The Doctor's Lost-and-Found Bride (10 page)

‘So did I.’ A single tear slid under her sunglasses and soaked into his sweater.

They’d wanted exactly the same things. And they’d wanted them with each other. So how the hell had they ended up like this?

‘I should’ve told you,’ Max said. ‘I know now I should’ve told you how I felt. But you were in pieces, and I didn’t think it was fair to lean on you and make you deal with my misery as well as your own. I couldn’t make it right for you and I hated myself for being such a failure—at work I could fix things, but at home I was just useless.’

But if he had leaned on her she would’ve coped better—because she would’ve known that they were in the same place.
Together
.

‘So working crazy hours was your way of coping?’ she asked.

‘Yes. And it was the wrong thing to do,’ Max said. ‘I know that now.’

‘I had no idea you felt that way. I thought…I thought that you were sick of me moping about, that you’d lost
patience with me and I was being such a pain that you’d rather be at work than with me.’

‘No. I’d lost patience with myself.’

She blew out a breath. ‘I feel as if an elephant just sat on me.’

‘Me, too.’ He pressed a kiss against her hair. ‘But we’re still standing. And we’re going to keep standing, Marina.’

It sounded as if he believed they could do this. Together. That they could lay the past to rest and start again.

Was he right? Or was this going to be her biggest mistake yet?

She wrapped her arms round him. ‘No more elephants today, OK?’ she asked shakily. ‘I think that’s as much as I can deal with right now.’

‘Sure. We’ll play tourist. Have some fun. The way it was supposed to be today.’ He pulled back slightly, and brushed his mouth against hers. ‘And I’m sorry I made you cry just now.’

He was wearing dark glasses, but Marina had a feeling that if he took them off his eyes would be a little too bright—with unshed tears of his own.

‘We always knew it was going to hurt when we started dealing with the past,’ she said.

‘Like lancing an infected wound,’ Max agreed. ‘But, if we don’t do it, we’ll never get proper closure. Never really heal.’

‘My mum used to soak sticking plasters off in the bath,’ Marina said. ‘I was never brave enough to let her pull them off quickly.’ She raised an eyebrow. ‘Did you tough it out?’

‘Boys do,’ Max said. ‘And it’s a point of honour not to say a word about how you feel. But I’m trying to un-learn that.’ He raised her hand to his mouth and kissed it. ‘Just not all at once, hmm? Let’s live in the now.’

She walked up the hill with him to the Observatory, hand in hand; she stood on the Meridian Line and Max took a photograph of her on his mobile phone. She did the same for him, then he got her to stand in front of him, wrapped his arm round her waist, pulled her back against him and took a photo of them together, his cheek pressed next to hers, both of them smiling.

It felt as if they were courting again—just as it had years ago, before everything had started getting complicated. And Marina loved every second of it: wandering round Flamsteed’s original observatory and marvelling at the Wren-designed interior; looking at the clocks, then wandering round the Planetarium and touching the four-and-a-half-billion-year-old meteorite in the entrance.

Max found them a little bistro for dinner, where they held hands under the table and fed each other morsels of their puddings. Then he saw her back home and kissed her briefly goodbye on the doorstep. ‘Sweet dreams. See you tomorrow.’

‘See you tomorrow,’ she echoed.

‘Tell me to go. Before I start breaking rules.’

‘Supposing I’d like you to break them?’

He groaned. ‘Don’t do this to me, Marina. I don’t want to rush into this. I want to give us a chance.’ But he drew her back into his arms and kissed her until her head was spinning.

‘Enough,’ he said, pulling away. ‘We have more elephants to tackle first.’

She laid her palm against his cheek. ‘I know.’

He turned his face and pressed a kiss into her palm. ‘Go indoors, Marina. Or I’m going to start behaving like Tarzan.’

She grinned. ‘Me Jane.’

He laughed, then his face became serious. ‘You’re right about one thing, though: in the early films, Tarzan really,
really loved his wife. And no other woman ever matched up to her.’

Was he saying…?

As if she’d asked aloud, he said softly, ‘Me Tarzan.’ He kissed her palm again and curled her fingers over the place he’d kissed. ‘I’m going to fight for you, Marina. We’re going to fight those demons together. And we’re going to win.’

Life somehow had its sparkle back. All was more than fine in Marina’s world—until Tuesday, when Max came looking for her in the cubicles, looking serious. ‘Would you excuse us for a minute, please?’ he asked her patient. ‘Dr Petrelli, I need a word.’

She stepped outside with him. ‘What’s happened?’

‘Rosie,’ he said. ‘Don’t panic—she’s OK—but Theo Petrakis just called down. He spoke to me, as you were with a patient; he’s not happy with Rosie’s blood pressure and he wants to take her in to Theatre and deliver the baby.’

Marina’s teeth started to chatter. ‘Oh, no. Please tell me she hasn’t had an eclamptic fit?’

‘No, she hasn’t,’ he reassured her. ‘As I said, don’t panic—but she’s a bit scared and she needs someone with her before she has the anaesthetic. Iris is calling Neil and your parents, but they’re at least half an hour away, and Theo wants her in Theatre now.’

‘Max, I need to go to her. But my patient!’

‘Don’t worry, I’ll finish seeing your patient and give your apologies.’ He took her hands and squeezed them briefly. ‘I’ll sort cover for you so you don’t have to worry about a thing—just go to Rosie, give her my love and come and tell me how things are when you get the chance, OK?’

She nodded, unable to speak; she knew she should thank
him, but fear seemed to have paralysed her vocal cords. She squeezed his hand, hoping he’d realise what she wasn’t capable of saying, and headed straight for the maternity unit.

‘She’s OK, Marina, just scared,’ Iris said, letting her onto the ward.

Rosie was shivering and tears were running unchecked down her cheeks when Marina reached her bedside. Marina wrapped her arms round her sister. ‘
Cara
, everything’s going to be absolutely fine. I’m here and Neil’s on his way, and so are Mum and Dad.’

‘If I lose the baby…’

‘You’re
not
going to lose the baby. He’s thirty-five weeks, and loads of babies are born at that age and are absolutely fine. And Theo’s the best; he won’t let anything happen to Bambino. They’re getting you to deliver him a little bit early because you’re not very well and Theo believes this is the best thing for both of you. He knows exactly what he’s doing.’ She stroked Rosie’s hair. ‘Take a deep breath for me. And another. That’s great. And another. Attagirl. Keep breathing like this, nice and slowly.’

Finally Rosie calmed down enough to take her pre-med. Marina stayed with her sister until the moment when she was wheeled into Theatre for the anaesthetic, then she headed back to the maternity unit for a quick word with Iris, to find out the full situation.

A few minutes later, Neil walked in, looking distraught.

Marina met him with a hug. ‘She’s going to be fine. Stop worrying. It’s just that her blood pressure went up overnight and they couldn’t get it to settle. They’ve given her some steroids to mature the baby’s lungs, so this is the best thing for both of them. She’s having the section under a general anaesthetic, so we can’t go in, but I was with her
for the pre-med. Oh, and she gave me a message for you—she says she loves you.’

She’d hoped that it would reassure her brother-in-law, but instead he was shaking.

‘Marina, she’s the love of my life. I can’t imagine being without her. If she doesn’t make—’ He choked off the last word.

‘Of
course
she’ll make it. We Petrellis are made of tough stuff, you know,’ Marina told him lightly. But inwardly she was terrified; she’d read up on Rosie’s condition and she knew all the potential complications—including the fact that Rosie could still go into an eclamptic fit even after the baby had been delivered. Not that she was going to tell Neil any of that; she could see that he was worried enough without knowing the worst-case scenario.

And she really, really wished Max was here.

‘Let’s go and wait outside Theatre. Then we’ll get the news as quickly as possible.’

Waiting was awful. Although Marina started chatting, trying to take Neil’s mind off the wait and the reason why they were there, he was monosyllabic and distracted. In the end, she resorted to going to the vending machine and getting them both a paper cup of coffee neither of them particularly wanted, just so they’d have something to do with their hands and something to concentrate on.

Time seemed to be moving through treacle. But then at last Theo emerged from Theatre. He was smiling broadly. ‘I’m delighted to tell you that Rosie’s doing fine and you both have a beautiful baby boy,’ he told Neil.

A single tear leaked down Neil’s face; he wiped it away with the back of his hand. ‘I’m sorry. I’m being so wet.’

Theo clapped his shoulder. ‘It’s OK. I know how you
feel—I cried like a baby myself when my little girl was born last year. It’s the fear and the relief.’ He smiled at Marina. ‘I know women go through the physical pain of childbirth but, believe you me, men suffer right along with you. We worry all the time about what can go wrong. It’s terrifying.’

‘Tell me about it,’ Neil said drily.

Had Max been this terrified when she was pregnant? Marina wondered. Being an emergency doctor, he’d know all about the potential complications. And he’d admitted on Sunday that he’d read up on things and worried. Had he worried about Marina developing a pregnancy-related condition, something life-threatening like Rosie’s?

And then, when she’d miscarried…She knew now that Max had shut himself away in work because he hadn’t been able to deal with the pain, the fear and the sheer helplessness.

She was aware that Theo was still talking. ‘And if it makes you feel any better, Neil, my Helen was three weeks early and she’s doing absolutely fine.’

‘Can I see them?’ Neil asked.

‘You can see Rosie when she’s completely round from the anaesthetic in a few minutes. We’re taking your little boy to the special-care baby unit now, but that’s simply because he’s early, so he needs to be kept very warm and have a little bit of oxygen to help him breathe. It’s really common with babies born this early, so try not to worry,’ Theo reassured him. ‘What I suggest is that one of you goes along with him, gets one of the nurses to take a Polaroid and then brings it back so Rosie can see him. It’ll make her feel better, too.’

He smiled at Marina and rested a hand on her shoulder. ‘And
you
can stop worrying as well. I’m not keeping anything back from you. I’ve given Rosie mag sulph, so I’m
pretty sure she’s not going to develop full-blown eclampsia. She’ll be in for the next four days anyway, to give her a chance to recover from the section, and I’m keeping her under obs, but as soon as she’s feeling up to it you can take her down to SCBU in a wheelchair.’

‘Let’s go to see Bambino,’ Marina said. ‘And I’ll text your mum and mine to let them know what’s going on.’ She swiftly texted both sets of parents to tell them that Rosie and the baby were both doing well, then took Neil down to SCBU. ‘It looks much scarier than it really is,’ she warned Neil as they rubbed their hands with the handsanitising gel outside the main doors. ‘There will be machines and tubes and monitors and alarms going off everywhere, but it’s nothing to panic about, OK?’

‘I’m just glad you’re here,’ Neil said.

‘Hey, it’s what families are for.’ She squeezed his hand.

Seeing the tiny baby in an incubator was clearly an ordeal for Neil; gently, she talked him through every single one of the machines and what they were for, to reassure him. Meeting the neonatal nurse who was looking after the baby clearly made him feel a bit better, but the clincher was being able to put his finger into the baby’s tiny palm for the baby to grip hard.

‘Do you see this, Marina?’ he asked, awed.

‘I do.’ She was close to tears herself.

The nurse took a Polaroid photo of the baby for them, and Marina took Neil back to the recovery room where he was able to see Rosie.

‘Aren’t you coming in?’ he asked.

‘No. You need some time together,’ she said. ‘Give Rosie my love—and I’m going up to the ward to meet our parents and fill them in. Take your time, and don’t rush.’

Neil hugged her. ‘You know, you’re the kid sister I always wanted.’

‘Stop it. You’ll make me start to cry,’ she told him. ‘And, for the record, you’re the big brother I’m so glad I’ve got. Now, go and see Rosie.’

Back on the maternity ward, both sets of parents had already arrived and were waiting in Rosie’s room. Marina filled them in on what had happened, and made sure that all four of them had hot drinks while they were waiting for Rosie to come back to the ward, then headed back down to the emergency department to find Max.

‘How are things?’ Max asked.

‘Rosie’s in the recovery room but Theo says she’s doing fine. She had a little boy.’ She bit her lip. ‘He’s going to be in SCBU for a few days.’

‘Which is pretty normal, given that he’s thirty-five weeks,’ Max reminded her.

‘Mmm.’

‘But you’re still worried.’ He stroked her hair. ‘Honey, he’s in the right place. Hold on to that thought, OK?’

She nodded. ‘My parents are here, and so are Neil’s, but everyone’s on edge. Neil’s mum has a cold, so she can’t go to SCBU, and nobody remembered a camera. I know it’s a cheek of me to ask, but I said I’d get mine so the parents can at least have a photo of the baby. Would you be able to sort out cover for me for just a couple more hours?’

‘Of course I can. But you’ve got some annual leave owing, haven’t you?’

‘A couple of weeks,’ she said.

‘Then why don’t you take a couple of days of it now? I have a feeling Rosie and Neil are going to need a bit of
extra support. You’re not letting anyone in the department down—everyone will understand.’