‘How is Lucy now?’ he asked in the same tight tone. ‘Any brain damage?’
‘You need to talk to the doctor who operated. I was so agitated I could hardly take in what she was saying. The main thing at the moment is that Lucy has come through it and was sleeping peacefully when I left her. I’ve been with her all the time, needless to say, but I had to come to meet you. I couldn’t let you walk into something so worrying without warning.’
She was almost running to keep up with him and, contrite, he slowed down. Putting his arm around her shoulders, he gave her a quick hug.
‘You are the best. You do know that, don’t you?’
Her smile was wry. ‘I didn’t feel like that yesterday when I saw our little one lying so still.’
‘No, I can imagine,’ he said gently, adding, with the urgency in him unabated, ‘Where have you parked the car?’
‘Across the way there,’ she told him, passing him the keys. ‘You’d better drive, Aaron. We’ll get there more quickly and I’m beginning to wilt now that I’ve passed the burden on to you.’
‘I’m sorry that you’ve had to cope with this on your own, Mum,’ he told her regretfully. ‘It must have been horrendous, but we’ll be with Lucy soon and then I’ll be able to find out for myself what the damage is.’
He groaned.
‘I can’t believe that the moment I turn my back the fates start playing tricks. My daughter in my hospital. And you said it’s someone new who operated on Lucy. Where was Charles, for heaven’s sake, and Mark Lafferty?’
Charles Drury was the consultant, who was shortly to retire after a long career in paediatric surgery, and the other man was a skilled surgeon in his fifties. It was surprising that neither of them had been available to operate on his precious child.
‘Charles is away on holiday,’ his mother informed him, ‘and Mark is incapacitated with a broken pelvis after a motor accident. It was a Dr Swain who operated on Lucy. It was her first day at Barnaby’s and she looked washed out, as if she should be in bed herself.’
Aaron nodded grimly.
‘Yes, of course. I’d forgotten. She would be the new broom. We’ve had a lot of staff changes recently on the surgical side. Thankfully my lot don’t have such itchy feet.’
He was hoping that this new woman was up to scratch. Not all the surgeons who operated on the children that he and his staff had in their care were of Charles Drury’s standard.
The hospital gates were looming up. He would soon know how well the Swain woman did her job.
He was almost galloping as they reached the main corridor of the hospital and his mother said, ‘Go on, I’ll catch you up. Lucy is in a small room off Rainbow Ward.’
In the early October morning the ward was beginning to come to life. Nurses flitted amongst the beds, talking gently to those who were fretful and with a cheerful word for the rest.
The sister saw him the moment he came whizzing in and she flashed him a sympathetic smile.
‘Not a good day for you, is it, Dr Lewis, but Lucy is making good progress,’ she said as he made towards the side ward. ‘She came through the operation satisfactorily and is still sleeping. Dr Swain is on her way to see her.’
Aaron felt tears prick as he stood beside the still form of his daughter. She was so small to have to go through that kind of surgery, but there was a ward full of children out there and none of their problems were minor. Rainbow Ward was for the more serious cases and the Lollipop Ward for those less complicated, but often they overflowed into each other.
Lucy’s fair curls had been shorn off and the part of her scalp where surgery had been performed was covered in dressings. She looked so little and vulnerable he could hardly bear it, but there were things he had to know. The extent of the damage to her skull. What amount of surgery had been necessary. And the best person to tell him that was Dr Swain.
The sister had left him to go back to supervising in the main ward, and as Aaron was lifting the clipboard from the bottom rail of the bed to read Lucy’s notes the door opened.
She was tall, slender, with nut-brown shoulder-length hair framing a tired, white face. But tired or not, her glance, when it met his, was cool and professional and her grip firm as she introduced herself.
‘I’m Annabel Swain,’ she said quietly, ‘and you must be Dr Lewis, Lucy’s father.’
‘Yes,’ he told her, and without going into any of the niceties added, ‘I need to know how badly hurt my daughter was and what surgery you’ve performed on her.’
‘Yes, of course,’ she agreed. Sinking down onto a chair beside the bed, she looked up at him.
There was weariness behind the cool hazel gaze meeting his, but it barely registered. Aaron was frantic to know the worst. Once he’d absorbed it he would cope. At least Lucy was alive and who knew better than he what terrible damage could be caused to children and adults in accidental happenings?
‘Lucy was transferred to Barnaby’s from A and E last night as I was about to finish my shift,’ she told him in a voice that he would have thought pleasing to the ear at any other time. ‘She was unconscious and had been diagnosed with an open skull fracture.
‘Fortunately, I have done some specialising in neurology and problems of the cranium and operated immediately to correct fragmentation of the bone and prevent her condition worsening.’
‘What about brain damage?’ he asked quickly. ‘Any penetration of the meninges and brain tissue?’
She shook her head and the brown hair swung gently around her pale face.
‘None that I could see. I drained away surplus blood and repaired damaged vessels, along with realigning the fractured bone. I shall be keeping a close watch on Lucy for the next few days. She was unconscious before the operation but she’s sleeping naturally now.’ She was getting to her feet. ‘But as Head of Paediatrics I’m sure you won’t need me to tell you that.’
‘You can tell me anything you like as long as it’s beneficial to Lucy,’ he told her, and sent up a prayer of thankfulness that this woman had known what she was doing.
‘I’m living in hospital accommodation at the moment in a flat at the other side of the grounds,’ she was explaining. ‘I’m going there to get some sleep once I’ve made sure that your daughter is all right. If you need me for anything, don’t hesitate to ring me. I’ve already told Sister to call me the moment she wakes up, but it could be some time before Lucy surfaces from the trauma of the operation and the effects of the anaesthetic. When she does, that will be crunch time.’
Aaron nodded.
‘I realise that, and if you need sleep by all means go and get it. A tired doctor is not a good one. It would seem that you came to us at a bad time, with two of our paediatric surgeons not available.’
Her smile was wry.
‘Yes...and you weren’t around either.’
‘No, I wasn’t,’ he agreed sombrely. ‘I wish I had been.’
‘But Lucy’s grandma was there.’
‘Yes,’ he said levelly. ‘My mother is always there when we need her. Our three generations jog along together very well.’
* * *
As Annabel Swain threw herself down on top of sheets that hadn’t been slept between for two days she was thinking about the man she’d just met. Since