Their Baby Bond
‘I think she’s having an allergic reaction to the penicillin,’ said Kristy, her face pale.
‘Stop it,’ Will ordered as he looked down at the very frightened-looking child in question. The little girl was naked but for a nappy, and had large red welts forming all over her body before their eyes. Her lips were looking very puffy, and Will didn’t need a stethoscope to hear the wheezes coming from the lungs. Anaphylaxis.
‘I’ll get the resus trolley,’ said Peter.
‘Oxygen, adrenaline, phenergan, hydrocortisone and some ventolin,’ Will directed, as everyone sprang into action around him.
Lou drew up and administered the drugs, Lydia attached a sats probe, Peter assembled the ventolin and Kristy took care of the oxygen.
‘How old is she? What’s her diagnosis?’ Will asked.
‘Erica’s eighteen months,’ Lou told him. ‘Cellulitis from a possum bite.’
‘Is this Erica’s first dose?’
‘Second,’ said Kristy.
He nodded. That made sense. Often anaphylactic reactions weren’t seen until the second or subsequent exposure to the particular allergen. Will looked around for a stethoscope and found one being thrust into his hand by Lou. Efficient. He smiled at her gratefully.
The wheezes had reduced markedly, and Will breathed a sigh of relief that they had halted the rapid progress of a condition that could have been fatal in minutes.
‘Let’s get her into the high dependency bay. We’ll special her for the next little while,’ said Lou.
Her hands shook slightly as she helped push the cot to the bay opposite the nurse’s station. Thank God Will had been here. Having an experienced paediatrician in an emergency on Ward Two was a definite bonus.
Will hung around while the nursing team got the little girl settled in her temporary locale.
‘Possum bite?’ he asked as they trooped back into the nurses’ station.
‘Camping with the family,’ explained Peter. ‘Tried to pat one of the friendly possums. It bit her arm.’
‘Ouch.’ Will winced.
‘Hey, Pete,’ said Lydia casually. ‘I’ve an idea. Why don’t you ask our new colleague about the shave?’ She nodded towards Will.
Pete’s eyes lit up. ‘Good idea, Lydia. Brilliant. Just brilliant.’
Pete smiled at Will and rubbed his hands together.
Lydia gave him a baleful smile. ‘What?’ Will said warily.
‘Dr Galligher,’ said Pete, narrowing his eyes speculatively. ‘You do know what they say about bald men, don’t you?’
Will nodded, still wary. ‘Ah, but is it true, Pete?’
‘Never had any complaints.’ Pete winked. ‘But seriously, Shave for a Cure is on in a few weeks, and I just need one more person to agree to have their hair cut.’
‘That’s for the Leukaemia Foundation?’ Will asked.
Pete nodded. ‘I’ve been trying to convince Lou.’
Will looked at Lou and her beautiful hair, completely horrified by Pete’s suggestion. Over my dead body! ‘That’s the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard,’ he said dismissively.
‘No, no,’ Pete said, shaking his head emphatically. ‘Think about it. That plait is famous in this hospital. It’s been part of the history here for years. We’d raise a fortune. People would come from all over the hospital to finally see Lou lose the plait.’
‘Sacrilege.’ Lydia shook her head.
‘Hear, hear,’ agreed Will, suddenly warming to Lydia again.
‘Yes, I can see the signs around the hospital now. “Come see our Lou lose her plait”,’ Pete said, staring at a point in mid-air and flicking his hands to emphasise each word.
‘Are you insane?’ asked Will incredulously. How could the man even think of cutting off Lou’s gorgeous locks?
Lou listened to their conversation about herself and her hair, feeling suddenly invisible. Like a life support system for a head of hair.
‘Oh, come on, there wouldn’t be one person who hadn’t thought about snipping it off as she’s walked past all these years. And it would make such a glorious wig,’ Pete said, lifting Lou’s plait and examining the blend of colours.
‘Ah, excuse me—I am actually standing here in the same room,’ said Lou, bemused by their in-depth discussion.
‘The plait stays,’ Will said firmly.
‘Lou?’ Pete entreated, appealing to his boss one last time.
Lou opened her mouth to graciously decline.
‘No, Pete,’ said Will, even more firmly this time. ‘Absolutely not.’
Lou turned and raised her eyebrow at Will. She knew he’d always been obsessed with her hair, but this was ridiculous. He was looking at her as if he owned her hair. As if he owned her. She felt the early simmer of her blood pick up to a slow boil. Did he really think he actually had a say over what she did with her hair? Or any other part of her body? Did he think he could walk back in after a year and she’d just fall back into her old Will-worshipping ways?
If she was going to hold on to herself and her sanity now Will was back, he had to know that their old dynamic was dead. No more following meekly wherever he led. I am over you, buddy boy. Time to draw a line in the sand.
‘I’ll do it,’ she said, talking to Pete, but looking pointedly at Will.
‘Oh, no,’ gasped Kristy.
‘Lou,’ warned Lydia.
‘Yes!’ Pete rubbed his hands together with glee and picked up a pen.
‘No. Don’t put her down. I’ll do it,’ Will instructed, still holding Lou’s gaze.
Lou broke eye contact. ‘Do not listen to him. Long hair with a baby is not a good combination. I’m doing it.’
‘He doesn’t need you now,’ said Will, placing a stilling hand on Pete’s, hovering above an official form, pen poised. ‘I’ve already volunteered.’
Everyone in the nurses’ station looked at Lou. She felt as if she was in a tennis match, her colleagues looking left and right as they lobbed the bone of contention between them.
She shrugged. ‘You want to as well—fine. But I’m not changing my mind. He can have both of us,’ she said.
‘Lou,’ said Will, looking at the stubborn set of her chin, ‘you’re just trying to prove a point now. You don’t have to do this.’ Will realised his fatal error. By disagreeing, he had goaded her into it.
‘No, my mind is made up. It’s for kids with cancer. I’m the kids’ ward nurse unit manager. It’s a good cause. I normally go along, sponsor everyone, sell raffle tickets, do my bit. But this year I’m going to lead by example.’
Will shook his head, not really able to believe that she was seriously going to go through with it.
‘Are you really going bald?’ asked a mystified Kristy.
‘No.’ Lou laughed, not quite indignant enough to agree to that. ‘But shaved all over. Like Lydia’s Matt. How short does he have his?’ she asked her friend. Lydia’s ten-year-old son always got a crew cut.
‘He usually gets a number four blade,’ Lydia said, almost as horrified as Kristy.
‘Good.’ Lou nodded emphatically. ‘A number four it is.’
Will still couldn’t believe the direction of the conversation. He searched around for something to deter her, one last-ditch effort.
‘Jan will have a fit,’ he said. Lou’s sister probably coveted Lou’s hair even more than he did. Jan had always bemoaned her thin, stringy, can’t-do-anything-with-it hair, especially as Lou’s was the exact opposite.
Lou blinked, and braced herself for the inevitable pain. She heard a slight gasp come from Kristy, and felt rather than saw the sudden tension emanating from Lydia and Pete. It was suddenly deathly quiet, as if the entire ward had chosen that moment to cease all noise and activity.
‘Hardly,’ she said, keeping the gut-wrenching sorrow from her voice. ‘Jan’s dead.’ And she pushed herself off the desk and calmly walked away, before she did something awful—like burst into tears at the unexpected reminder of her sister’s tragic death.
CHAPTER TWO
WILL watched her go, completely dumbfounded. That was twice today she had utterly shocked him. His head rejected the information instantly, but one look at the faces of the others in the nurses’ station and he knew it was true.
‘Lydia?’
She nodded. ‘Jan and Martin died in a light plane crash just over five months ago.’
‘Oh, God, how terrible,’ he said, remembering all the good times he and Lou had had with Jan and Martin. Remembering how close Lou had been to her big sister. And how the couple had doted on Candy. ‘Why didn’t somebody tell me?’
‘Maybe if you’d bothered to check on her at any time during the last year you may have found out,’ Lydia chided.
He looked at Lydia and knew he deserved the criticism. He had deliberately avoided any contact, believing it was best for both of them. And poor Lou had gone through this all alone. No, not alone, he thought, as he looked at her fiercely loyal staff. But still… If he’d only known, he could have. Could have what? Rung? Sent her some flowers? A sympathy card? How trite. He could have come back and comforted her. Gone to the funeral at least.
He left the station and headed directly for her office. He knocked on her door and didn’t wait for her to reply, opening it straight away. Empty. He thumped his hand against the door in frustration. He needed to talk to her about it. To let her know how very, very sorry he was. She might have dropped the bombshell calmly, but he knew her well enough—or at least he had—to know it hid a whole heap of anguish.
He looked at his watch. He was due at Human Resources five minutes ago. But he was coming back this afternoon, for an in-service with Lynne on the computer system. He was torn between what he had to do and what he needed to do, but her disappearing act left him with little choice. Talking with Lou was just going to have to wait until then.
A couple of hours later, after sorting out payroll and rostering issues and lunching with Harold, the Medical Director, Will walked back onto Ward Two. He tried Lou’s office first. Damn it! Not there. He entered the nurses’ station and found Lynne waiting for him, so he sat down with her, completely distracted, while she tried to impart the intricacies of the computer system.
He toyed with the idea of pumping Lynne for information about Lou. There probably wasn’t anything the ward clerk didn’t know about the goings-on at the hospital, and he’d bet his last cent that Lynne knew all there was to know about Jan and Martin. But he restrained himself. Lynne was good at her job, but he abhorred gossip—had been on the nasty end of it, thanks to Delvine—and he would not encourage her.
Will was passing time waiting for Lou’s return, performing some dummy tasks Lynne had set him, when Pete entered the nurses’ station with an inconsolable child. It was a little boy who looked about five, and he was sobbing broken-heartedly.
‘Oh, my,’ said Will, looking up, pleased for any respite from the screen. ‘What do we have here?’ he asked.
‘Josh’s mum has just left to go and pick up his sister from school. He’s a little upset,’ Pete said, sitting on the chair next to Will.
Will raised his eyebrows at Pete’s understatement. The kid looked as if he’d lost a million bucks. ‘Oh, dear,’ said Will. ‘Never mind, mate. She’ll be back soon.’
Josh buried his head in Pete’s shoulder and sobbed louder.
‘So, Pete? Does Josh like magic?’ Will asked, raising his voice a notch and winking at Pete.
‘Ah, no, Will. I don’t think so.’
Josh’s cries started to wane, and he peeked out at Will.
‘Are you sure? Because you do know I’m a magician and a doctor, right?’
‘Really?’ said Pete, fake incredulity dripping from his words. ‘I didn’t know you were a magician as well, Dr Galligher.’
Josh’s sobs were slowly quieting. Lou peeked her head around the corner. She had heard Pete and Will’s efforts to placate the child from halfway down the corridor.
‘Sure.’ Will nodded. ‘In my spare time I’m Captain Incredible.’
Josh’s crying had stopped, and he watched the two men’s magic discussion solemnly. Lou felt a lump rise in her throat. Will was so good with kids. His doctoring method was incredibly unique. He was the kind of doctor who really understood how kids ticked. Maybe it was having a child of his own? But he always had a magic trick up his sleeve, and a dozen different jokes on the tip of his tongue. And it worked—his patients loved him. And so did their parents.
‘Ohhhh. You’re Captain Incredible? I heard he hung around the hospital a lot.’
‘Shh,’ said Will, and winked at Josh. ‘It’s a secret. Can you keep a secret, Josh?’
The little boy looked at Will with starstruck eyes and nodded seriously. ‘Can you really do magic?’ he asked, his voice hushed with awe.
Will grinned at him and moved closer to the little boy. ‘I sure can,’ he said, and pulled a coin out from behind Josh’s ear.
The little boy gasped, and looked at Will as if he was Santa Claus. Lou stifled a laugh at the look of complete hero-worship on Josh’s face as Will made the coin disappear into thin air. Then he held out his two downwards-facing fists and got Josh to choose one, and the coin was miraculously back again.
‘Cool!’ said an excited Josh.
Will laughed. ‘Hey, you want to come over here with me and help me with this computer thing? Captain Incredible isn’t so good with computers. My magic computer wand broke.’
Josh giggled and went eagerly, jumping off Pete’s lap and launching himself onto Will’s. Will swivelled his chair back to the screen and showed Josh a few different things to try. He did have a vaguely horrible thought that if Josh pushed the wrong button the entire hospital computer system could go down, but what were the chances? Josh was happy. And Lynne wasn’t here to mind.
Lou watched Will a little longer. He’d taken a crying, fretting child and turned his fears around in minutes. If ever there was someone born to their field it was him. Josh obviously thought he was the bee’s knees. She remembered a time when she’d thought that too.
‘Hey, Lou,’ said Stuart Myers, coming up behind her and almost scaring her half to death. She noticed Will turn and spot her as she greeted the registrar.
‘Hi, Stu,’ she said, ‘what brings you down to Ward Two?’ She tried to keep her voice casual, and not betray the fact that she’d been spying on Will.
‘The boss,’ he said, and nodded towards Will.
Lou glanced over at Will as he nodded back. She looked back at Stu, ignoring Will’s heavy gaze. ‘You’re doing the paed rotation now?’ she asked. Lou had spoken with Stuart quite frequently not long after she and Will had split regarding surrogacy, as he’d been working an IVF rotation at the time.
‘Yep. More my cup of tea,’ he said.
‘I agree.’ She grinned. Stu was up there with Will as far as rapport with kids went.
‘I just wanted to say that I’m really happy you went ahead with the surrogacy idea. I’m pleased it was successful. It was such a marvellous gift for your sister,’ he said, placing his hand on her stomach. ‘I’m so sorry to hear that she’s since died.’
Lou saw Will out of the corner of her eye and knew instantly he had heard the conversation. Hell. Damn Stu! She monitored Will’s reaction as if it was happening in slow motion. His back stiffened, he stopped swivelling idly on the chair and his eyes narrowed.
‘Pete,’ Will said, ‘can you keep on eye on Josh, please? Lou and I need to talk.’
Pete looked at Lou, then back at Will, then at Lou again. She sighed and nodded at him.
‘Come on, matey,’ Pete said, hauling Josh off Will’s lap. ‘Mummy will be back soon.’ The boy didn’t protest, waving at Will as Pete walked him back to his bed.
‘Stuart. Would you mind if I spoke to Lou before we get to our business?’ he asked.
‘Not at all,’ said Stu. ‘I have to go to Accident and Emergency to insert an IV. Can you page me when you’re ready?’
Will nodded, and they both watched Stu leave the ward. He brushed past her, opened the door to her office and indicated for her to precede him. Will waited for the door to click shut behind him before he said a word.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
Lou wasn’t fooled by his calmly delivered question. He was mad. She could tell by the whiteness of his knuckles as he leant against the desk, and the rigidity of his facial muscles, and the way a little nerve jumped spasmodically near his left eye.
She sighed. ‘Will—’
‘Why, Lou? Why lead me to believe that you’d been involved with someone else?’
‘Actually, Will, I didn’t. If you remember correctly, you jumped to a certain conclusion because my pregnancy came as a shock and you were angry that I’d replaced you.’
He opened his mouth to deny it, and then closed it again. She’d pretty much hit the nail right on the head with her quick summation.
‘You didn’t disabuse me,’ he pointed out.
‘Why should I have? The first time I see you again after a year you accuse me of hopping from your bed to someone else’s. I wasn’t exactly feeling very friendly towards you.’
‘I’m sorry, Lou,’ he said, sitting down in a chair and pulling his tie a little looser. ‘I was a jerk.’
‘Damn right you were,’ she said, lowering herself into her chair too.
‘I was … gobsmacked. I engaged my mouth before my brain caught up.’
‘You should have known I’m not capable of doing that. You were my everything for five years. You ending it was the hardest thing I’ve ever been through. Other than burying my sister, of course. You really think I could just jump into bed with somebody else? You know I abhor casual sex.’
Will heard the frustration and sadness in her voice, and her supreme disappointment in him. ‘I must admit it didn’t quite ring true about the Louise Marsden that I knew.’
‘And yet still you believed?’
He shrugged. ‘I’m really sorry, Lou.’
‘You know, the crazy thing is that you could have known all along about my surrogacy and about Jan if you’d just bothered to keep in contact with anyone from here. Neither is exactly a secret in this place. I mean, we agreed to make a clean break, but cutting yourself off completely wasn’t entirely necessary.’
‘I didn’t,’ he protested. ‘I kept up with your news. Candy read me your letters. They were the highlight of my week, actually.’
Lou suppressed the impulse to laugh hysterically, because a part of her was touched that her chipper newsy ravings, targeted for eight-year-old eyes, had meant something to him. But they’d hardly been representative of her life.
She had written to Candy every week because she had promised her she would. She had written no matter how wretched she had felt. When her heart had been aching for Will, she’d written. When she’d barely been able to move from the toilet with morning sickness, she’d written. When her sister was dead and she’d been unable to see the lines on the paper through her tears, she’d written. And she hadn’t missed a week, despite the state of her emotions. In fact, her letters to Candy had been just about the only thing at times that had kept her focused on putting one foot in front of the other. They had been chatty and bright, even when things were falling apart.
Lou’s life in the year since their split had been like a rollercoaster ride. After the break-up she’d drifted along for a while on the flat, trying to pretend that everything was okay. And then there’d been the steep but exciting ascent as IVF and fertility treatments resulted in a pregnancy for Jan and Martin. Their pure and utter joy at finally becoming parents had had her flying high.
And then the horrible stomach-dropping plummet when news of the plane crash had reached her and she’d realised not only had she lost her darling sister, but the baby would never know its real parents.
‘Well, I did censor them quite a bit,’ she said sarcastically.
‘Obviously.’
‘Did you seriously expect me to tell your daughter that Jan was dead in a letter? Or that I was having a baby? My sister’s baby?’
‘No,’ he said, raking his hand through his hair. ‘Of course not.’
Lou felt the familiar burn under her ribcage start up and stretched herself out, her elbow resting on the back of her chair to make a little more room. She absently rubbed the curve of her ribs where bump met bone. Sometimes she could have sworn she felt a foot up there.
‘You okay?’ he asked, indicating where she was rubbing.
‘Yes,’ she dismissed. ‘There’s just not a lot of room for movement these days.’ The burning sensation eased, and she removed her arm and sat up straight again.
‘Tell me about the surrogacy,’ he said. ‘They were still trying IVF when I left.’
She nodded. ‘Jan had a hysterectomy the week after you took up the remote paediatrician position. It was a hard decision for them to come to, but after years of crippling pain and bleeding, with her endometriosis and regular blood transfusions due to her chronic anaemia, she couldn’t take it any more. She was forty, with three failed IVF attempts and two miscarriages. She just couldn’t go through another period from hell.
‘They spoke to me before they went ahead with the op and asked if I would be interested in being a surrogate for them. They still had fertilised embryos, and they thought I might be interested in helping them achieve their goal.’
‘And you said yes?’
‘Of course.’ Lou nodded. ‘Without hesitation. At thirty-five I was pretty sure I was never going to have my own …’ Lou deliberately didn’t look at Will. ‘And … she was my sister. She would have done it for me.’
‘And so … you were okay with having the baby inside you for nine months, growing it, nurturing it, and then just handing it over at the end?’
‘Absolutely one hundred per cent okay. It wasn’t my baby to keep.’
‘Is it really that simplistic?’
Lou nodded emphatically. ‘It’s her egg and his sperm. It’s their baby. It’s their genetic material. I’m just incubating it for them. Could I have done it if it had had my own genetic material? No. But to be able to give them their own baby after all their problems—nothing has ever been simpler.’
‘And how does that work legally?’
‘Grey area,’ she said. ‘Legally I’m recognised as the mother, so Jan and Martin would have had to have officially adopted the baby.’
‘And now? Now they’re gone? You didn’t exactly sign up for this, did you?’
Lou gave him a sad smile. ‘No. Not really. But you know, this is my sister’s baby, and whether I like it or not the law recognises me as its mother. And,’ she said firmly, daring him with her eyes to argue, ‘I’m going to give it the best damn life I can.’
Will felt his heart swell with pride at her selfless generosity. He’d always been proud to know Louise Marsden, but this was the icing on the cake. She was doing something completely selfless. Completely worthy. Lou had been through so much in the time he’d been away. Such a momentous year. And then an awful thought struck him. ‘Did they know you were pregnant before the accident?’
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