Twenty-Nine
Rowena had been back on the NICU for a week when she walked into Helena Chandra’s office. She’d booked the face-to-face appointment months ago, timing it to ensure she’d worked a few shifts before they chatted.
‘It’s so good to see you again,’ Helena greeted as Rowena took the seat on the other side of the desk.
‘Good to see you, too.’
Rowena had always looked forward to these sessions. She’d been exceptionally self-motivated to get her life back on track and had welcomed therapy as part of the process.
‘You’re getting a bit of a bump, I see?’
Rowena laced her hands over her growing belly. ‘Yeah, I’ve finally popped.’
‘You’re … what?’ Picking her glasses up off the desk, Helena put them on and consulted her notes on her computer screen. ‘Twenty-five weeks?’
‘Yep.’ Rowena nodded. ‘Bang on.’
Helena peered over the top of her frames. ‘And how are you feeling about the pregnancy?’ She glanced at her computer again. ‘Your scan was normal and you’ve made it past official viability. You must be happy about that.’
It was true, Rowena grew more confident every day—but she worked in the NICU. If she hadn’t already been, thanks to her personal obstetric history, she was primed for the worst-case scenario.
‘I’m … cautiously optimistic.’
Helena laughed as she removed her glasses. ‘I suppose that’s only natural given where you work.’
‘Yeah.’ Rowena grimaced. ‘Viability is a huge milestone, of course, but I also know a lot can go wrong between now and full term.’
‘Do you think it will?’
‘Not really. Not anymore.’ There had been a definite shift in her thinking the more the pregnancy progressed in a textbook fashion. ‘But I still … worry that it could.’
‘It’s probably not the best combo for you right now, is it? Pregnant in the NICU?’
Rowena gave a rueful smile. ‘There’s definitely something to that whole ignorance is bliss thing.’
‘Speaking of work.’ Helena tilted her head to one side. ‘How’s it been? Back at the coal face?’
‘Busy.’ Rowena had landed back in the middle of a December baby boom. The NICU had been running at capacity all week, every highly specialised neonatal cot occupied.
‘Okay.’ Helena nodded encouragingly. ‘And how has that been?’
‘Good, actually. Really good.’
‘Yeah?’
Rowena nodded. ‘Yeah.’
She knew it was early days, but it had been a long time since Rowena had been in a NICU without the cold slick of dread stalking her every action. The medication had obviously been the circuit breaker she’d needed, and a break away had given her perspective and recovery time.
‘I’m only doing three shifts a week for this month but it feels good. Like old times.’
‘And how have your colleagues been?’
‘Very supportive. Cautious, though.’
‘Cautious how?’
‘Just wary of giving me too much too soon, I think. Trying to ease me into it. But yesterday there was a lot of junior staff on the shift, which meant I had to take a really complex patient. Very intensive. Lots of infusions.’
‘And how did that make you feel?’
Rowena had found this question hilarious in the beginning. Such a psychologist cliché. But she’d heard it so much this year, she barely registered it these days.
‘A little nervous, I guess. To start with. But more nervous at the thought of it than the actual reality, you know? The work, the drugs, all the juggling of specialists and procedures, the three bradycardic episodes—’ Rowena shook her head.
‘I just slipped back into the groove and before I knew it, I was handing over to the late shift.’
‘And what about when you got home. Last night? Were you able to switch off?’
Rowena had been so exhausted she hadn’t even showered, just fallen into a heap on her bed. ‘Slept like a log.’
Helena beamed. ‘That’s great.’
It really was. So much so, the first thing she’d wanted to do this morning was call Lachlan—who loved her—and tell him. Hell, she’d wanted to pick up the phone and call him every damn day since she’d left.
‘Yes,’ she agreed, her smile more wan than beam.
‘Okay?’ Helena sat back a little in her chair and raised her eyebrows. ‘You want to tell me where you just went?’
Rowena did not. Talking to her therapist about Lachlan was a perfectly logical thing to do, but she was trying to get back into the groove of her work and it seemed like discussing Lachlan would surely only muddy those waters.
‘Not really.’
Helena laughed. ‘Well, that’s honest.’ She pursed her lips as she cast a speculative eye over Rowena. ‘Let me guess … you were thinking about your baby daddy?’ She picked her glasses up again, put them on and looked at her screen. ‘Lachlan?’
‘Maybe.’
‘You don’t want to talk about him?’
‘Not really.’
‘And why is that?’
‘It’s … complicated.’
‘Because of the baby?’
‘Yes.’
‘Because he’s there and you’re here?’
‘Yes.’ Rowena contemplated not saying anything more, but if she couldn’t open up to her therapist, what was she even here for? Maybe Helena could give her some perspective. ‘And … he loves me.’
‘Ah.’ Helena paused. ‘I see.’ The glasses came off again. ‘And how do you feel about him?’
‘I … don’t know?’
Helena’s lips quirked. ‘Are you asking me or telling me?’
Rowena huffed out a frustrated breath. ‘I didn’t go there to fall in love with anyone.’
‘Sure. But … that’s not something you can control, right?’
‘I don’t see why not,’ she grumbled, which clearly amused Helena. ‘I’ve been in love before,’ Rowena clarified. ‘It doesn’t feel like that.’
‘Like what?’
Rowena remembered falling for her high school boyfriend. ‘Like a giddy spin.’
Helena laughed. ‘Maybe that’s because you’re not some young girl anymore, Rowena? You’re older. You’re warier. You’re wiser. You’ve been through a bunch of stuff. Love can feel different with different people and at different stages of your life.’
‘Are you saying I should love him?’
Helen smiled. ‘No. Not at all. But obviously you’re going to have some kind of a relationship with him, right?’ She paused for a breath then plunged on. ‘Okay … let’s try something different. Do you miss him?’
God, she missed him. So badly it was almost a physical ache. Sure, she’d been busy with work and settling back in to her old life, but not busy enough to ignore the giant empty chasm that had cracked her right open.
But she hadn’t contacted him. And he hadn’t contacted her. It was as if they both knew it was better to have clear air during this first month apart.
‘Yes,’ Rowena admitted. ‘But … I really miss working at the Acacia Junction hospital, too. That doesn’t mean I should quit my job and go work there.’
Even if they would take her back after skipping out on the last two weeks of her contract.
Helena shrugged. ‘Why not?’
Rowena blinked. Was that a trick question? ‘What do you mean?’
‘You miss it, right? So you must have enjoyed working there?’
‘Very much so.’
‘Okay, so, what did you like about it?’
Rowena wasn’t sure where this was going, but they’d gone off the subject of Lachlan so she’d go with it.
‘I liked … that I was there for a week and had met everybody who worked at the hospital from the grounds staff to the medical director. I liked that it was close knit and everybody had time for each other. I liked that, generally, it was a slower pace and lower stress. I liked that patients were never rushed out the door and mostly people were very appreciative. And that everyone knew my name.’
Bloody hell. She’d be singing the Cheers theme song next.
‘So, if you enjoyed it that much, why not entertain changing jobs?’
Rowena blinked. Say what now?
‘Did you miss the NICU?’
The question was surprisingly confronting. Getting back to her former workplace had been her driving force this past year. A goal she’d been hell-bent on achieving. And it had felt good being back. But … Helena was right. She hadn’t missed it.
‘Actually … no.’
Helena nodded, seemingly unsurprised by the admission. ‘I know getting back to the NICU was what you were determined to do,’ she said, ‘and it was clear to me from the beginning, you needed to do it. That you weren’t ready to hear the alternative. But you do know there is one, right?’
She reached across the table and covered Rowena’s hand.
‘You don’t have to stay in the one place just because you’ve always been there.
Or because you’re afraid people will think less of you.
You don’t have to prove anything to anyone, Rowena.
It’s okay to say, “I don’t want that for my life anymore.
I don’t need that stress. I really like it here instead. ”’
‘But …’ Unsettled, Rowena removed her hand to clasp it in her lap. ‘I was only working there as a way to get back to the NICU. Wouldn’t that be giving in?’
‘Is it giving in? Or is it changing direction? Thousands of people change directions in their life every day.’ Helena smiled. ‘It’s allowed,’ she whispered. ‘You’re allowed.’
Rowena had never seen working in a rural setting as anything other than a stopgap. A means to an end. But she had really loved working in a small hospital.
Was Helena right? Could she just … change direction?
‘The same goes for Lachlan. If you miss him, maybe there’s more to it than that?’
Oh god … was there?
Helena smiled gently. ‘These are all just things to think about, Rowena. Maybe they’ll resonate, maybe they won’t. But now you’ve achieved your goal of getting back to the NICU, maybe it’s okay to open yourself up to other possibilities?’
Whatever Rowena had expected from this session, it hadn’t been this. Helena talking about changing direction.
Not when she’d finally gotten her life back on track.
*
Rowena was still thinking about that conversation three weeks later as she stood on a balcony overlooking Sydney Harbour along with a few dozen other people and watched as the first explosion of fireworks over the bridge rang in a brand new year.
The balcony wrapped around two sides of the huge apartment her friend Paula had won in a radio competition.
Not the apartment—the New Year’s Eve experience at one of Sydney’s most exclusive addresses.
Rowena had planned on having a quiet night in after a busy day shift and not seeing the new year in at all.
But, as Paula had said, when would she ever get the chance to be this close to one of Sydney’s most iconic events?
So close the boom of the fireworks reverberated through her chest. So close she swore she could just lean over and flutter her fingers through the fizzing sparkles.
Yes, she was tired, but this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Right?
Except she was barely taking any of it in. People were oohing and ahhing and Rowena was watching, but the visual wasn’t computing when her brain was utterly preoccupied with two words.
You’re allowed.
They’d been playing over and over in her head ever since Helena had uttered them.
They hadn’t crystallised any decision for her because, frankly, they felt too damn revolutionary, but they had pecked away at her brain.
Like a woodpecker, relentlessly drilling.
So had maybe there’s more to it than that.
Which led her straight to Lachlan. As people’s faces lit up with blues and reds and greens, Rowena was reminded of that night suspended in a ferris wheel gondola with him and their almost kiss and she absently wondered how they celebrated New Year’s Eve on Blairgowrie.
Did they do something with neighbouring properties? Or was there some shindig in town?
Or maybe, with Reggie’s absence, he and Albert were having a quiet night in.
‘Isn’t it spectacular?’ an excited Paula said, raising her voice over the noise as she sidled up beside Rowena.
Rowena nodded. ‘Spectacular,’ she murmured, the fireworks suddenly blurring in front of her as her eyes filled with tears and her throat grew thick.
It was, objectively, spectacular. But not as spectacular as sitting in the bath at the bunkhouse, looking out over the landscape as the golden haze of late afternoon settled over the wattle trees and Mitchell grass.
Not as spectacular as the stars over the Acacia Junction drive-in.
Not as spectacular as morning dew clinging like diamonds to the tips of gum leaves, and the dawn chorus of cockatoos and bagpipes.
Not as spectacular as a man in jeans and flannel and boots, an Akubra on his head, walking to the house from the back paddock with a blue dog at his heels and a smile on his face, looking at her like she was the best part of his day.
You’re allowed.
Well … shit. Rowena clutched the railing with one hand and her belly with the other, as a hot trail of bile burned in her gut.
She was in love with Lachlan McCabe. And she was hundreds of bloody kilometres away from him, trying to prove to herself and everyone else that she was okay, when she wasn’t okay because she’d left her whole heart behind at Blairgowrie.
She’d been an absolute fool trying to compartmentalise things where he was concerned.
To not think emotionally but practically, logistically.
To think like a thirty-six-year-old woman unexpectedly pregnant to a guy she’d known for six months.
To think about the baby and how they’d manage a potential long-distance co-parenting situation.
She’d sheared off the box marked feelings and locked it away because it was the enemy of practicality. But her heart was cracking wide open now as all her barriers came crashing down, leaving her with the plain, glaring truth.
She was in love with Lachlan McCabe. And he loved her and they were having a baby and he was just too damn far away.
Blinking back tears that were turning fireworks into neon rain, she knew she had to go to him. And if it’d been daylight, she would have left immediately. But it wasn’t.
So, first thing in the morning it was …