Their Special-Care Baby. Fiona McArthur

‘After the accident you went into premature labour. We didn’t know you were in labour until just before she was born.’

      Desiree remembered the pain in stomach. ‘You said she. I had a girl?’

      ‘We estimate your daughter was born eleven weeks early but she is stable at the moment. She will need to stay in a large hospital like this one, if all goes well, for the next few months. She’s in our neonatal intensive care two floors down.’

      Her daughter was alive. There was hope. ‘Eleven weeks is very early. I’m sure of that.’

      ‘Your daughter is breathing for herself and seems to be adapting to the outside world well, considering she wasn’t ready for us—and you had lost a lot of blood. She weighed just over a kilogram and is a fighter.’

      He smiled and Desiree remembered his eyes again from the train crash. How could she remember that and not her own name? But there was something infinitely reassuring about sharing that one memory at least.

      ‘Your daughter has already shown she has the will to survive, like her mother.’ There was no mistaking he admired her baby for that. ‘And she is in the next best place to grow.’

      Desiree’s heart pounded. She had a baby daughter. ‘When can I see her?’

      He produced a digital print of a tiny baby in a humidicrib and passed it over to her. A thin red-faced skinned rabbit looked back at her.

      A lost baby, a lost pregnancy, a baby she would have dreamed of meeting in a wondrous birth surrounded by people who loved her. Too many losses to cope with. Tears welled as she thought of her daughter alone, in a crib, and she couldn’t be with her. ‘When…?’

      ‘Perhaps you can see her this evening. You’ve only just regained consciousness. I’m not your doctor, but he’d agree it’s too soon to go riding around the hospital, even in a wheelchair.’

      She sagged back. Even that small exertion had tired her.

      ‘We are taking good care of your daughter and she is stable at the moment.’

      She could hardly believe her pregnancy was over before it had even been remembered.

      Then he said something even more frightening. ‘It worries me you haven’t asked about your other child.’

      Desiree watched his lips move but the words seem to come from a long way off as she wondered what her tiny daughter looked like.

      He spoke again. ‘Do you remember I said you were a widow with another child? You have a twelve-month-old. Shall we bring Sophie to you? They have her down in the children’s ward for observation.’

      She tore her thoughts away from the picture of her tiny baby and looked at him blankly.

      He explained again. ‘Your other daughter? You told me to keep her safe when we first met.’

      The other baby? What else had she forgotten? Had another child been mentioned? Perhaps. ‘You may have said that before but I don’t remember.’

      Desiree frowned as she tried to remember. She had heard a baby crying in the wreckage. Had that baby been hers? ‘I heard her cry.’

      How could she not recall her own flesh and blood? Was that possible? It didn’t make senses. What if it was a mistake, or a conspiracy, or a bad dream? ‘I wish I remembered.’

      The first of his revelations rose to stun her again. ‘I can’t believe I was married and don’t remember.’

      Stewart grimaced at what a marriage it would have been, unless Sean had changed a lot. He watched her struggle with all the information and worried that he’d burdened her with too much, too soon.

      She tilted her head towards him and her grey eyes seemed to peer inside his soul as she sought answers.

      He blinked and looked away, not sure what had just passed between them and not willing to pursue the thought. This was fanciful imagining and unlike him.

      He fought against a sudden stirring of emotion he hadn’t allowed himself to feel for many years. Especially when he looked down at her fingers as they disappeared inside his bigger hand. He wondered why she had decided not to wear her wedding ring.

      Something had shifted, something that shouldn’t have shifted with this woman who was related by law, and who was the last woman he wanted to be attracted to. There was nothing he could do about that now except ignore any such emotion and help her as much as he could.

      Stewart glanced across at his mother, sitting patiently against the wall as she knitted. She had the glazed look of sudden tiredness she seemed to feel more often. He’d been a fool to bring her but she’d so wanted to be here when Desiree woke up.

      He never knew when Leanore would lapse into one of those turns that kept her in bed for days and she deserved to at least meet her daughter-in-law.

      There were so many ways his mind wanted to go but he could only do one thing at a time. ‘We’ll go now, Mother.’

      Leanore blinked and looked at him brightly, and he knew she had lost her space in time for the moment. ‘Where will we go?’

      ‘Home, darling. Desiree is tired.’

      Leanore creased her brow. ‘Desiree who?’

      Stewart sighed and squeezed his mother’s shoulder gently. ‘We’ll leave Desiree to rest for a while and see Children’s Ward about bringing your granddaughter up here after she wakes up.’ He saw the moment her memory returned and he smiled as his mother nodded.

      He looked at Desiree, her eyes now drooping with fatigue. ‘Sleep now. We’ll bring Sophie to you later this afternoon. After tea I’ll take you to the neonatal intensive care, or NICU as they call it, to see your new daughter, if it is all right with your doctor.’

      Desiree nodded tiredly but there was one thing she had to do. ‘Before you leave, would you pass the backpack, please?’

      ‘We’ll see you later, Desiree.’ Stewart laid the backpack gently in her lap and then turned his mother’s wheelchair towards the door.

      ‘Later,’ he said, and she closed her eyes as they left the room.

      Desiree’s head ached quietly but the pain was overshadowed by the enormity of losing who she was and what was in her past.

      Lost memories of a twelve-month-old baby and dead husband and now the reality that she risked losing a baby she only fuzzily remembered being pregnant with. It was all too much.

      It was a nightmare and surely she would wake up soon.