Chapter 21 #2
‘Yes, take hold of Alice’s leg and support it into the same position as Sophia does on the other side. We need Alice’s knees to be wider apart than her shoulders and it’ll help move baby into the right position to come out. I’ll be right behind you if you need me.’
Freddie did as he was instructed and as the next contraction came, Hope began to apply pressure above Alice’s pubic bone to try and dislodge the baby’s anterior shoulder.
‘That’s it, Alice, I want you to picture holding your beautiful baby in your arms and really harness the power of your body with this next contraction.’
‘Oh, Jesus Christ!’ Alice screamed the words as her baby finally emerged and Hope lifted the little girl on to her mother’s chest, allowing the new parents to discover for themselves that they had a daughter.
‘You did it, darling, you did it.’ Freddie was crying now and kissing both his wife and daughter.
‘We’ve got a little girl, I’m a mum, I’m finally a mum.’ Alice’s words were filled with wonder, and Hope had to blink back tears of her own, as Jess put a hand on her shoulder, her voice as she spoke, not much louder than a whisper.
‘Well done, you’ve just helped create another brand-new family.
There’s nothing more special than that and we’ve got the best job in the world.
’ Hope nodded silently, not trusting herself to speak.
Like the words of reassurance she’d tried to give Alice, she knew what Jess had just said had been meant to encourage her.
Maybe they’d even been intended to persuade her to stay, but they couldn’t do that.
Nothing could. Despite how much Alice and Freddie obviously loved each other, Alice had admitted that her longing for a baby of her own had made her question whether that love alone would ever be enough.
Especially when his children provided a constant reminder of what he’d already shared with someone else.
Not everyone felt that way, and Hope didn’t think a couple needed children to share the strongest of bonds.
But Alice clearly did, and Hope was pretty certain Esther did too.
If Hope stayed, Esther would constantly be confronted with the fact that Joe had a lifelong link to a woman he hadn’t seen in over twenty-five years.
If that made her question what she and Joe had, the chances of them ever being happy again seemed impossible.
It had already caused Esther to go and stay with her parents, something that would never have happened if Hope’s secret hadn’t come out.
Hope had made her decision now and, as much as she didn’t want to go, she’d be leaving Cornwall the first chance she got.
Esther had been in Resus with the rest of the team for the last twenty minutes, working desperately to try and save the life of a man, Rory, crushed by the collapse of a barn wall on his family’s farm.
His wife had been brought to the hospital by a neighbour, after being advised not to travel in the ambulance, because of how touch and go things were – his life was hanging in the balance.
Esther knew the paramedics sometimes refused to let family members travel with patients when they were concerned about the impact on loved ones if they had to stop en route to attempt resuscitation.
They had to avoid anything that might impede their efforts to save a life.
Rory had made it to the hospital in a critical but stable position, before very quickly beginning to deteriorate again.
Esther had ushered his wife, who’d said her name was Carrie, along to the relatives’ room, before heading into Resus to see what she could do to help.
Tragically the answer had been nothing, because, despite their best attempts, there wasn’t anything the team could do to save Rory.
His injuries were just too catastrophic.
‘Time of death, 12.23 p.m.’ Zahir, one of the doctors, made the pronouncement and everyone in the room dropped their heads.
It was like a kick in the gut every time they lost a patient like this.
It might be part of the job, but that didn’t make it any easier.
Esther had seen this kind of injury before and, even though she knew there’d have to be an autopsy, she was certain the cause of death would come back as Crush Syndrome.
It was caused by the rapid release of blood, potassium or other fluid into the body, resulting in a massive drop in blood volume and cardiac arrythmia, all too often proving fatal.
CPR and defibrillation had been attempted to no effect.
Sometimes all the medical attention in the world just wasn’t enough and today was one of those days.
Esther looked at the man lying in front of her, but even as she stared down at the livid bruise on his face, she couldn’t stop herself from picturing his wife, sitting anxiously in the waiting room, no doubt praying for news that her husband was going to be okay.
Turning away, as one of her colleagues began removing the monitors Rory had been hooked up to, Esther caught sight of a pendant Rory had been wearing around his neck.
It had been removed before the defib and she wanted to make sure it was returned to Carrie.
It seemed such a tiny gesture, but it was something, and she knew that sometimes tiny gestures could be incredibly important.
Picking it up, Esther’s stomach roiled, as she saw the words on the front of the pendant – Best Dad in the World.
Turning it over, her breath stilled in her throat, as she read the three names inscribed there – Oscar, Finn and Rosie – followed by three love hearts.
Rory was a father of three, and today had changed his children’s lives in an unimaginably catastrophic way.
‘I’d better go and tell the family,’ Zahir said, looking as though it was the very last thing in the world he wanted to do, and who could blame him? Yet, somehow, Esther found herself saying the most surprising thing out loud.
‘I’ll come with you. I spoke to Carrie, his wife, when they first arrived and I promised her we’d do everything we could.
I need to let her know that we did.’ She knew just how much difference hearing that could make to relatives.
Maybe not initially, but later, when they were seeking out whatever comfort they could find. Zahir nodded.
‘I’d appreciate that, thank you, especially if she already knows you.’
‘Shall we get it over and done with then?’ Esther was dreading this every bit as much as Zahir clearly was, even his nod in response to her question looking as though it took a huge effort. As the two of them made their way down the corridor towards the relatives’ room, her legs were like lead.
There was no one else in the room, thank God, and as Zahir explained who he was, Esther watched Carrie’s face.
She still had hope in her eyes, and it killed Esther to know they were about to extinguish that.
Zahir took a deep breath, and she knew they were coming; the fateful words that would change everything.
Words that nothing in the world could take back.
‘I’m so sorry, but despite everything we did, Rory died from his injuries. They were just too catastrophic for him to recover.’
The wail that pierced the air made goosepimples break out all over Esther’s skin, as Carrie shot up from her chair, her knees seeming to buckle underneath her almost instantly. Esther and Zahir had to catch Carrie and help her back into a chair to stop her from hitting the floor.
‘He can’t be, not Rory. The kids…’ Carrie wailed for a second time, before a wave of sobs began to rack her body and all Esther could do was wrap her arms around this devastated woman.
There were no words she could say to make any of it better and she’d been forced to stand and watch Carrie’s heart shatter into a thousand pieces in front of her.
Nothing could undo what had happened to Rory, and Esther suddenly realised how incredibly stupid she’d been.
She risked everything she had with Joe, a relationship every bit as precious as Rory and Carrie had shared, over something that had happened more than twenty-five years ago.
She’d chosen to walk out on him, when they had every opportunity to make things right.
Carrie was never going to get that chance.
Hope’s revelation had changed their lives; there was no denying that.
But it didn’t need to be a problem, let alone a disaster, if Esther didn’t allow it to be.
She still had Joe, he hadn’t changed, he hadn’t betrayed her, but most of all she hadn’t lost him, and she was more grateful for that than she could ever have hoped to put into words.
She had to try, though, and she needed to find Joe.
She didn’t want to waste another second.