Newborn Baby For Christmas

CHAPTER THREE

December

GEORGIE hummed ‘Six White Boomers’, the Christmas song about kangaroos pulling Santa’s sleigh, and grinned. She’d been grinning almost non-stop for months, even during the five weeks when morning sickness had lasted all day, leaving her stomach inside out and the rest of her limp, like overcooked cabbage. During that time she’d existed almost exclusively on dry biscuits and ginger beer, and it would be a long time before she could face either of them again.

Even so, nothing could wipe the always-present smile off her face. She pressed her hand against her round belly, feeling a tiny foot under her palm, and pure delight made her laugh out loud. Despite the ultrasounds and her ever-increasing size, there were still moments when she couldn’t quite believe she was pregnant. It had taken three cycles and three trips to Tasmania before she’d been given the news she’d craved for so long, and from the moment the pregnancy test had shown a definitive blue line, she’d treasured every second.

When she’d read the positive pregnancy test her first instinct had her reaching for the phone to ring Hamish and tell him the good news. Halfway through dialling she’d remembered his words.

If a child is born from this, it’s totally your kid and nothing to do with me.

She’d abruptly dropped the phone. She couldn’t believe she’d even thought to ring him because she’d been as adamant as he that this was her baby and not his in any way. No, Hamish needed to find out about the baby the exact same way as her other friends and colleagues—with a photo text when the baby was born.

The baby kicked, as if reminding her that sending those announcements wouldn’t be too far away, and a fizz of excitement tingled through her. In a month’s time—give or take two weeks—she’d finally hold her baby in her arms and right now she was in full-on nesting mode. It had taken longer than she’d thought to find a house to buy that suited her and her lease on her apartment had expired just as settlement had been finalised last week.

In most instances this would have been perfect timing with no need to find interim accommodation, but the house needed some renovations. Now she was technically living in her new home but surrounded by high stacks of cardboard boxes and the buzz of builders, carpenters, plumbers and cabinetmakers dragging the kitchen, bathroom and laundry into the twenty-first century. Painters roamed the rest of the house with their once-white but now paint-splattered dropsheets, freshening up the walls of the solid 1950s house with its spacious, light-filled rooms and large, decorative cornices. It was chaotic.

She’d called in during her lunch-break to speak with the building supervisor, but when she’d arrived Dennis had been on the phone so she’d left him to it and was waiting in the dining room, which was the only room currently free of the renovation frenzy.

Pulling open a box, she plucked out a small tabletop Christmas tree and placed it on the dropsheet-covered chiffonier. She knew it was silly to unpack it, let alone put it on display, given the total mess that surrounded her, but she’d always loved Christmas. Growing up, her parents had made it such a magical time and she was looking forward to recreating that magic with her own child.

Despite feeling her parents’ deaths keenly at this time of year and missing them like mad, she still loved the season and it seemed disrespectful not to have at least one sign of Christmas. She knew they’d have wanted her to keep their traditions going.

‘Next year, Widget—’ she’d used the affectionate term she’d been calling the baby from the moment she’d known she was pregnant ‘—this house will groan with decorations and you’ll probably love the wrapping paper more than the presents.’

She desperately wanted to set up the nursery and she was actively practising patience while she waited for the decorators to finish. Meanwhile, the white cot and her amazing change table that would convert to a play table in the future were both still in their flat-pack state and her prize possession—her mother’s Amish rocking chair—was in the corner of the dining room with a dustcover over it, waiting to be housed.

Dennis had assured her that everything would come together in his promised time frame of two weeks, but given the chaos that didn’t seem to be abating at all she was having trouble imagining the house finished in time. Meanwhile, she was showering at the practice and for evening meals she was working her way through the many restaurants that were part of her local shopping strip at the bottom of the street.

The whirr of a circular saw and the rhythmic banging of a hammer added their sound to the blaring radio that the tradesmen always had playing, and Georgie decided that being at work was almost peaceful compared to this. Glancing at her watch, she realised her lunch-break was almost over and she hurried to find Dennis. As she entered the hall she heard a loud shout followed by an almighty crash and an emphatic stream of swearing.

Doubling back, she rushed towards the sound and arrived at the kitchen at the same moment as Dennis. He was swearing more loudly than his employees.

A white cloud of dust was settling around the young apprentice who lay sprawled and groaning on the floor surrounded by half of Georgie’s ceiling. He was on his side with one leg lying at an odd angle. She instinctively looked up as if she’d forgotten the ten-foot height and needed to calculate the drop. ‘Get my medical bag from my car. The silver four-wheel drive,’ she shouted to no one in particular. ‘My keys are on the hallstand seat.’

‘On it.’ One of the workmen hurriedly left the room, the loud thud of his workboots hitting the polished hall floorboards and reverberating back to her.

‘I promised your mother I’d look after you, Mitch,’ Dennis said, his face tinged with green. ‘She’s going to kill me.’

Clearing a space by swiping her foot back and forth through the debris, Georgie pulled her sundress over her legs for protection and knelt down next to the teenager.

‘Mitch? Who am I?’

His face was twisted in pain. ‘Sorry about your plaster, Dr Lambert.’

‘Right now I’m more worried about you. That was quite a fall.’ She looked at his pupils, which were thankfully the same size as each other. ‘Did you hit your head? Black out?’

‘I dunno. One minute I was on the beam and the next minute I was here.’

‘Can you open and close your eyes for me?’

He looked at her as if she was slightly deranged but did as he was told, and Georgie was pleased to see his pupils reacting to light. She picked up his wrist, feeling for his pulse, and he yelped in pain. ‘Sorry. You probably landed on this when you instinctively put it out to protect yourself. Sadly, we don’t land as well as cats.’

Mitch moaned. ‘Me hip’s killing me.’

Reaching out her hand, she took his carotid pulse and counted for ten seconds. It was fast but relatively steady and she hoped the speed was due to pain and not internal bleeding. Only time would tell. ‘Dennis, call an ambulance.’

The builder nodded, fishing his phone out of his overalls pocket and making the call.

Georgie examined Mitch’s legs, which were bloody from cuts and scratches. One ankle was swelling before her eyes and his leg was rotated outwards, which wasn’t a good sign. She added it to the growing list of injuries but possible fractures were the least of her concerns at the moment.

‘Mitch, I need you to listen very carefully to me and only move when I tell you.’

The fear of getting into trouble morphed into a fear of a different kind and his entire body stiffened. Suddenly he looked a lot younger than his seventeen years. ‘It hurts to move.’

‘Good,’ said Dennis. ‘You won’t be tempted to do any more stupid things.’

Despite the gruffly spoken words, Georgie could hear the worry and concern in the boss’s voice and he had plenty to worry about. A fall like the one Mitch had just sustained meant a strong possibility of fractured vertebrae and a compromised spinal cord, along with a host of other injuries. ‘Can you feel your fingers and toes?’

‘Yeah.’ He wiggled his fingers but flinched when he tried his toes. ‘Me right leg feels wrong.’

At least he could feel it.

‘Here’s your bag, Doc.’ Dennis knelt down opposite her and handed her the medical kit, which Greg, the carpenter, had just passed him.

‘Thanks,’ she called out to Greg. ‘I need towels and sheets, please. They’re in the linen press in the hall.’

‘Sure thing.’

As he left the room, Georgie pulled the green whistle out of her bag—the emergency analgesia that patients sucked on for pain relief. ‘Mitch, put this in your mouth and take deep breaths and it will help with the pain.’

The young man did as he was asked and Georgie started to assemble a cervical collar. ‘I’m going to put this around your neck for support and then Dennis and I are going to roll you onto your back like you’re a log. It might hurt.’

‘That don’t sound good.’ Mitch’s voice sounded small and scared.

‘Sorry, mate, but until I know exactly what damage you’ve done to yourself, we’re protecting your spine.’ She started measuring for the collar, using an imaginary line from the top of his shoulder to where the collar would rest and then another from the chin. Putting as many of her fingers that fitted into the space, she used them to measure the distance.

A moment later with a series of clicks and clacks she adjusted the collar, using the locks, until it was the correct size. ‘Dennis, I need you to hold Mitch’s head like this.’ She demonstrated.

‘Can do.’ Dennis’s usually loud and beefy voice quavered slightly and his face had stayed white tinged with green. Despite that, he did exactly as he was asked, using his burly hands—one on each side of Mitch’s cheeks—to keep his head in a neutral position.

Mitch wore a silver skull on a chain around his neck. ‘I have to take this off,’ she said, pulling back on the clasp, ‘but I promise it will be safe.’ She slipped it into her pocket and then slid the back portion of the collar behind his neck and folded the loop of Velcro inwards on top of the foam padding. After attaching it to the chinpiece, she tightened the collar, using the tracheal hole as the anchor point. Mitch’s chin protruded over the collar, which was a good sign.

‘Is it comfortable?’

‘Yes. My neck never hurt. Just everything else.’

She needed to examine him fully but she wasn’t prepared to do that until she’d protected his spinal cord. She patted his arm and said, ‘Take another couple of deep breaths on the green whistle.’

Greg had dropped onto the dusty floor two fluffy towels and her brand-new one-thousand-thread-count Egyptian cotton sheets she’d bought to celebrate moving into her own home. Linen she’d not even used yet.

She silenced her moan of disappointment as she rolled a luxury towel and inserted it between Mitch’s knees to keep his legs apart and the head of both his femurs in their hip sockets. Using one sheet, she tied his ankles together and then wrapped another one around his hips. She’d stake her bottom dollar he’d fractured his pelvis and, with the close proximity of his bladder and bowel, that was a real concern. ‘How are you travelling, Mitch?’

His eyes fluttered close to closing. ‘This whistle’s good stuff.’

She gave a vote of thanks for Australian ingenuity and inventions and smiled, having heard similar stories from injured patients in the past. Mitch was going to need all the help it could give him.

Glancing up at Dennis, she said, ‘We need to move him very carefully. You hold his ankles and support his legs and, Greg, you put your hands on his hips and I’ll take care of his neck. On my count we’re going to roll him very slowly onto his back.’

She waited for the men to get into position. ‘Mitch, are you ready?’

‘I guess.’ He sounded hesitant and scared.

‘Right, fellas. One, two, three.’

Mitch slowly came onto his back, his body in alignment, and the moment they took their hands away he sucked down another deep draft on the whistle.

‘Great work, guys. Thanks.’ Georgie rechecked Mitch’s pulse and then took his blood pressure. Both were up. Was he bleeding?

She quickly primed an IV line by folding the plastic cord in half before breaking the solution seal and letting the fluid roll down without air bubbles. ‘Can someone go out and wave down the ambulance so they know which house?’

‘I’ll go,’ said Greg.

‘Dennis, cut off Mitch’s jeans, please.’ She tightened a tourniquet around Mitch’s upper arm and then flicked her fingers against his inner elbow. A vein rose up against her finger. ‘Just the prick of a needle,’ she said as she slid the cannula into place.

Mitch didn’t even flinch. As she connected up the IV, the baby kicked her hard under the ribs. She rechecked the teenager’s pulse, which was rapid, and took his blood pressure, which was low, and she ran the drip full bore. Where was the ambulance?

‘Mitch, sorry, but I need to examine your groin.’

Fortunately, the teenager was now drugged up enough not to be embarrassed and she checked for bruising and bleeding around the scrotum and inguinal area that were often associated with a fractured pelvis.

Voices sounded down the hall and she swivelled around, welcoming the ambulance officers. ‘Hi, guys. This is Mitch, aged seventeen, and he’s fallen ten feet. Suspected fractured pelvis, left femur, right wrist and treating as a spinal injury until proven otherwise. I’ve given him morphine, put up a saline drip and he’s stable, but I’m worried about a slow internal bleed.’

‘Thanks, Doc, we can take it from here.’ The older ambulance officer put the spinal board on the floor next to Mitch and started to connect the teenager up to the portable monitor.

‘Mitch, I’ll call your mum and swing by the hospital later to see you. Meanwhile, you’re in good hands with these guys.’

‘Okay.’ He didn’t sound very certain but no patient in shock ever did.

‘Fellas, we need to give the ambos some space to do their job.’

Dennis put his hand out towards Georgie. She wasn’t huge with the baby but as she’d been kneeling down for quite a while and her centre of balance was slightly off, she gratefully accepted his boost up.

They all walked into the dining room and while Dennis was giving her Mitch’s mother’s phone number, the plumber arrived.

‘Hey, Dennis, we’ve got a bit of a problem.’ Trevor rubbed his stubble-covered chin.

‘You think?’ replied the stressed-out builder. ‘My apprentice is going to hospital and we’ve got a bloody big hole in the kitchen ceiling.’

‘Yeah, I’ll buy that.’ Trevor puffed out an ironic laugh. ‘But this is a different problem and you’re not going to like it.’

Dennis opened another piece of nicotine gum and put it in his mouth with a sigh. ‘What is it?’

‘There’s asbestos around the pipes and I’ve had a good look around. It’s definitely in the walls as insulation and it might have been used in the roof.’

Dennis swore so violently that Georgie jumped.

‘Asbestos in the roof? Where Mitch was? In all that dust that just fell down on him and us?’ Georgie heard her rising incredulity but she didn’t wait for a reply. Running back to the kitchen she said, ‘Guys, possible asbestos contamination. Put on masks.’

The ambulance officers turned and stared at her and she found herself saying, ‘Sorry. No one knew.’

‘Lucky we travel with plenty of masks. Here.’ The younger officer dug into his kit. ‘Take one for everyone.’

‘Thanks.’ She took the masks and trudged back to the dining room, where she handed them out. ‘Please wear these.’

When she gave one to Dennis, his face told her what she already knew—she’d have to move out.

His voice was muffled behind the mask. ‘Doc, I’ll have to arrange for a licensed asbestos-removal company to deal with this before we can come back in and work.’

No need to panic yet. ‘And about how long will that take?’

‘To ring the company? Two minutes. Until they can actually come and do the job?’ He pulled on the scraggy ends of his beard. ‘This close to Christmas and with the entire building industry shutting down for its annual holiday at the end of next week …’ his shoulders rose and fell in defeat ‘… how long is a piece of string?’

She sucked in her lips and then breathed out slowly. ‘So you’re saying I might have to move out for more than a couple of days.’

‘It will probably be more like a month. I can’t really see this job happening until after New Year.’

Her mind grappled with dates. ‘So you mean totally finished by early January rather than in two weeks? I can move back in the moment the asbestos is gone, right?’

He sighed, his expression resigned. ‘I mean the asbestos will be removed early January and then we can come in and finish the job. Mid to late January.’

Her knees wobbled and she sat down on a chair as reality slugged her hard. She heard herself wail, ‘But the baby’s due on January twelfth.’

‘Sorry, Doc. I know you want everything perfect for when the baby comes, but babies don’t care about stuff like that. Hell, our firstborn slept in an old bottom drawer from a tallboy.’ He grinned at the memory. ‘We’d just moved again before the second and his room didn’t get painted until he was two.’

‘Dennis, if you’re trying to reassure me, it isn’t working.’ Logistics raced around her mind and her heart rate matched their speed. She’d planned to finish up at work at the end of the week and spend the ten days before Christmas removing building dust and setting up the nursery. Now she was effectively homeless for weeks. None of this had been part of the plan. None of it was supposed to be happening. She was always so well organised and now all her best-laid plans were dust. Asbestos dust.

She bit off the rising stream of expletives that begged to pour from her lips, not just because her builder didn’t need to know she could match him in that department but as part of practising for motherhood. Instead, she dropped her head in her hands and pressed her thumbs into her temples.

‘I’m sure your family would love to have you stay with them at Christmas and fuss over you,’ Dennis offered, hope in his voice.

‘They’re dead.’ The words shot out, unexpectedly harsh, driven by her lack of control over the mess that was her house and the fact that the festive season was always a tough time for her without her parents.

Dennis’s eyes widened. ‘I didn’t know. Sorry, love.’

‘No, I’m sorry, Dennis.’ She sat up straight, pulling herself together. ‘You’re trying to help and I appreciate it, but all in all today pretty much sucks.’

‘Yeah, love, it does. How about you make this enforced time out of the house work for you?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Take a bit of a holiday. Head down the coast because once the baby comes, you’re going to be busy.’

The coast. An idea pinged into her head so big, bright and shiny that it was the answer to her problem. She shot to her feet and hugged the brawny builder. ‘Dennis, you’re brilliant.’

He grinned. ‘Be sure to tell my wife that.’

She laughed. ‘I will. You go and make that phone call and I’ll go and pack a couple of suitcases.’

CHAPTER FOUR

HAMISH tipped the taxi driver and hefted his bag over his shoulder as he turned to gaze at the shimmering haze of purple blooms that illuminated the ancient jacaranda tree in his front garden. To him, the colour meant summer, Christmas and home. He still had the stench of Mumbai in his nostrils and he longed to replace it with the sharp tang of fresh salt air, but that would have to wait a bit longer, so for now he contented himself with a lungful of lemon-scented breeze, drifting over from the stand of white-barked eucalypts that grew across the road in the park.

Magpies, in their suits of black and white, stood on the nature strip, fixing their beady eyes on him and chortling as if acknowledging his absence and welcoming his return. He greeted them with a ‘Coodle-loodle-do’, fished his keys out of his backpack and bounded up the front steps. Sliding his key in the lock, he turned it, opened the door and called out, ‘Honey, I’m home.’ He promptly laughed at his own joke.

Twenty-four hours ago, just as he’d been preparing to leave India, he’d received a text from Georgie saying she hoped it was okay but she’d taken up his offer of a few days of R and R. He’d started texting his reply of ‘No worries’, but had stopped, deciding instead to surprise her. Although they’d been in contact with each other as much as usual, it had been a year since he’d last seen her—the afternoon she’d requested he be a sperm donor.

The fact they hadn’t seen each other was his fault. After his three trips to the IVF clinic in Tasmania, the need to move had been so great that he’d put his hand up to co-ordinate an extra mission for Giving Back. He’d flown out to Ethiopia for three months. During that time he’d been on tenterhooks waiting for her to tell him she was pregnant.

When it didn’t happen, the relief he’d experienced had been so strong and vibrant that he’d gone out and partied as if he’d just been reprieved from the gallows. He was off the hook. If she did get pregnant in the future, at least it wouldn’t be from his sperm.

His return from Abbis Ababa had coincided with Georgie leaving for a beach holiday on Hamilton Island and by the time she’d returned, he’d left for India. Throughout the year she’d continued to post on his internet social network page and send her usual entertaining emails filled with funny and unusual stories about her work. She was equally interested in hearing about the challenges he faced co-ordinating the overseas trips of doctors who volunteered for Giving Back.

One thing he was certain of was that had she achieved a pregnancy from his donation, there’d be no way she’d be taking a mini-break in his house. She’d been as adamant as he that the baby was hers and hers alone.

‘Hello? Who’s there? Haim?’

He heard the hesitancy in her voice—her concern he might be an intruder—immediately followed by the accompanying creak of the third stair, and then he caught a glimpse of a shapely, tanned ankle followed by a toned calf. He smiled—she’d always had good legs. ‘Yep, it’s me.’

The clack of her sandals against the stairs sped up and a moment later there she was with her arms wide open and a matching smile. ‘Welcome home.’

The bag he’d anchored on his shoulder with his hand slipped past suddenly numb fingers, falling with a dull thud onto the floorboards as shock sucked the breath from his lungs. He instinctively shook his head as if the action would force his retinas to change the image. This couldn’t be Georgie.

Apart from her voice, nothing about her was remotely familiar and he barely recognised her. Gone was her short-cropped hair and in its place a long, glossy, caramel-brown ponytail swept across her shoulders in a caress of curls. Her face, which had always seemed slightly too long for her, was now round and full. In fact, all of her was round and full. A white sundress fell from decorative shoulder straps, flowing across voluptuous breasts before cascading over a high and round belly and swirling against the enticing tilt of her hips, a curvaceous behind and firm thighs. She seemed taller, more sure of herself, and a secret smile played about her lips as if she knew things that others could never understand. She was a Botticelli woman—lush, fertile and glowing.