‘Relax!’ she told Chelsea as her patient lay rigid on the couch. ‘Do you know how pregnant you might be?’
A quick shake of the head was the only answer.
‘No worries!’ Ellie told her gently. ‘We can do a measure of what we call the fundal height and that will give us an approximate time. It’s not entirely accurate, and is a better guide after twenty weeks, but let’s see.’
The measurement of fourteen centimetres gave her a gestation period of twelve to sixteen weeks.
‘Does that seem about right to you? Can you remember when you had your last period?’
Chelsea shook her head.
‘I was so sad and lonely when Mum went away, and then Dad did, too. Alex has been my boyfriend for ages, and he comforted me and stayed over a few times and it just happened.’
Of course it did, Ellie thought, but didn’t say. Poor kid must have been totally lost, with her parents not only breaking up but taking off. Mum heaven knew where, and Dad—who Ellie remembered now was a climatologist—heading off to the ice and snow at the very bottom of the world.
I need to talk to Andy.
This thought had passed through Ellie’s head earlier, but now it became insistent.
‘Well, you seem totally fit to me,’ she told Chelsea, ‘and as you know there’s plenty of room for you. How did you get here? Did you bring clothes?’
‘Train, and not much, to answer both your questions. The train got in this morning, and as far as clothes, I knew it would be hot, and I didn’t really know what to get.’
Of course, the train had come in this morning; it was the big weekly event in the town, for it not only brought people but fresh fruit and vegetables.
‘Well, how about you go upstairs and choose a room along the back veranda—Andy uses the side one for his soccer club and people come and go along the front one. Have a shower and then, if you’re up to it, you could walk uptown—it’s only two blocks—and check out the limited array of clothes in the general store. I’ll phone them and tell them to put anything you want on our account.’
‘Oh, no, I’ve got my own credit card,’ Chelsea protested. ‘But I’d like to get a few things.’
‘Great! And when you get back you can help yourself to anything in the kitchen. There’s bread and ham and cheese for sandwiches, and plenty of salad things. I might be late back for lunch as I have to help Andy with an op, but just look after yourself. And come and see Maureen down here if you need to ask anything. I know that doesn’t sound very hospitable, but I’ve got patients all morning. Will you be okay?’
To Ellie’s surprise, Chelsea flung her arms around her neck and hugged her hard, tears in her voice as she said, ‘You’ve been so kind. I know I don’t deserve it, but I’m really grateful!’
‘Of course you deserve it,’ Ellie said, a little choked up herself. ‘You’re family!’
How best to help her?
What would Andy advise?
SHE SET ALL thoughts of Chelsea—and Andy—aside as she went through her list of morning patients, pleased with some, concerned about others, mostly elderly men who seemed more aimless and depressed than ill. In other places, they could have a community garden or an allotment to work on, but out here, where water was a very scarce commodity, such a thing would be a luxury.
But her thoughts returned to Chelsea as she walked briskly to the hospital, sighing as she went in through the side entrance, where more Christmas decorations were already in place.
But Christmas cheer was the last thing on her mind as she considered the discussion she’d have to have with Andy.
Not right now, when there’d be other people around, but later on they would definitely need to talk.
Chelsea’s arrival had thrown their arrangement into disarray. It had seemed sensible to live separately within the house, mainly to avoid gossip and speculation, but Chelsea would pick up on it immediately, and word would spread around the family, and Ellie knew it would cause distress to Meg.
She pushed into the theatre changing room and found Andy already waiting for her.
‘Sorry, I was held up on my first patient and I’ve been late all morning,’ she explained.
His beautiful Ellie looked so tired and stressed that Andy wanted nothing more than to take her in his arms and hold her—to find their way back to where they’d been. But pain and grief and too many harsh words had opened up a gulf between them, and as yet, he could find no way of bridging it.
And did he even want to?
He shook his head. That was a stupid question when there was a patient waiting.
Of course he wanted to! The thought of living without Ellie was...well, inconceivable.
‘The patient is a young lad who got hit by a strand of barbed wire when he was helping his father repair a fence. Apparently, the fence strainers snapped, the wire flicked back, and a piece flew into his lower abdomen. They got it out, and cleaned and dressed the wound, but there’s a bit still in there—one of the barbs, I’d say—and it’s badly infected. I need to go in and clean it out before it develops into sepsis. He’s on IV antibiotics, and I’ll leave a drain in place for a few days if it looks at all dubious.’
Andy watched as Ellie greeted Tony, a nurse who loved theatre work, then checked the drugs and instruments he’d laid out for her.
Once upon a time, in what seemed like another life—in another country, for that matter—they’d worked together like this. The lack of specialist doctors in some of the African countries where they’d lived meant you had to do whatever was required of you, and often it was surgery—he cutting while Ellie did the anaesthetic—basic though it had been.
He held back a snort, disgusted that he could be distracted by such trivial thoughts. All that was so far in the past it was history now.
Yet how could he not watch as she spoke quietly to the boy, explaining how he’d be getting sleepy, checking the cannula already attached to the back of one small hand and smiling gently. She was so good with children—the children they would never have...
Satisfied that all was well, Ellie took up the prepared anaesthetic, and with a nod to Andy injected it, waiting until the boy dozed off before securing the oxygen mask over his mouth and nose.
How many times—?
Enough!
The past belonged in the past. Here and now, he needed one hundred percent concentration on Jonah. Electrodes already attached to his patient’s body told the monitor everything was stable, and Ellie would keep an eye on it while he cut carefully into the pale skin on the lower abdomen, Tony beside him to mop the blood and cauterise any small bleeders.
Andy glanced across the table, and by chance met Ellie’s eyes above her mask. She winked at him—something she’d done a thousand times before—a ‘going well’ kind of wink, but the sight of such a silly, insignificant facial tic brought an arrow of pain into his innermost being. One he tried to ignore...
The infection was obvious, the culprit a small piece of metal—a tiny scrap