NINE

SHE had known heads would turn and they did, but what Izzy hadn’t expected were the smiles that followed the arches of the eyebrows as they walked in together.

Real smiles, because how could they not?

Izzy had been through so very much and her friends and colleagues had been worried about her, had not known how to react in the face of such raw pain and grief, but tonight she was glowing and it wasn’t just from the pregnancy.

‘Don’t you dare say you’re just friends, because I won’t believe you.’ Megan came over as Diego went to the bar. ‘Friends,’ Megan said, ‘are able to go two minutes without eye contact,’ she pointed out as she caught Izzy and Diego share a lingering look from across the room. ‘Friends don’t light up a room with their energy when they walk in. Friends don’t cause every head to turn. Friends, my foot...’ Megan laughed.

‘Okay, ‘Izzy said, and though it was all a bit like a runaway train, she felt exhilarated as she rode it, smiled as she said it: ‘We’re more than friends.’

‘Happy?’ Megan checked.

‘Very.’

‘Then I’m happy for you,’ Megan said. Izzy was sure she would have loved to have said more, but sometimes good friends didn’t. Sometimes good friends had to let you make your own success or mistakes and be there for you whatever the outcome. Megan confirmed that with her next words.

‘I’m always here.’

‘I know that.’

‘So how did you manage the night off? I thought you were on.’

‘No.’ Izzy shook her head, ‘I told you, I’m only doing days till the baby’s born. I thought you were on call?’

‘Richard didn’t want to come to the ball, so he’s covering for me,’ Megan said. ‘So who’s holding the fort in A and E tonight?’

‘Mitch,’ Izzy said.

‘He’s only a resident.’

‘Oh, Ben is on call, said he might pop in if he can get away....’ And her voice trailed off, because Izzy realised then that Megan hadn’t actually been enquiring about her roster, she had been fishing to find out the whereabouts of someone else. And as Megan stood and kissed Izzy on the cheek and headed off into the throng of people, Izzy found a corner of an unexpected jigsaw.

She could see Megan, her usually pale cheeks, suddenly flushed and pink, desperately trying to focus on a conversation, but her green eyes kept flicking over to Josh. It was as if there were an invisible thread between them, a thread that tightened. She watched as Josh worked the room, each greeting, each two-minute conversation seemed to be dragging him on a human Mexican wave towards Megan. The pull was so strong, Izzy could have sworn she could have reached out and grabbed it.

And then it snapped.

Izzy watched as a blonde woman walked over, all smiles, and kissed Josh possessively on the lips. Izzy saw the wedding band glint on her finger and as Megan’s face turned away, Izzy knew Megan had just seen it too.

‘Excuse me...’ All the colour had drained out of Megan’s face and she walked quickly to the ladies. Izzy looked over at Josh who was concentrating on something his wife was saying, but then he caught her eye and Izzy couldn’t read his expression, but something told her it was a plea to help.

‘Here...’ Diego was back with the drinks and it was Izzy’s turn to excuse herself, but by the time she got to the ladies Megan was on her way out.

‘Hey?’ Izzy smiled. ‘Are you okay?’

‘I’m great!’ Megan gave a dazzling smile. ‘It’s always a good night.’

‘Megan?’ Izzy caught her friend’s arm, but Megan shook it off.

‘I must get back out there.’

Oh, she wanted to know what was going on, to help, to fix, to share, only it was clear all Megan wanted to do was to get through this night.

‘Sit with us,’ Izzy suggested. ‘I thought we would be with the emergency guys and girls or NICU, but we left the booking too late and we’re with the maternity mob. Come and keep us company.’ It was the best she could do for Megan right now and when Megan jumped at the suggestion, Izzy knew she had been right.

There was something going on with Megan and Josh.

Or, Izzy pondered, there had been.

It was actually a good night—the food was wonderful, the company great. Diego was clearly a hit with the maternity team as well, but as the table was cleared and the dancing commenced Izzy was uncomfortable all of a sudden in the hard chair. Stretching her spine, she shifted her weight and she was glad to stretch her legs when Diego asked her to dance.

It was such bliss to be in his arms.

To smell him, to be held by him.

She wished the music would last for ever—that somehow she could freeze this moment of time, where there was no past to run from and no future that could change things. She wished she could dance and dance, just hold this moment and forever feel his breath on her neck and his warm hands on her back, to feel the bulge of her pregnant stomach pressed to his and to remember...

She was dizzy almost remembering a couple of hours earlier.

‘Glad you came?’ Diego asked.

‘Very,’ Izzy said, and then pulled back and smiled. ‘And more than a little surprised that I did.’

Every day he saw another side to her.

Diego was far from stupid. Of course he had questioned the wisdom of getting involved with someone at such a vulnerable time—fatherhood was not on his agenda. After a lifetime of rules and the stuffy confines of his family, he had sworn it would be years before anyone or anything pinned him down. He was devoted to his work and everything else was just a pleasure, but now, holding her in his arms, life was starting to look a little different.

‘Hey.’ He’d sensed her distraction. ‘What are you watching?’

‘What’s going on,’ she asked, ‘with Megan and Josh?’

Diego rolled his eyes. ‘Not you too? Rita, my ward clerk, is obsessed with them.’

‘Megan’s been different lately,’ Izzy insisted. ‘Surely you’ve noticed?’

‘I’ve had my mind on other things,’ he said, pulling her in a little tighter. ‘There’s nothing going on,’ Diego said assuredly, and glanced at the subjects of their conversation. ‘They’re not even talking to each other.’

Which was such a male thing to say, but Megan was right, Izzy thought, watching Josh’s eyes scan the room as he danced with his wife, watched them locate and capture and hold their target, almost in apology, until Megan tore hers away.

Friends don’t share looks like that.

But in that moment all thoughts of Josh and Megan faded, all thoughts of Diego and romance too, because the back pain she had felt while sitting returned, spreading out from her spine like two large hands, stretching around to her stomach and squeezing. It wasn’t a pain as such, she’d been having Braxton-Hicks’ contractions, but this felt different, tighter. This didn’t take her breath, neither did it stop her swaying in the darkness with Diego, but she was more than aware of it and then it was gone and she tried to forget that it had happened. only Diego had been aware of it too.

He had felt her stomach, which was pressed into his, tighten.

He didn’t want to be one of those paranoid people. She was just dancing on so he did too, but he was almost more aware of her body than his own. He could feel the slight shift and knew that even though she danced on and held him, her mind was no longer there.

‘You okay?’

‘Great,’ she murmured, hoping and praying that she was. The music played on and Diego suggested that they sit this next one out. Izzy was about to agree, only suddenly the walk back to their table seemed rather long. The music tipped into the next ballad and Izzy leant on him as the next small wave hit, only this time it did make her catch her breath and Diego could pretend no more.

‘Izzy?’ She heard the question in his voice.

‘I don’t know,’ she admitted. ‘Can you get me outside?’ she said, still leaning on him, waiting for it to pass. ‘In a moment.’

Their exit was discreet. He had a hand round her waist and they didn’t stop to get her bag, and as the cool night air hit, Izzy wondered if she was overreacting because now she felt completely normal.

‘Izzy.’ Discreet as their exit had been, Gus must have noticed because he joined them outside, just as another contraction hit.

‘They’re not strong,’ Izzy said as Gus placed a skilled hand on her abdomen.

‘How far apart?’ Gus asked, and it was Diego who answered.

‘Six, maybe seven minutes.’

‘Okay.’ Gus wasted no time. ‘Let’s get you over to the hospital and we can pop you on a monitor. I’ll bring the Jeep around.’

‘Should we call an ambulance?’ Diego asked, but Gus shook his head.

‘We’ll be quicker in my Jeep and if we have to pull over, I’ve got everything we need.’

‘I’m not having it,’ Izzy insisted, only neither Diego nor Gus was convinced.

It was a thirty-minute drive from Penhally. Diego felt a wave of unease as Izzy’s hand gripped his tighter and she blew out a long breath. He remembered his time on Maternity and often so often it was a false alarm, the midwives could tell. Izzy kept insisting she was fine, that the contractions weren’t that bad, but he could feel her fingers digging into his palms at closer intervals, could see Gus glancing in the rear-view mirror when Izzy held her breath every now and then, and the slight acceleration as Gus drove faster.

His mind was racing, awful scenarios playing out, but Izzy could never have guessed. He stayed strong and supportive beside her, held her increasingly tightening fingers as Gus rang through and warned the hospital of their arrival. A staff member was waiting with a wheelchair as they pulled up at the maternity section.

‘It’s too soon,’ Izzy said as he helped her out of the Jeep.

‘You’re in the right place,’ Diego said, only he could feel his heart hammering in his chest, feel the adrenaline coursing through him as she was whisked off and all he could do was give her details as best as he could to a new night receptionist.

‘You’re the father?’ ahe asked, and his lips tightened as he shook his head, and he felt the relegation.

‘I’m a friend,’ Diego said. ‘Her...’ But he didn’t know what to follow it up with. It had been just a few short weeks, and he wasn’t in the least surprised when he was asked to take a seat in a bland waiting room

He waited, unsure what to do, what his role was—if he even had a role here.

Going over and over the night, stunned at how quickly everything had changed. One minute they had been dancing, laughing—now they were at the hospital.

The logical side of his brain told him that thirty-one weeks’ gestation was okay. Over and over he tried to console himself, tried to picture his reaction if he knew a woman was labouring and he was preparing a cot to receive the baby. Yet there was nothing logical about the panic that gripped him when he thought of Izzy’s baby being born at thirty-one weeks. Every complication, every possibility played over and over. It was way too soon, and even if everything did go well, Izzy would be in for a hellish ride when she surely didn’t deserve it.

They could stop the labour, though. Diego swung between hope and despair. She’d only just started to have contractions...

‘Diego.’ Gus came in and shook his hand.

‘How is she?’

‘Scared,’ Gus said, and gave him a brief rundown of his findings. ‘We’ve given her steroids to mature the baby’s lungs and we’re trying to stop the labour or at least slow down the process to give the medication time to take effect.’

‘Oh, God...’ Guilt washed over him, a guilt he knew was senseless, but guilt all the same. However, Gus was one step ahead of him.

‘Nothing Izzy or you did contributed to this, Diego. I’ve spoken with Izzy at length, this was going to happen. In fact...’ he gave Diego a grim smile ‘...an ultrasound and cord study have just been done. Her placenta is small and the cord very thin. This baby really will do better on the outside, though we’d all like to buy another week or two. I knew the baby was small for dates. Izzy was going to have an ultrasound early next week, but from what I’ve just seen Izzy’s baby really will do better by being born.’

‘She’s been eating well, taking care of herself.’

‘She suffered trauma both physically and emotionally early on in the pregnancy,’ Gus said. ‘Let’s just get her through tonight, but guilt isn’t going to help anyone.’

Diego knew that. He’d had the same conversation with more parents than he could remember—the endless search for answers, for reasons, when sometimes Mother Nature worked to her own agenda.

‘Does she want to see me?’

Gus nodded. ‘She doesn’t want to call her family just yet.’

When he saw her, Diego remembered the day he had first met her when she had come to the neonatal ward. Wary, guarded, she sat on the bed, looking almost angry, but he knew she was just scared.

‘It’s going to be okay,’ Diego said, and took her hand, but she pulled it away.

‘You don’t know that.’

She sat there and she had all her make-up on, her hair immaculate, except she was in a hospital gown with a drip and a monitor strapped to her stomach, and Diego wondered if she did actually want him there at all.

She did.

But how could she ask him to be there for her?

She was scared for her baby, yet she resented it almost.

Nine weeks.

They’d had nine weeks left of being just a couple, which was not long by anyone’s standards. Nine weeks to get to know each other properly, to enjoy each other, and now even that nine weeks was being denied to them.

How could she admit how much she wanted him to stay—yet how could she land all this on him?

‘I think you should go.’

‘Izzy.’ Diego kept his voice steady. ‘Whatever helps you now is fine by me. I can call your family. I can stay with you, or I can wait outside, or if you would prefer that I leave...’

He wanted to leave, Izzy decided, or he wouldn’t have said it. The medication they had given her to slow down the labour made her brain work slower, made her thought process muddy.

‘I don’t know...’ Her teeth were chattering, her admission honest. Gus was back, talking to a midwife and Richard Brooke, the paediatric consultant, who had just entered the room. They were all looking at the printout from the monitor and Izzy wanted five minutes alone with Diego, five minutes to try and work out whether or not he wanted to be there, but she wasn’t going to get five minutes with her thoughts for a long while.

‘Izzy.’ She knew that voice and so did Diego, knew that brusque, professional note so well, because they had both used it themselves when they bore bad tidings. ‘The baby is struggling; its heartbeat is irregular...’

‘It needs time to let the medication take effect.’ Izzy’s fuzzy logic didn’t work on Gus. He just stood over her, next to Diego, both in suits and looking sombre, and she felt as if she were lying in a coffin. ‘We want to do a Caesarean, your baby needs to be born.’

Already the room was filling with more staff. She felt the jerk as the brakes were kicked off the bed, the clang as portable oxygen was lifted onto the bed and even in her drugged state she knew this wasn’t your standard Caesarean section, this was an emergency Caesarean.

‘Is there time...?’ She didn’t even bother to finish her sentence. Izzy could hear the deceleration in her baby’s heartbeat, and knew there wouldn’t be time for an epidural, that she would require a general anaesthetic, and it was the scariest, out-of-control feeling. ‘Can you be there, Diego?’ Her eyes swung from Diego to Gus. ‘Can Diego be in there?’

For a general anaesthetic, partners or relatives weren’t allowed to come into the theatre, but the NICU team were regularly in Theatre and after just the briefest pause Richard agreed, but with clarification. ‘Just for Izzy.’

‘Sure,’ Diego agreed, and at that moment he’d have agreed to anything, because the thought of being sent to another waiting room, knowing all that could go wrong, was unbearable, but as he helped speed the bed the short distance to Theatre, Diego also knew that if there was a problem with the babe, he wanted to be the one dealing with it. This was no time for arrogance neither was it time for feigned modesty—quite simply Diego knew he was the best.

The theatre sister gave Diego a slightly wide-eyed look as she registered he was holding hands with her emergency admission, whom she recognised too.

‘Diego’s here with Izzy,’ the midwife explained. ‘Richard has okayed him to go in.’

‘Then you’ll need to go and get changed,’ came the practical response. ‘You can say goodbye to her here.’

And that was it.

Diego knew when he saw her again, she would be under anaesthetic.

Izzy knew it too.

‘I’m glad you’re here...’ She was trying not to cry and her face was smothered with the oxygen mask. ‘You’ll make sure...’

‘Everything is going to be fine.’ His voice came out gruffer than he was used to hearing it. He was trying to reassure her, but Diego felt it sounded as if he was telling her off. ‘Better than fine,’ he said again. His voice still didn’t soften, but there wasn’t time to correct it. ‘Thirty-one-weekers do well.’

‘Thirty-two’s better.’

‘I’ll be there,’ Diego said. ‘And it is going to be okay.’

He couldn’t give her a kiss, because they were already moving her away.

He turned to Gus, who as her GP would also have to wait outside the operating theatre, and exchanged a look with the worried man. ‘Go and get changed, Diego,’ Gus said, and his words shocked Diego into action. He changed his clothes in a moment, then put on a hat and made his way through to Theatre.

‘Diego!’ Hugh, the paediatric anaesthetist greeted him from behind a yellow mask. ‘Extremely bradycardic, ready for full resus.’

‘Diego’s here with the mother.’ Brianna was there too, ready to receive the baby, and her unusually pointed tone was clearly telling her colleague to shut the hell up.

The surgeon on duty that night had already started the incision, and Diego knew the man in question was brilliant at getting a baby out urgently when required, but for Diego the world was in slow motion, the theatre clock hand surely sticking as it moved past each second marker.

‘Breech.’ The surgeon was calling for more traction. Diego could see the two spindly legs the surgeon held in one hand and for the first time in Theatre he felt nausea, understood now why relatives were kept out and almost wished he had been, because suddenly he appreciated how fathers-to-be must feel.

Except he wasn’t the father, Diego told himself as the baby’s limp body was manoeuvred out and the head delivered.

This baby wasn’t his to love, Diego reminded himself as an extremely floppy baby was dashed across to the resuscitation cot.

He never wanted to feel like this again.

He never wanted to stand so helpless, just an observer. It would, for Diego, have been easier to work on her himself, yet he was in no state to.

He could feel his fingertips press into her palms with impatience as Hugh called twice for a drug, and though the team was fantastic, their calm professionalism riled him. Richard was fantastic, but Diego would have preferred Megan. Megan pounced on tiny details faster than anyone Diego had seen.

‘She’s still bradycardic,’ Diego said, when surely they should have commenced massage now.

‘Out.’ Brianna mouthed the word and jerked her head to the theatre doors, but he hesitated.

‘Diego!’ Brianna said his name, and Diego stiffened in realisation—this wasn’t his call, only it felt like it.

Brianna’s brown eyes lifted again to his when Diego would have preferred them to stay on the baby, and he knew he was getting in the way, acting more like a father than a professional, so he left before he was formally asked to.

CHAPTER TEN

‘THAT’S it, Izzy...’ She could hear a male voice she didn’t recognise. ‘Stay on your back.’

She was under blankets and wanted to roll onto her side, except she couldn’t seem to move.

‘You’re doing fine,’ came the unfamiliar voice. ‘Stay nice and still.’

‘Izzy, it’s all okay.’

There was a voice she knew. Strong and deep and accented, and she knew it was Diego, she just didn’t know why, and then she opened her eyes and saw his and she remembered.

‘You’ve got a daughter.’ His face was inches away. ‘She’s okay, she’s being looked after.’

And then it was fog, followed by pain, followed by drugs, so many drugs she struggled to focus when Diego came back in the afternoon with pictures of her baby.

‘She looks like you,’ Diego said, but all Izzy could see were tubes.

‘Are you working today?’

Diego shook his head. ‘No. I just came in to see you.’ And he sat down in the chair by her bed and Izzy went to sleep. He flicked through the photos and tried very hard to only see tubes, because this felt uncomfortably familiar, this felt a little like it had with Fernando and he just couldn’t go there again.

He certainly wasn’t ready to go there again.

There was a very good reason that a normal pregnancy lasted forty weeks, Diego reflected, putting the photos on her locker and heading for home—and it wasn’t just for the baby. The parents needed every week of that time to prepare themselves emotionally for the change to their lives.

He wasn’t even a parent.

* * *

It was Tuesday night and a vicious UTI later before anything resembling normal thought process occurred and a midwife helped her into a chair and along with her mother wheeled her down to the NICU, where, of course, any new mum would want to be if her baby was.

‘We take mums down at night all the time,’ the midwife explained, when Izzy said the next day would be fine. ‘It’s no problem.’

Except, privately, frankly, Izzy would have preferred to sleep.

Izzy knew she was a likely candidate for postnatal depression.

As a doctor she was well versed in the subject and the midwives had also gently warned her and given her leaflets to read. Gus too had talked to her—about her difficult labour, the fact she had been separated from her daughter and her difficult past. He’d told her he was there if she needed to talk and he had been open and upfront and told her not to hesitate to reach out sooner rather than later, as had Jess.