Chapter 3
Esther was glad to be at work, with her mobile phone stashed safely in her locker, so that she wouldn’t be tempted to fall back down the rabbit hole of googling, the way she seemed to spend all her spare time doing lately.
Unexplained infertility. That’s what she and Joe had been labelled with.
They’d waited through a long and painful year of disappointment, before going to see their GP, who’d referred Esther and Joe for some initial tests.
The tests couldn’t identify any reason why they weren’t getting pregnant and the advice had been to just relax and keep trying.
There’d been some guidance about possible lifestyle changes that might help too, around diet and reducing stress.
Esther had given a hollow laugh at the thought of trying to do that in the kind of jobs she and Joe had.
Trauma and mental health units weren’t exactly known for being restful, never mind the impossibility of relaxing when she was gripped by the fear that she might never become a mother.
Rationally, she knew she shouldn’t allow the desire to become her everything; she had a wonderful relationship with a man she adored, a great career, a loving family and the very best friends.
Yet, despite all of that, she still felt so empty it was as though someone had scooped her insides out and filled the void with an ache nothing could soothe.
She didn’t want to feel that way. She wanted to have faith that she’d somehow be okay, even if there was never a baby, but she couldn’t make herself believe that, no matter how many times Joe told her that all that mattered was that they had each other.
It was lovely to hear, but it scared her too; the possibility that Joe might be able to accept a life that didn’t include a family of their own, because Esther was nowhere near ready to do that.
Hope was all she had right now and she wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to let it go.
It was why, when she’d run out of the toilets just over a fortnight ago, after yet another negative pregnancy test, she hadn’t gone to see her husband, despite telling Danni that she was.
She’d got halfway to Joe’s office and changed her mind.
She hadn’t wanted him to comfort her with talk of all the things they could do together instead, if they were faced with a childfree life, not when the ache inside her was still so all-consuming.
Instead, she’d locked herself in another toilet on the opposite side of the hospital and started googling ways to overcome unexplained infertility for what felt like the millionth time.
She wanted solutions, not platitudes, and more than anything, she wanted a baby.
Sometimes it felt like coming to work was her only break from it.
The emergency department was unfailingly busy, and her job involved helping people who were often facing the worst moments of their lives, sometimes even the final moments.
It was the only thing capable of putting her own problems into perspective and giving her a bit of respite, but she felt terrible that it came at the expense of someone else’s pain.
‘We’ve got an RTA on the way in.’ Danni’s pronouncement made Esther’s head jolt up in response and she grimaced.
‘Do we have any more details?’ It was a relief to be able to meet Danni’s gaze as she asked the question, because she’d barely been able to look at her best friend since she’d run out of the toilets after that negative test. She ought to be able to tell Danni anything, but it was as if a barrier had started to grow between them with every month that passed and Esther still wasn’t pregnant.
She’d envisaged the two of them raising their children together, sharing the highs and lows of motherhood, but Danni’s little boy, Caleb, was a toddler now.
Her husband, Charlie, had made a joke the last time the four of them were together, about having to start thinking about schools, and whether they might need to move to make sure they were in the right catchment area for a good one.
It had hit Esther again, in that moment, just how fast time was moving and how far apart Danni and Charlie’s lives were already getting from hers and Joe’s.
Esther loved Caleb more than words could describe, but she was even starting to find it hard to be around her nephew.
Sometimes he’d pull a certain face that made him look so much like a little version of Joe that it hurt her heart.
Was that the closest she was going to get to seeing what the children she ached to have might have looked like?
The last thing she wanted to do was for any of those feelings to come between her and Danni, but it seemed to be happening anyway.
Her best friend was never going to be able to understand how Esther felt if she didn’t ever get to have a baby, and the truth was she’d never understand how it felt to be a mother either, until it happened.
She couldn’t keep leaning on Danni and expecting her to somehow fix the situation, because she couldn’t.
No one could. The only thing Esther felt as though she could do was to back off from their friendship, even though it meant the world to her, and for the past couple of weeks that’s exactly what she’d been doing.
Usually, they tried to align their shifts as much as possible, and spent time together outside of work whenever they could, but Esther had swapped shifts and pushed back on arranging to meet up.
Yet despite how tense things had felt lately, there was no one she’d rather have by her side going into an emergency situation, as Danni outlined what she knew.
‘It’s an adult male with a GCS score of fifteen, but with an open fracture on the right tibia and a suspected broken pelvis, as well as possible internal bleeding.’
‘Do you want to me to check whether one of the orthopaedic surgeons can be here when the patient arrives?’ Esther didn’t like the sound of this.
A broken pelvis and an open fracture were both extremely serious injuries, and the surgical teams would need to be involved, but the prospect of internal bleeding was always a major concern.
‘There’s no harm putting in a call to give them the heads-up, but the most important thing is to make sure he’s stable and we’ll be taking him straight into resus. After that he’s going to need a CT, so if you can do anything to clear the path for the scan, that would be brilliant.’
‘Of course.’ Esther swallowed hard against the emotion bubbling up in her throat.
Even at work, things between them were different right now.
The conversation they’d just had felt as though it had been between strangers, who’d never worked together before.
They were usually in perfect symmetry, able to work side by side seamlessly, almost as if their every move had been choreographed.
She hated what this situation was turning her into, and she had to do something to stop the rot, she just had no idea what and now wasn’t the time.
All she could do was turn away and focus on the job.
The paramedics arrived less than five minutes later, bringing in the twenty-eight-year-old patient, whose name was Oliver Barns.
Another man had rushed into the emergency department straight behind the paramedics, dressed in bike leathers, his motorbike helmet under his arm, and his face deathly pale as he begged Esther to tell him that his friend was going to be okay.
When he tried to follow the paramedics through to resus, Esther had been forced to stop him.
‘He’s going to be okay, isn’t he? He’s been my best friend for twenty years and I just need to know that he’s going to be alright.
I was following Ollie down the road when he came off his bike, straight in front of me.
A cat ran out and he swerved, I could see what was coming, but I couldn’t do anything to stop it.
It was like it happened in slow motion.’ The words choked in the man’s throat, and he dropped his head back, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down as he swallowed against almost overwhelming emotion.
‘He’s in the best possible hands, I promise you that.’ Esther put a hand on his arm as she spoke.
‘Can I go with him? He’s always hated hospitals, ever since his mum died of cancer when we were still at school. He’ll be really panicking being in here on his own.’
‘The team need to assess Ollie first, but I’ll find out what’s happening and come and give you an update.’ Her voice was gentle, but the man still looked terrified. ‘I’m Esther, one of the nurses. What’s your name?’
‘Ritchie.’
‘Okay, Ritchie, let’s get you through to the relatives’ room.’
‘I don’t think I can wait in there.’ The man looked at her, the desperation obvious in both his face and his voice. ‘There’s something I need to tell Ollie, and if there’s any chance he might…’
He stopped for a moment, swallowing hard again before he finally managed to continue. ‘I can’t miss the chance to say it.’
‘You won’t.’ Esther usually avoided making promises, unless she was certain she could keep them.
Ollie had serious injuries, and although they didn’t appear to be life-threatening, she’d worked in A&E for long enough to know that even critical conditions weren’t always obvious at the start.
She’d witnessed people who’d looked stable and who appeared to have every chance of making a full recovery, not making it through to the end of a shift.
The paramedics had already said they suspected Ollie had internal bleeding, so she was in no position to promise Ritchie that his friend would be okay, yet somehow, she’d found herself doing exactly that.
‘I’m going to take you through to the relatives’ room, then I’ll find out what’s going on and, as soon as he’s ready to see you, you’ll be able to tell Ollie whatever it is you want to say. ’