Knight on the Children's Ward (14 page)

‘I
S IT
possible to request first lunch break?' Annika asked during handover. ‘Only, my elder brother is coming from the UK this morning.'

‘That shouldn't be a problem,' Caroline said. ‘How is Aleksi doing?'

‘Better.' Annika nodded. ‘A little slower than he would like, but he is improving.'

It had been a tough few weeks.

But full of good times too.

Levander had flown in at the time of the accident and stayed till Aleksi had shown improvement, but had had to return to the UK. Now, though, he was coming with his wife, Millie, and little Sashar for a six-month stay. Levander would take over the running of the Kolovsky empire while Aleksi recuperated. But though it had been wonderful to see Aleksi make such rapid progress, it had been draining too.

Nina had wept and wailed, had made Annika feel so wretched for leaving her alone that she had moved back home. The daily battle just to go to work had begun again.

The control her mother exerted, the secrets of the
past, had all sucked her back to a place where she didn't want to be.

The papers had been merciless. It had been proved that neither drugs nor alcohol had been a factor in the accident, but still they had dredged up every photo of Aleksi's wild ways.

And she'd hardly seen Ross.

She'd seen him at work, of course, and they'd managed to go out a couple of evenings, but Nina always managed to produce a drama that summoned her home. Ross had been so patient…

‘Oohh, look at you!' Caroline gave a low wolf-whistle as Ross walked past, and Annika gave a rare laugh at his slight awkwardness as nurses, domestics and physios all turned and had a good look!

He
was
particularly spectacular this morning.

Black jeans, black belt, a sheer white cotton shirt and Cuban-heeled boots. His hair was still damp and he had a silver loop in his ear. He looked drop-dead sexy.

‘Will your brother be here yet?' Ross asked a while later.

‘I would think so.' Annika glanced at her watch. ‘Iosef is going to the airport to collect them.'

‘So what's your mum got planned for you tonight?'

‘Probably a big family reunion dinner, somewhere glitzy where the press can see us all smiling and laughing.'

‘I'll give it a miss.' Ross gave her a wink. ‘But thanks for the invite.'

‘There was no invite.' Annika shot him a short smile back. ‘You're a bad influence, remember?'

 

It was a busy morning, made busier because it was her last day on the ward and time for her end-of-rotation assessment.

‘Well done.' Heather Jameson ticked all the boxes this time. In the last few weeks, though it had been hard at home, Annika had made work her solace, had put her head down, or sometimes up, had smiled when she didn't really feel like it and had been rewarded in a way she had never expected. ‘I know you've had a difficult time personally, and that it took you a bit of time to settle, but you have. The staff are all delighted with you.'

‘I've liked working on the children's ward,' Annika said. ‘I never thought I would, but I truly have.'

‘What do you like about it?'

‘It's honest,' Annika said. ‘The children cry and they laugh and they don't pretend to be happy.' She gave a small smile. ‘They forgive you if you are not happy too,' Annika said, ‘and so long as you are kind, they don't mind if you are quiet.'

‘You've got Maternity next,' Heather said, and blinked when Annika rolled her eyes.

‘You might like it—remember you weren't looking forward to Paeds?'

‘I think I am too stoic to be sympathetic,' Annika said, ‘but of course I will be. Now I know where I'm going.'

It was things like that that set her apart.

There was still an aloofness, a hard edge that bewildered Heather, but, yes, Annika was intriguing.

‘Do you think Paediatrics is where you might specialise?' Heather said.

‘No,' Annika said. ‘I've decided what I want to do.'

‘And?'

‘Geriatrics or palliative care.' Annika smiled at
Heather's slight frown. ‘It has everything the children's ward has and a lot of wisdom too. I guess as you near the end of your life the mask slips away and you can be honest again.'

‘You did very well in your geriatric rotation.'

‘I thought it was because nursing was new,' Annika admitted. ‘I thought the gloss had worn off over the last eighteen months or so. But now I realise nothing was ever as good as my time there, because geriatrics is the area of nursing where I belong.'

She thought of Elsie.

Of a white chocolate box filled with mousse and raspberries—and that nothing could taste so perfect, so why bother searching?

Idle chatter had come easily with Elsie and the oldies, and silence had been easy too.

‘I want to qualify,' Annika explained. ‘I want to get through the next year. I am not looking forward to Maternity, nor to working in Theatre, but I will do my best, and when I get my qualification I have decided that I would like to specialize in aged care.'

Oh, it wasn't as exciting as Emergency, or as impressive sounding as Paediatrics or ICU—but it was, Annika realised, an area of nursing she loved. She had been searching for something and had found it—so quickly, that she hadn't recognised it at first.

It was the care Annie had shown her father that had first drawn her into nursing—the shifts at the nursing home that had sustained her.

She liked old people.

For the most part they accepted her.

It was very hard to explain, but she tried.

‘Those extra shifts that I did in the nursing home,'
Annika admitted, ‘they were busy, and it was hard work, but…' Still she could not explain. ‘I like the miserable ones, the angry ones, the funny ones, even those I don't like, I like… They teach me, and I can help them just by stopping to listen, by making sure they have a chance to talk, or making sure they are clean and comfortable. It's a different sort of nursing.'

And Heather looked at a very neat, very well turned out, sometimes matter-of-fact, often awkward but always kind nurse, and realised that Geriatrics would be very lucky to have her. To be old, to have someone practical tend to the practical and then to have the glimpse of her warmth—well, they would be lucky to have her and also she would be lucky to have them.

She needed a few golden oldies bolstering her up, mothering her, gently teasing her, showing her how things could be done, how life could be funny even when it didn't feel it. It might just bring a more regular smile to those guarded lips.

‘You'll be wonderful.'

It was the first compliment Annika had truly accepted.

‘Thank you.'

‘But you have to get through the next year.'

‘I will,' Annika said. ‘Now I know where I'm heading.'

‘Right, you'd better get off for lunch.'

Was it already lunchtime?

Annika dashed into the changing room, opened her locker and ran a brush through her hair and then tied it back into its ponytail. She added some lip-gloss and went to squirt on some perfume—but remembered it was forbidden on the children's ward.

She couldn't wait to see Levander. Last time it had been so stressful, but with Aleksi improving there was
much to celebrate, and she was looking forward to seeing Millie too, and little Sashar.

She dashed down the corridor and saw Ross, standing talking to some relatives, and he caught her eye, gave her that smile, and it was as if he was waiting for her, had always been waiting patiently for her.

‘Levander.' She hugged her brother when she reached Aleksi's room. It was so good to see him looking well and happy, and Sashar came to her easily. Millie was talking to Annie, who was holding Rebecca.

All the family were together, yet still her mother was not happy, still she could not just relax and enjoy it. She was talking in Russian, even though neither Millie nor Annie understood, telling her children her restaurant of choice for the Kolovsky dinner tonight.

‘The hairdresser is at five, Annika.' Nina still spoke in Russian. ‘Make sure that you come straight home.

‘I'll come too.'

Annika frowned as Annie, for the first time in living memory, volunteered for a non-essential hour at the Kolovsky family home.

‘If Iosef takes Rebecca home, I can hang around here and you can give me a lift.'

Annika looked to Iosef, who nodded.

‘Hey!' Annika turned to Aleksi and kissed him. His face was pale and it worried her. ‘Any better?'

‘I'm fine,' Aleksi said, because he said the same each day. He was so tough, so removed from everyone, and so loathing this prolonged invasion of his privacy.

‘You'll be home soon.'

‘Nope!' A thin smile dusted his pale features. ‘I'm sick of bloody family…' He turned to his PA who was
there, a large, kind woman, always calm and unruffled, and whispered in her ear. ‘Tell them, Kate.'

‘Your brother's off to recover at a small island in the West Indies.'

‘Very nice.' Annika smiled.

‘I'm going into hiding,' Aleksi explained, with just a hint of a wink. That dangerous smile, Annika saw with relief, was starting to return. ‘I refuse to be photographed like this—it will ruin my reputation.'

‘It's irreparable!' Annika joked, and yet she was worried for him—more worried than he would want her to be, more worried than she could show. She would talk to Kate later—check out as best she could the details of his rehabilitation.

‘Come and visit?' Aleksi said, but Annika shook her head.

‘I can't. I'm going to Spain for my honeymoon,' Annika said, enjoying her brother's look of confusion.

The door opened, and Nina frowned as a forbidden doctor walked in.

‘Family.' Nina said it like a curse. ‘Family only.'

‘Ross is family,' Annika said. ‘Or rather he's about to be.'

She swallowed as the celebrant walked in behind Ross.

‘Mrs Kolovsky.' Ross's voice was neither nervous nor wavering as the relatives he had been talking to in the corridor came in—
his
relatives, all happily in on the plan. ‘Annika and I want no fuss, but we do want everyone we love present.'

She felt Aleksi's hand squeeze hers, saw Levander smile, and Iosef too. She was scared to see her mother's reaction, so she looked at Ross instead.

It was the teeniest, tiniest of weddings. But she was
getting stronger and, with or without Ross, she would make it.

But as he took her hand and slipped on a heavy silver ring she knew that with Ross beside her she would get there sooner.

‘By the power vested in me, I pronounce you man and wife.'

He kissed her, a slow, tender kiss that was patient and loving, and then he pulled her back and smiled.

The same smile that had kept her guessing all this time and would keep her guessing for years to come.

‘I love you.' It was the first time she had ever said it, Annika realised. He had married her without the confirmation of those three little words.

‘I always knew that one day you would,' Ross said. ‘What's not to love?'

He made her stomach curl; he made her want to smile. There was excitement from just looking at him, and she wanted to look at him for ever, but for now there was duty.

‘We would love to be there tonight,' Annika said to her mother's rigid face. ‘Just for a little while.'

For her mother she would face the cameras and allow it to be revealed in the newspapers tomorrow that the Kolovsky heiress was married. She would smile, and she would have her hair done and wear a fabulous dress, but it would be one of her choosing.

‘And I would like it if Ross's family could join in the celebration.'

‘Of course…' Nina choked.

‘Look after her,' Iosef said to Ross.

‘I intend to.'

And Iosef could see his wife's tears, and understood all that she had been trying to say to him these past weeks.

His spoiled, lightweight, brat of a little sister was actually a woman of whom he should be proud—and he told her so.

‘I am so proud of you.'

She had needed to hear it, and she smiled back at her brother and her sister-in-law, and then to Levander and Millie—and it dawned on her then.

They were all survivors.

Survivors who were busy pulling their own oars, rather than being dragged down—but how much easier it would be now if they pulled together.

There was only one who was still going it alone.

‘Aleksi.' She smiled to her brother. ‘I was going to speak to the nurse in charge, see if maybe we could come back here after dinner…' And then, much to her mother's annoyance, she changed the plans again. ‘Or we could ring the restaurant and eat here.'

Aleksi wouldn't hear of it. ‘Go out,' he said, and then gestured to his infusion. ‘I'll be knocked out by seven anyway.'

He was, Annika realised, still rowing all by himself.

‘Congratulations,' Aleksi said, and kissed his sister.

‘The last single Kolovsky,' Annika teased. ‘And still the Kolovsky wedding gown has not been worn.'

‘It never will be, then.' He shook his new brother-in-law's hand. ‘Take care of her.'

‘He already has,' Annika said.

Yes, the tiniest of weddings—and still duty called.

But sometimes duty was a pleasure too.

They walked back down the corridor, laughing and chatting. A nurse and a doctor returning from their lunch break.

The ward was nice and quiet, darkened for the after
noon's quiet time, but Caroline wasn't best pleased. She was talking to Heather Jameson and was stern in her greeting to her student. Good report or not, it was inexcusable to be thirty minutes late back from lunch without good reason.