Single Dad In Her Stocking

And he’d just lost his brother?

‘I’m so sorry,’ Emma said. ‘I really shouldn’t be intruding. Not when the Cunninghams have just lost such a close family member.’

Maggie shook her head. ‘Andy died just over a year ago. And his marriage had fallen apart a year or more before that. They did try and work things out, and that must have been when Alice was conceived, but then it turned nasty and lawyers got involved. Simone moved away, broke a court order and took the kids with her and broke Andy’s heart at the same time. He died in a car accident not long after that. He’d been drinking and drove straight into a tree.’

‘That’s tragic...’

‘Mmm.’ Maggie hesitated for a moment and Emma wondered if there was more to that accident than simply drink-driving but if the housekeeper had been about to voice her own opinion, she obviously changed her mind. ‘Even worse, Simone wouldn’t let the family have anything more to do with the children after Andy was gone. She was living up in Scotland and Dr Cunningham didn’t even hear about her death until after her funeral. Until someone in Social Services had tracked down legal documents that gave Max guardianship.’ Maggie was moving again. ‘Come and see your bathroom. There should be everything you might need.’

Emma took in the clawfoot iron bath with its brass tapware, separate shower and shelves piled with fluffy towels. ‘It’s beautiful.’

‘It is.’ Maggie smiled. ‘This was the master suite in the early days when the boys were little ones. Dr Cunningham senior couldn’t bear to stay in it after his wife died and then he decided he’d just stay in the Green Room. Oh...is that a car I can hear?’ She walked swiftly to the window and peered down. ‘It is. I’d better go and help. There was supposed to have been a nanny here already to be with the children but she got sick and that’s why you’re here. To cover Max at work so that he can stay home to look after them all.’

Unsure of what she should do, Emma followed the housekeeper. Her head was spinning slightly with the tales of tragedy this family had experienced. What had happened to Max’s mother? she wondered. And how old had Max and his brother been when she died? She was also trying to do a bit of maths in her head. If Andy had died over a year ago and his ex-wife had already been pregnant, then this baby Alice had to be at least several months old now. Not a newborn.

She could cope with that. For one night, it shouldn’t be any problem at all, even if this wasn’t exactly the kind of clinical situation that was part of her protective walls. As for Max—she had no idea how he was about to cope. He had years and years ahead of him as a guardian. Remembering the way he’d been cradling his head in his hands when he thought he was not being observed, Emma couldn’t believe that he’d magically changed his attitude to children in the last ten years and would be quite happy to be sharing his life with them from now on.

‘Where are they?’ Maggie opened the front door but there was no sign of a car. ‘Oh, no...they must have gone through to the clinic parking.’

‘There’s another car.’ Max was standing beside her.

James Cunningham had come into the entrance foyer to see what was going on but Emma hung back, near the staircase, wondering if she should, in fact, go back upstairs for a while. How terrifying would it be for small children to arrive and be faced with so many strangers? Even if they’d met these members of their extended family it had apparently been more than a year ago and they would still be traumatised by the loss of their mother.

Through the wide gap of the open front door, she could see a large people-carrier type van that had parked a little way away from the entrance to the house and someone was getting out of the driver’s seat. Max walked out into the snow that was still falling to greet the newcomer. But someone else was running towards the front door of the house from the opposite direction. A middle-aged woman who was looking very anxious.

‘Dr Cunningham? Is the clinic closed already?’

‘Surgery finished an hour ago, Jenny.’ But James was frowning. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘It’s Terry. He’s got terrible chest pain and his spray isn’t helping. He wouldn’t let me call an ambulance. It was all I could do to persuade him to come and see you and he only did that because you’re right next door.’

Behind Jenny, Emma could see that children were being helped out of the van. A boy who might be about six or seven. A smaller girl. The driver was opening the back hatch which looked to be full of luggage and items like a pram and cot. Max was unclipping a baby seat. Emma’s mouth went a little dry. Maybe this was going to be harder to cope with than she’d thought.

James looked towards where his grandchildren were being ushered towards him. He turned his head to look in the other direction, presumably to the ‘west wing’ that housed his general practice clinic. His duty lay in both directions, with the professional one clearly more urgent than the personal.

And, suddenly, Emma knew exactly how she could help everyone here, including herself. Years of honing her skills to be able to work to the best of her ability in unfamiliar places made it automatic to take charge but, as a bonus, it felt as if her protective walls were suddenly strengthening themselves around her and keeping her in her safe space. She walked towards the anxious woman.

‘I’m Dr Moretti,’ she told her. ‘I can help you.’

Only a couple of minutes later, Emma was opening the door to the clinic with one of the keys on the ring James had given her.

‘There’s a twelve-lead ECG machine in the treatment room,’ he’d told her. ‘If it looks like an infarct, call an ambulance and then let me know.’

‘I can handle it,’ Emma had promised.

Jenny and her husband, Terry, followed her into what was clearly a waiting room.

‘How’s the pain level, Terry? On a scale of zero to ten, with zero being no pain at all and ten being the worst you could imagine?’

‘Seven,’ Terry told her. ‘It’s like a knife in my chest. It’s hard to breathe, even.’

‘Let’s get you lying down so I can have a good look at you.’ Emma walked ahead, opening one door and then another. There was a small kitchen, a storeroom, a consulting room and...yes...what looked like a treatment room, well set up for minor procedures or more extensive assessments. She recognised the machine for taking a twelve-lead ECG, spotted an oxygen cylinder in the corner of the room and was relieved to see a defibrillator on another trolley. If Terry was having a heart attack and in any danger of an imminent cardiac arrest she had the means to deal with it. She also knew that one of the keys on the ring she was holding was to open a drug cabinet that James had told her was well stocked.

On first impressions, Terry didn’t look like a man who was in the middle of having a heart attack. His colour was good, he wasn’t sweating and he seemed to be clutching the side of his chest rather than a more classic sign of pressing his hand to the centre. He’d also told her that he wasn’t feeling sick in any way but Emma wasn’t about to make assumptions. She helped her patient climb onto the bed and lifted the back so he wasn’t lying completely flat.

‘Let’s get that coat and jumper off and unbutton your shirt, Terry.’ Emma opened the drawer on the ECG trolley and took out electrodes. ‘So you’ve been getting angina for a while?’

‘Just a bit. And only when I’m doing too much.’

‘He’s taken up jogging,’ his wife told Emma. ‘I told him he’s going to kill himself but he’s determined to lose the weight.’

‘And you were jogging when the chest pain came on?’

‘No...’ Terry lifted his arm out of the way as Emma stuck the final electrodes on the left side of his chest. ‘I was getting the damned turkey out of the freezer in the barn.’

‘It was far too big to go in the freezer in the house.’ Jenny nodded. ‘And it takes days and days to thaw.’

‘It was like carrying a giant, slippery rock,’ Terry complained. ‘And then I started to drop it and almost tripped over something at the same time and it went flying.’ He gave a huff of something like laughter that turned into a groan. ‘So to speak... Anyway, it was when I bent down and picked the turkey up that the pain came on. By the time I got it into the laundry tub, I could hardly stand up.’

‘Does anything make it worse?’ Emma asked, still smiling at Terry’s attempt at humour. ‘Like taking a deep breath?’

Terry tried to breathe in and groaned. ‘Yep...that really hurts.’

‘And you used your angina spray?’

‘Didn’t do a thing.’

‘Okay.’ Emma was becoming more confident that she wasn’t dealing with a critical cardiac event. ‘Keep really still for me for a few seconds, Terry. I’m going to do the ECG.’

With the sheet of graph paper in her hand a short time later, Emma smiled at the anxious couple in front of her.

‘Good news,’ she told them. ‘This all looks absolutely normal. There’s no sign of your pain being due to angina and certainly no indication that you’re having a heart attack.’

‘Oh...’ Jenny started to cry. ‘I was so worried.’

‘What is it, then?’ Terry asked.

Emma handed Jenny the box of tissues. ‘I suspect you pulled a muscle between your ribs while you were wrestling with that frozen turkey,’ she told him. She put her hand on the left side of his chest. ‘Tell me if this hurts...’

Jenny stayed by the head of the bed, watched the thorough examination her husband was receiving and listened to the advice about cold and heat packs and using anti-inflammatory medication.

‘Are you sure it’s not a heart attack?’ she asked.

‘Quite sure.’ Emma smiled. ‘But you did the right thing in getting it checked out. I’m going to take your blood pressure while you’re here too, Terry.’

‘Imagine if it had been a heart attack.’ Jenny reached for another tissue. ‘Right before Christmas. I know it’s terrible at any time of year but there’s something about Christmas, isn’t there?’

‘Mmm...’ Emma stuck the earpieces of a stethoscope into place as a hint for Jenny to stop talking. She didn’t need a reminder of how much worse it was to have a tragedy at Christmas time. She placed the disc of the stethoscope over the artery in Terry’s elbow as she pumped up the blood pressure cuff.

Jenny hadn’t taken the hint. ‘It’s like the poor Cunninghams. Ruined Christmas forever for those poor boys. They used to call it “the Cunninghams’ Christmas Curse” in these parts.’

Emma knew she shouldn’t encourage gossip but it wasn’t as if she’d asked a question aloud. Her startled glance had been enough to prompt Jenny to continue.

‘Their poor mother,’ she said sadly. ‘Fought off the cancer for such a long time and all she wanted was one last Christmas with her little boys but they didn’t even get the decorations up.’ She lowered her voice. ‘And they’ve never been put up again, from what I heard. Not in that house...’

Emma let the pressure out of the cuff slowly. Concentrating on the figures as she heard a pulse begin and then disappear again didn’t stop part of her brain absorbing the information she’d just been given. What a sad house this must have been for Max—especially that first Christmas without his mother.

‘Your blood pressure is on the high end of normal,’ she told Terry. ‘Are you on any medication for that?’

‘Yes. Dr Cunningham looks after me well, don’t you worry about that. Can I get dressed again now?’

‘And then there was last year.’ Jenny handed her husband his jumper as he finished buttoning up his shirt. ‘Losing poor Andy like that. It shouldn’t have happened at all, but to have it happen in December. Another Christmas funeral...’ She clicked her tongue. ‘And now...those children... What sort of Christmas is this going to be for those poor wee mites?’

Terry’s head popped out of the jumper’s neck. ‘That’s enough, Jen,’ he said quietly. ‘I’m sure Dr Moretti isn’t interested in hearing all this gossip.’

‘It’s not gossip,’ Jenny said defensively. ‘We care about each other in Upper Barnsley, that’s all. Especially our closest neighbours.’ She smiled at Emma. ‘Are you here to help Dr Cunningham, then? It’s about time he had another doctor to help him in this clinic. Young Max is brilliant but he’s always been one for an exciting life. He doesn’t want to leave that big emergency department at the hospital.’

‘I’m actually here to help at the hospital,’ Emma told them. ‘But, right now, I’m going to go and show Dr Cunningham your ECG, Terry, and let him know that you’re okay.’ She held the door open for the couple. ‘Have you got plenty of anti-inflammatories at home?’

‘Oh, yes.’ Jenny nodded. ‘And don’t go bothering Dr Cunningham with my Terry’s problems right now. I suspect he’s got enough of his own...’

‘You need to follow the directions on the tin for how many scoops. Level scoops, like this...’ Maggie scooped the formula and showed Max how to level it off with the back of a knife. ‘Put it into the bottle of warm water. Attach the nipple and ring and cap like this...and then shake it.’

Maybe baby Alice could smell the milk being prepared and she was sick of waiting. Or maybe she didn’t like the unfamiliar male arms that were holding her right now. Whatever the reason, her unhappy whimpers were steadily increasing into shrieks that were pulling the tense knots in Max’s gut tighter by the second.

‘Are you sure you can’t stay, Maggie?’

‘I’m sorry, Max, but it’s impossible. I’ve got my daughter, Ruth, arriving and she’s nearly eight months pregnant and on her own. She’ll be exhausted after that long drive up from Cornwall and I haven’t had proper time with her since that bastard of a boyfriend walked out on her a few weeks ago. We’ve got a lot of talking to do about how she’s going to cope.’ Maggie took the cap off the bottle and upended it. ‘Shake a few drops onto your wrist, like this. If it’s the right temperature it won’t feel either hot or cold. There...that’s perfect.’ She held the bottle out to Max. ‘Try that. She’s probably eating solids now as well and there’s plenty of baby food in with all that other shopping that’s in the pantry but she’ll be wanting her milk for comfort right now, I expect.’

He took the bottle and offered the teat to the baby. Alice turned her head away and arched into his arm as if she was trying to escape.

‘Take her into the drawing room with the others,’ Maggie suggested. ‘This is all new and strange for her too, and it might help if you’re sitting in a comfy chair with her brother and sister nearby.’

Max walked out of the kitchen and into an entranceway that looked like it had exploded into a collection point for a children’s charity over the last thirty minutes or so. A portable cot had a few stuffed toys and books in it. There were car seats and a pram and even a high chair, along with boxes of baby supplies like nappies and formula and suitcases that he’d been told were full of clothing. The social worker who had delivered the children and their belongings had been apologetic but in a hurry to get away before the snow started settling on the country roads and Maggie, who’d done far more than anything her part-time position with the Cunninghams had ever expected of her, was obviously worried about leaving the men to cope but also anxious to get back to her own family.

‘You go, Maggie,’ Max told her. ‘I’ve got this.’

The older woman gave him a searching look. ‘Are you sure?’ she asked quietly. ‘I don’t want to leave you in the lurch. Ruth would understand if...’

Max shook his head. ‘These children are my responsibility,’ he said. ‘Between us, Dad and I will figure it out.’ He joggled the baby in his arms and, for a merciful few seconds, the howling seemed to lessen.

‘You’ve got that lovely Emma to help, for tonight at least.’ Maggie was heading for the coat rack. ‘If you’re sure, then... I’ll come back as soon as I can in the morning if the roads are clear enough.’

As she opened the door, Max could see a car disappearing down the driveway. Emma had spent a good deal of time assessing that unexpected patient who had turned up but she hadn’t summoned an ambulance or come to find his father so he had assumed things were under control. Some things, anyway. Baby Alice was crying again as he went into the drawing room.

His father was sitting in his usual chair by the fire but Pirate had disappeared beneath the chair, which was highly unusual. On the sofa next to the chair were the two older children, Ben and Matilda. They were both sitting silently, side by side, holding hands. Six-year-old Ben was clutching a very small artificial Christmas tree in his other hand that was devoid of any decorations. Four-year-old Matilda had a toy rabbit with long legs and rather chewed-looking ears clamped under her arm. They both looked accusingly at their uncle when he came in carrying their miserable baby sister.

Max sat in the matching leather wing chair on the other side of the sofa, settled Alice into the crook of his elbow and tried to get her to accept her bottle again. Her renewed cries were so loud he didn’t hear the door opening. He didn’t notice that every other head in the room had turned to see who was coming in or that Pirate had wriggled forward enough to peer out from under the chair.

What he did become aware of was that fresh lemony scent he’d noticed when Emma had come into his office in what was beginning to feel like a previous lifetime. And when he looked up, it felt like the depth of understanding in Emma’s eyes told him that she knew exactly how far out of his depth he currently was. That, no matter how determined he was to do the right thing for his nieces and nephew, it felt like he was drowning. But there was something else in her eyes that looked as though she was tapping into something much deeper. Darker.

Fear...

But why would Emma Moretti, of all people, feel afraid when faced with a miserable, hungry infant? She’d been the first to offer cuddles or bottles to their small patients in that paediatric ward, the first in line to be present at a birth or do the newborn checks on those slippery, squiggly little bundles that Max had found quite alarming at the time. If anything, he would have expected her to scoop Alice out of his arms and rescue the situation like some sort of Christmas angel, albeit with dark eyes and hair and olive skin instead of peaches and cream and blue eyes and golden hair.

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