Alison Roberts - Midwives On-Call

She was cuddling a child. A three- or four-year-old?

A sick child. There was an oxygen concentrator humming on the floor beside them. The child’s face was buried in Em’s shoulder, but Oliver could see the thin tube connected to the nasal cannula.

A child this small, needing oxygen … His heart lurched. This was no ordinary domestic scene. A child this sick …

The expression on Em’s face …

Already he was focusing forward. Already he was feeling gutted for Em. She gave her heart …

Once upon a time she’d given it to him, and he’d hurt her. That she be hurt again …

This surely couldn’t be her child.

And who was Mike?

He’d paused in the doorway and for some reason it took courage to step forward. He had no place in this tableau. He’d walked away five years ago so this woman could have the life she wanted, and he had no right to walk back into her life now.

But he wasn’t walking into her life. He was here to talk to her about paying for the crash.

Right. His head could tell him that all it liked, but his gut was telling him something else entirely. Em … He’d loved her with all his heart.

He looked at her now, tired, vulnerable, holding a child who must be desperately ill, and all he wanted was to pick her up and carry her away from hurt.

From loving a child who wasn’t hers?

Maybe she was hers. Maybe the in-vitro procedures had finally produced a successful outcome. But if this was her child …

His gut was still churning, and when she turned and gave him a tiny half-smile, a tired acknowledgement that he was there, a sort of welcome, the lurch became almost sickening.

‘Ollie.’

No one had called him Ollie for five years. No one dared. He’d hated the diminutive—Brett, his sort of brother, had mocked him with it. ‘Get out of our lives, Pond Scum Ollie. You’re a cuckoo. You don’t belong here.’

Only Em had whispered it to him in the night, in his arms, when their loving had wrapped them in their own cocoon of bliss. Only Em’s tongue had made it a blessing.

‘Hey,’ he said softly, crossing to where she sat, and, because he couldn’t help himself, he touched her hair. Just lightly. He had no right, but he had to … touch.

It was probably a mistake. It hauled him into the intimate tableau. Em looked up at him and smiled, and it was no longer a half-smile. It was a smile of welcome. Acceptance.

A welcome home? It was no such thing. But it was a welcome to her home, to the home she’d created. Without him.

‘Gretta, we have a visitor,’ she murmured, and she turned slightly so the child in her arms could see if she wanted.

And she did. The little girl stirred and opened her eyes and Oliver’s gut lurched all over again.

Isla had said Em had a two- and a four-year-old. This little one was older than two, but if she was four she was tiny. She was dressed in a fuzzy pink dressing gown that almost enveloped her.

She was a poppet of a child, with a mop of dark, straight hair, and with huge eyes, almost black.

Her lips were tinged blue. The oxygen wasn’t enough, then.

She had Down’s syndrome.

Oh, Em … What have you got yourself into?

But he couldn’t say it. He hauled a kitchen chair up beside them both, and took Gretta’s little hand in his.

‘I’m pleased to meet you, Gretta.’ He smiled at the little girl, giving her all his attention. ‘I’m Oliver. I’m a friend of your …’ And he couldn’t go on.

‘He’s Mummy’s friend,’ Em finished for him, and there was that lurch again. ‘He’s the man in the picture next to Grandma and Grandpa.’

‘Ollie,’ the little girl whispered, and there was no outsider implication in that word. She was simply accepting him as part of whatever this household was.

There was a sudden woof from under the table, a scramble, another woof and a dog’s head appeared on his knee. It was a great, boofy, curly brown head, attached to a body that was disproportionally small. It woofed again but its tail wagged like a flag in a gale.

‘This is Fuzzy,’ Em said, still smiling at him. His presence here didn’t seem to be disconcerting her. It was as if he was simply an old friend, dropping by. To be welcomed and then given a farewell? ‘Mike gave us Fuzzy to act as a watchdog. He sort of does, but he’s always a bit late on the scene.’

‘Oliver!’ And here was the last part of the tableau. Adrianna was standing in the door through to the lounge and her eyes weren’t welcoming at all. ‘What are you doing here?’

Here was the welcome he’d expected. Coldness and accusation …

‘Mum …’ Em said warningly, but Adrianna was never one who could be put off with a mere warning.

‘You hit Em’s car.’

‘Mum, I told you. I hit his.’

‘Then he shouldn’t have been parked where you could hit him. What are you doing here?’

‘Offering to pay for the damage.’

Her eyes narrowed. ‘Really?’

‘Really.’

‘Mum, it was my fault,’ Em protested, but Adrianna shook her head.

‘It’s your no-claim bonus that’s at risk. Oliver’s a specialist obstetric surgeon, and I’m betting he has no mortgage and no kids. He can afford it.’

‘Mum, it’s my debt.’

‘You take on the world,’ her mother muttered. ‘Oliver owes you, big time. My advice is to take his money and run. Or rather take his money and say goodbye. Oliver, you broke my daughter’s heart. I won’t have you upsetting her all over again. Raking up old wounds …’

‘He’s not,’ Em said, still gently, and Oliver was aware that her biggest priority was not Em or the emotions his presence must be causing, but rather on not upsetting the little girl in her arms. ‘Mum, he’s welcome. He’s a friend and a colleague and he’s here to do the honourable thing. Even if I won’t let him. I can afford to pay, Oliver.’

‘I won’t let you,’ he told her.

‘I’ll make you a cup of tea, then,’ Adrianna said, slightly mollified. She humphed across to the kettle, made tea—and, yep, she remembered how he liked it. She plonked two mugs on the table, one for Em, one for him. Then she hoisted Fuzzy into one arm, took her own mug in the other hand and headed back to the sitting room. ‘Semi-final of Boss of My Kitchen ,’ she said briefly over her shoulder. ‘Shall the croquembouche disintegrate into a puddle? The tension’s a killer. Nice to see you, Oliver—sort of—but don’t you dare upset Em. Goodbye.’

And she disappeared, using a foot to shove the door closed behind her.

Her message couldn’t be clearer. My daughter wants me to be polite so I will be, but not one inch more than I must.

He was left with Em, and the little girl in her arms. Sitting in Adrianna’s kitchen.

It was a great kitchen.

He’d always loved this house, he thought, inconsequentially. Kevin and Adrianna had built it forty years ago, hoping for a huge family. They’d had four boys, and then the tail-ender, Emily. Adrianna’s parents had moved in, as well, into a bungalow out the back. Em had said her childhood had been filled with her brothers and their mates, visiting relations, cousins, friends, anyone Adrianna’s famous hospitality could drag in.

Oliver and Em had built a house closer to the hospital they both worked in. They’d built four bedrooms, as well, furnishing them with hope.

Hope hadn’t happened. The IVF procedures had worn them down and Josh’s death had been the final nail in the coffin of their marriage. He’d walked out and left it to her.

‘You’re not living in our house?’ He’d signed it over to her before going overseas, asking their lawyer to let her know.

‘It’s better here,’ she said simply. ‘My brothers are all overseas or interstate now, but I have Mum, and Mike and Katy nearby. The kids are happy here. I’ve leased our house out. When I emailed you, you said I could do what I like. I use half the rent to help with expenses here. The other half is in an interest-bearing deposit for you. I told you that in the email. You didn’t answer.’