chapter EIGHT
EVIE DRAGGED HERSELF through the next few days. She hadn’t seen Finn since he’d picked up his clothes and left the other night and there was a small part of her that was beginning to despair that she might never be able to reach him.
But after three punishing day shifts in a row she was too exhausted to care when she crawled into bed at eight-thirty and turned off the bedside lamp. Her feet ached, her back ached and she wanted to shut her eyes and sleep for a week.
She’d worry about Finn tomorrow.
Except that wasn’t to be.
Evie woke from a deep, dark sleep with a start several hours later, a feeling of dread pushing against her chest. Her heart was racing. Something was wrong but for a moment she couldn’t figure out what.
As she lay in the dark, the luminous figures on the clock telling her it was two-thirteen a.m., she slowly became aware of a feeling of wetness. She reached down, her hand meeting a warm, wet puddle. Had she wet herself?
Before she could apply any logical thought process, a spasm that caused her to cry out and clutch at her belly, pulsed through her deep and low.
Was she bleeding?
The pain eased and panic drove her into a sitting position as she kicked off the sheet and reached for the light, snapping it on. The bed was saturated, clear liquid soaking into the sheets and mattress, her wet pyjama pants clinging to her legs.
Her pulse hammered madly at her temples as she tried to think.
Clear. Not blood. And a lot of it.
Not urine. Too much. She hadn’t the bladder capacity for more than a thimbleful for what seemed for ever.
Another pain ripped through her and she gasped as it tore her breath away and she suddenly realised it was amniotic fluid in the bed.
Her membranes had ruptured.
And she was in labour.
The spasm held her in its grip for what seemed an age and Evie failed miserably at doing all the things she knew you were supposed to do during a contraction—stay calm, breathe deeply—by intermittently crying and then holding her breath to try and stop herself from crying.
She collapsed on her side, reaching for the phone on the bedside table as soon as she was able, quickly stabbing Finn’s number into the touchpad. It rang in her ear and she hoped like crazy that he had the same special powers that every other doctor who spent half of their lives on call possessed—the ability to wake to a ringing phone in a nanosecond.
He picked up on the third ring but she didn’t give him a chance to utter a greeting. ‘Finn!’ she sobbed. ‘It’s Evie. My membranes have ruptured. I’m contracting.’ As if to prove her point the next contraction came and she almost choked as she doubled up, trying to talk and gasp and groan all at the same time. ‘The baby … is coming … now!’
‘I’ll be there in one minute.’
But she didn’t hear him as the phone slipped from her fingers and she curled in a ball, rocking and crying as the uterine spasm grabbed hold and squeezed so tight Evie felt like she was going to split open.
It was too early. The baby would be too small. She couldn’t do this. She wasn’t ready. The baby wasn’t ready.
She heard Finn belting on her door a minute later and she cried out to him but the contractions were coming one on top of the other, paralysing her. She just couldn’t get up and open it. She was conscious of a loud crash and Finn calling out her name, his voice getting closer and closer, and she cried out to him again and suddenly he was stalking into her bedroom.
Finn was shocked at the sight that confronted him. Evie—strong, competent, assured Evie—curled up in a ball on the bed, her pyjama pants soaking, her face and eyes red from crying, a look of sheer panic on her face.
He threw himself down beside her. ‘Evie!’
‘Finn,’ Evie sobbed clutching at his shirtsleeve, her hand shaking. ‘Help me,’ she begged. ‘It’s too early. Don’t let our baby die.’
The words chilled him, so similar to the words Isaac had used as he’d reached out a bloodied hand to Finn.
Finn! Finn! Help me. Don’t let me die.
Words that had haunted him for a decade. The promise that he’d given haunting him for just as long. One he hadn’t been able to keep in the middle of hell, injured as he’d been and with precious medical help too far away.
But he could make a promise right here and now that he could keep. Last time he’d been powerless to help.
But not this time.
‘I won’t,’ he promised. ‘I won’t.’ He was damned if he was going to let down another person he cared about.
He stood and dragged the light summer blanket that had fallen off the end of Evie’s bed away from the mattress and wrapped it around her then scooped her up as she moaned in pain and sobbed her heart out.
There was no point in ringing an ambulance—he could be there in three minutes at this hour of night.
He strode out the door he’d damaged trying to get in and pulled it shut behind him—he’d get the lock fixed later. The lift arrived within seconds and a minute later she was ensconced in his car and he was driving out of the garage. He dialled the emergency department and got the triage nurse.
‘This is Finn Kennedy. I’m three minutes out with Evie Lockheart, who has gone into premature labour at twenty-eight weeks. I need the neonatal resus team there stat.’
He hung up and dialled another number, zoning Evie’s anguish out, doing what he had to do, drumming his fingers on the steering-wheel as he sped through a deserted red light.
The phone was picked up. ‘Marco? It’s Finn Kennedy. Evie’s gone into labour. I’m two minutes out from the hospital. The baby is coming now.’
Whether it was that particular note of urgency one doctor recognised in another or the background noise of Evie’s distress, Finn wasn’t sure, but Marco’s ‘I’ll be there in ten’ was all he needed to hear before he hung up.
He glanced at Evie and reached for her hand. ‘Everything’s ready. The neonatal team will be there and Marco’s on his way. We’re a minute out.’ He squeezed her hand. ‘Hold on, okay?’
Evie squeezed back as contractions battered her body. She knew she was a snivelling mess, she knew she shouldn’t be, that she should be calm and rational and confident in modern medicine and the stats on premmie births, but fear pounded through every cell, rendering her incapable of reason.
Right now she was a mother. And she was terrified.
Finn screeched into the ambulance bay fifty-five seconds later. Mia and Luca were there with two nurses and a gurney, and they had a hysterical Evie inside in a cubicle within a minute. The neonatal team was already there, a high-tech cot with its warming lamps on ready to accept the baby, and Finn suddenly felt superfluous as the team went into action around him.
He felt lost. Outside his body, looking down. Usually in an emergency situation in a hospital setting he was the one in control. But not now. Right now he could do nothing but just stand around helplessly and watch.
Just like with Isaac.
‘Finn!’
Evie’s wretched wail as she looked around for him brought him back to the present, to the trilling of alarms, to the hive of activity.
‘I’m here,’ he said, stepping closer, claiming a position near her head, reaching for her searching hand. They weren’t in the dirt in the middle of a battle zone and she wasn’t dying. They were at Sydney Harbour Hospital with as good a medical team around them as anywhere in the world and she wasn’t dying. ‘I’m right here.’
The curtain snapped back and Marco entered, and Finn knew everything was going to be fine. ‘Well, Evie,’ Marco said in that accented way of his, ‘this is unexpected but don’t worry, you are in very good hands.’
Evie was grateful Marco was there but the feeling was swept away by a sudden overwhelming urge to push. She half sat forward, dislodging two monitoring electrodes and causing a cacophony of alarms to go off. ‘I need to push,’ she said, the noise escalating her panic to full-scale terror.
Marco nodded. ‘Don’t push, Evie,’ he said calmly as he snapped on a pair of gloves. ‘Pant. Let me just check you.’
Evie gritted her teeth. ‘I … can’t …’ she groaned as her abdomen contracted of its own accord.
Finn leaned in close to her ear, kissed her temple and said, ‘Yes, you can, Evie. Yes you can. Here, do it with me,’ he said, as he panted.
Evie squeezed his hand harder, fighting against the dictates of her body, trying hard to pant and be productive and not let the panic win.
‘Okay, the baby is crowning,’ Marco said.
‘No,’ Evie pleaded. ‘No, no, no.’ She turned to Finn, clutching their joined hands to her chest. ‘It’s too soon, he’s too small.’
‘And he’s in the best place,’ Finn said, hoping it was the right thing to say, the thing she needed to hear. He wished he could take the fear and anguish from her eyes. That he could take her physical pain and bear it for her. ‘And we’re all going to fight for him.’
‘Okay Evie, let’s meet your son,’ Marco said.
Evie cried and shook her head, still trying to stop it, to hold inside her the precious baby who needed more time, but the urge coming over her again couldn’t be denied and although she didn’t assist, she couldn’t fight it either, and because the baby was so small he slipped out into Marco’s waiting hands in one smooth movement.
‘Got him!’ Marco exclaimed, as he quickly clamped and cut the cord and passed the still newborn into the warmed sterile dressing towel held by the neonatologist.
‘He’s a good size,’ Marco said, looking up at Evie.
Finn and Evie only vaguely heard him as they both held their breath, straining to hear a little cry through the rush and hurry around them.
‘He’s not crying,’ Evie murmured.
Finn kissed her forehead as the suction was turned on. ‘Give it a sec.’
But there was still no gurgling first baby cry. No annoyed, indignant wail at having a plastic tube shoved up its nose. They could hear terms like bradycardic and low sats and starting compressions and get an IV and need to tube him and Evie turned her face into Finn’s shoulder and cried, quietly this time, as a scenario she’d been part of on many occasions played out.
Only this time it wasn’t some anonymous person off the street—it was happening to her.
‘He’s going to be fine,’ Finn said, his head close to hers. ‘He’s going to be fine.’
If he said it enough times, it might just be true.
Then he heard I’m in and he looked up as the tone of the sats monitor changed. Sats improving. Heart rate picking up.
He kissed Evie on the head. ‘They’ve tubed him,’ he whispered. ‘He’s improving.’
Evie looked up, the normal sound of the sats monitor like music to her ears. She turned her head towards the flurry of activity around the cot. ‘How’s he doing?’ he asked.
The neonatologist turned around. ‘He was a little flat. He needed some help with his breathing—not unusual at twenty-eight weeks. Hopefully we can get him straight on to CPAP. We’ll put in an umbi line and given him some steroids down the ETT. We’ll take him up to the unit now, it’s the best place for him.’
Evie nodded vigorously. ‘Of course, go, take him,’ she urged. She wanted him in the best place, with the best people looking after him, but she couldn’t deny how bereft she felt. She’d given birth to him but she hadn’t even touched her little boy yet or seen his face.
Her arms ached to hold him. To be near him right now.
She turned to Finn. ‘Go with them,’ she said.
Finn frowned. ‘What? No Evie, he’s in good hands, I’ll stay with you until you’re settled upstairs and then I’ll go and check on him.’
Evie, feeling strong now, dashed at the moisture clinging to her cheeks. ‘I don’t want him up there by himself, Finn.’
‘He’s going to be surrounded by people,’ Finn said gently.
‘No.’ She shook her head vehemently. ‘Not people who love him. That is our son up there and I want him to know that every second of every day we’re right beside him. Go, please, please go. If you don’t, Finn, I swear to God I will, placenta delivered or not.’
Finn caught the eye of Marco, who indicated with a quick flick of his head to hop to it. But he was torn. He wanted to be with his son, but he didn’t want to abandon Evie either.
Evie grabbed his sleeve. ‘I’m going to be fine,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry, I know I’ve been a mess tonight but I’m fine now. And I need you to do this. Promise me you’ll stay with him until I can get there.’
Finn blinked at the zealous glow in Evie’s eyes that turned them from soft hazel to a supernatural hue. He nodded, knowing it was another promise he could keep. ‘I promise,’ he murmured. ‘But don’t be long.’
Evie gave a half-laugh. ‘I’ll try. Now go!’ she urged as the cot and the team headed out of the cubicle.
Finn stopped by Marco, who was pulling gently on the umbilical cord to deliver the placenta. ‘I have my mobile. Call me as soon as you’re done here.’
Marco nodded. ‘Assolutamente.’
Five hours later Ava strode into the isolation room they’d put little baby Lockheart in because there were some perks to being on staff and because they were quiet enough at the moment to allow it. Not that it was exactly isolated—large windows on three sides kept it fully visible to the entire unit.
She smiled at the nurse making notes on a computer console before spying Finn sitting in a chair beside the open cot, valiantly trying to keep his eyes open, his head bobbing up and down as he intermittently lost the battle before regaining control.
‘Finn,’ she said bending down to push her face closer to him when he didn’t seem to register her presence.
He looked as if he’d been pulled through a hedge backwards. His jeans had a stain down the front and his shirt looked like it had been crumpled in a ball in the corner for a week. His stubbly look was bordering on haggard. His feet were bare.
Finn shook his head as his name was called again and the figure in front of him came into focus. ‘Ava.’
She pushed a takeaway coffee towards him. ‘You specialise in looking like hell, don’t you?’
He gave a half-smile, accepting her offering gratefully. ‘Only for you.’
Ava looked at the cot, seeing more tubes than baby. ‘Big night, I hear.’
Finn nodded. He stood and looked down at his son, who had rapidly improved in just a few hours and was now only on CPAP via the ventilator to lightly support his own breathing rather than the machine doing the breathing for him.
‘This is just the half of it. Evie needed a manual removal of her placenta then part of it was left behind so she had to have a D and C as well. She only got back to her room at six.’ He still felt sick thinking about the fist that had squeezed a handful of his gut when Marco had come to tell him the news personally.
Ava nodded. ‘I know. I’ve just come from there.’
Finn looked up, eager for firsthand news of her. ‘You have? How’s she going?’
‘She’s sleeping. Bella’s with her.’
Finn nodded. He had called Bella a couple of hours ago because he didn’t want Evie to be alone. Lexi had been his first instinct but she was also dealing with a newborn and he figured she needed the sleep more. Bella had popped in briefly to see the baby, taken a picture, then gone to her sister.
‘Evie made me promise not to leave him until she got here.’
Ava smiled. ‘Of course she did. She’s a mum now. And what about you? How are you feeling now he’s here and it’s all a little more real?’
Finn shook his head. ‘More like surreal.’ He looked down at his tiny son, just over one kilo, everything in miniature but all still in perfect working order. His chest rose and fell robustly despite his little bird-like ribcage and his pulse oximeter bleeped away steadily in the background, picking up the strong, sure beating of his heart.
‘I’m scared. Worried. Petrified.’
‘But he’s doing well, yes?’
Finn nodded. ‘But I keep thinking about all the possibilities. Immature lungs. Intracranial haemorrhages. Infection. Jaundice. Cardiac complications. I can’t breathe when I think of all the things that can go wrong.’
‘Well, that’s one of the hazards of knowing just a little too much, I guess. But this little tyke is probably stronger than you think. He’s a tough guy, just like his daddy.’
Finn felt his heart contract and then expand so much it felt like it was filling his chest, the cold bands that had clamped around it the day Isaac had died shattering into a thousand pieces. He gazed at his son. ‘I love him more than I thought it possible to love anything.’
Ava smiled. ‘Of course, you’re a dad now.’
Three hours later Finn was watching his son take his first breaths off the ventilator. He’d done so well the team had extubated him and popped on some high-flow humidified nasal prongs. He’d fussed at first, his little hoarse squawk pinging Finn’s protective strings, but with a couple of sleepy blinks he’d settled and was, once again, getting on with the business of breathing unassisted.
Finn was watching his son through the open cot’s glass side panel when he heard some squeaking behind him and turned around to find Bella pushing her sister into the room in a wheelchair.
‘Evie?’ Finn stood, shocked by her pallor, covering the two steps separating them quickly, sinking to his knees in front of the wheelchair. She had dark rings under her eyes and her lips were dry. ‘Are you okay? I don’t think you should be out of bed.’
‘She shouldn’t be,’ Bella agreed. ‘But she threatened to pull her drip out and make a run for it if I didn’t bring her.’
‘I’m fine,’ Evie dismissed. Nothing else mattered to her right now more than seeing her baby. The little boy who’d been impatient to make his entry into the world.
He’d been the first thing on her mind when she’d woken from her anaesthetic and after letting weariness, exhaustion and well-intentioned people fob her off for the last few hours, she’d made her stand.
‘Push me closer, Bells,’ Evie demanded, bouncing in her seat a little, trying to get a better view. If she’d thought she could walk and not faint, she’d have been by his side already.
Finn stood. ‘Here. Let me.’
Bella stepped back. ‘I’ll give you two some privacy,’ she said. ‘Ring me, Finn, when Evie’s ready to go back and I can take her, or I can sit with the baby for a while if you like so you can stretch your legs.’
Finn nodded his thanks and pushed Evie over to the cot side. ‘Here he is,’ he murmured. ‘Master Impatient.’
Evie felt tears well in her eyes, overwhelmed by the fragile little human being they’d created dwarfed by the medical technology around him. He was wearing the tiniest disposable nappy Evie had ever seen and a little blue beanie. He looked like a doll and the mother in her wanted to scoop him up, clutch him to her breast, slay anyone who dared come near him, but the doctor knew he was better off right where he was for now.
She flattened her palm against the glass, too low in the chair to be able to reach in and too sore and weak to be able to stand but feeling the strength of their connection anyway. Their unbreakable bond.
‘Hello, baby, I’m your mummy,’ she whispered.
And she listened as Finn pulled up a chair beside her and recounted what had happened since they’d left her in the department. About how their son had improved in leaps and bounds and how incredibly stable his blood gases and body temp and sugar levels had been.
‘He’s done everything right, Evie.’ Finn placed a hand on her knee. ‘He’s a real little fighter.’
Evie nodded, tears blurring her vision. ‘Of course,’ she said, placing a hand over his and giving him a squeeze. She looked at him. ‘He’s just like his daddy.’
Finn’s heart almost broke at the shimmer of tears in her eyes. He never wanted her to hurt again. He’d watch her go through hell last night and then she’d gone through even more without him, and he didn’t want to ever be away from her again. He wanted to wrap them both up and love them for ever.
Finn turned his hand over and intertwined their fingers. ‘According to your father, he has the Lockheart brow.’
Evie laughed. ‘My father’s been?’
Finn nodded. ‘He and your mother called in briefly earlier. She agreed.’
‘My mother?’ They’d been making some inroads to their relationship in the last months since Bella had received her new lungs but Evie knew there was still a long way to go.
‘Well, they’re both wrong,’ she said, gazing at her son’s tiny face. Even all wizened, she could see the mark of Kennedy genes everywhere. ‘He has your brow. And your chin. And your nose. I don’t know about those fabulous cheekbones, though …’
Finn stared at them as he’d been doing for the last eight hours, trying not to remember why they were so familiar. ‘They’re Isaac’s,’ he whispered, finally admitting it. ‘According to Lydia, Isaac had cheekbones that belonged in Hollywood.’
Evie glanced at him. His voice was tinged with sadness and humour and regret. ‘I’m sorry he never got to see his nephew,’ she whispered, holding tight to his hand.
Finn nodded. ‘So am I. He’d have been a great uncle.’
And for the first time in a long time he remembered the happy times he and Isaac had shared instead of how it had all ended, and he could smile. How Isaac had always managed to find a baby to cuddle or a toddler to give a piggy-back ride to, wherever they’d ended up.
The baby squirmed, making a mewling noise like a tiny kitten and waving his little fists, no bigger than gumballs, in the air, dislodging a chest electrode and tripping an alarm. Evie’s gaze flew to the cot, her pulse spiking as a moment of fear gripped her, suddenly understanding how nerve-racking it must be for her patients to be in an unfamiliar environment with strange machines that made alarming noises.
‘It’s okay,’ the nurse said, unconcerned, as she pushed the alarm silence button. ‘Just lost a dot.’
She located the AWOL chest lead and replaced it back just below a collarbone that looked to Evie as spindly as a pipe cleaner. ‘There we go, little darling,’ the nurse crooned. ‘All fixed.’ She smiled at Finn and Evie. ‘Is there a name yet? Because we can call him little darling for ever but he might get teased when he goes to school,’ she joked.
Evie looked at Finn and then back at the nurse. ‘We hadn’t got that far,’ she said helplessly, already feeling like she’d failed her tiny little son twice. Once for not being able to keep him inside where he’d desperately needed to stay for a good while longer and now not having a name to give to him.
‘Well, there’s no rush,’ she murmured. ‘But a wee little guy like this needs a warrior’s name, I reckon.’
Evie couldn’t agree more and as the nurse fussed over the lines in the cot she knew with sudden clarity what to call him. ‘Isaac,’ she said to the nurse. ‘His name’s Isaac.’
The nurse smiled. ‘Isaac,’ she repeated. ‘Ooh, that’s good. Strong. Noble.’ She looked down at the tiny baby in her care and said, ‘Welcome to the world, Isaac.’
Evie smiled through another spurt of tears as the nurse bustled away. She turned to face Finn. ‘Is that okay with you?’
Finn’s chest was so tight he thought it might just implode from the pressure. He was shocked to feel moisture stinging his eyes and a lump in his throat that barely allowed for the passage of air. He forced himself to look at her instead of turning away or blinking the tears back, like he’d done for so many years. He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d allowed himself to cry. Not even as the life had ebbed from his brother’s eyes had he broken down.
He’d just shut down. Gone numb.
And it had taken this woman and this tiny scrap of humanity to bring him back.
‘I think that would be quite wonderful,’ he whispered, his voice thick with emotion.
‘But could you hear it every day, Finn?’ she probed, her voice gentle. ‘Would it make you sad every day?’
Finn shook his head. ‘No. I’ve spent a decade of my life trying to forget what happened and all I’ve managed to do is erase all the good things as well. I think it’s time I remembered them also.’
Evie nodded, squeezing her hand. It sounded like a damn fine plan to her. ‘Do you think Lydia will mind?’
Finn smiled. ‘I think she’d be delighted.’
‘Good,’ Evie murmured. ‘Good. Isaac it is.’
They smiled at each other for a long moment then turned to gaze lovingly at their son. Finn slid a hand onto Evie’s shoulder. ‘I’ve been such an idiot,’ he said as he watched Isaac’s little puffy breaths kick his rib cage up and down.
‘You were grieving,’ Evie dismissed, also watching her son, trying to absorb every tiny detail about him.
‘I don’t mean that. I mean about what I said the other night. After we’d …’
‘Oh,’ Evie said, glancing at his profile. ‘That.’
‘All I have to do is look at him and I feel this incredible surge of love rise in me.’ Finn didn’t take his eyes off Isaac’s face. ‘And I don’t even know where it comes from or that I even had it in me but I do know that it’s deep and wide and unfathomable and if I live to be a hundred I’d never get to the bottom of it.’
He looked at Evie then and she was watching him so intently, and he needed her to know, to understand so she could never, ever doubt that he loved Isaac. ‘I was so, so worried that I wouldn’t, Evie. I was terrified. But it’s like … it’s just there. It’s suddenly just there.’
Evie felt his relief and wonder and even though she’d never really doubted that he would feel this way about his own flesh in blood he’d been so bleak, so convinced the other night when he’d left that she’d felt her first prickle of unease.
She smiled at him. ‘I know.’
‘It’s like a … miracle.’ He laughed. ‘This love is like a bloody miracle. It’s so different from anything I’ve ever felt before.’
Evie smiled but it felt forced in comparison to his obvious high. She was ecstatic that he knew what she’d always known—that he’d take to fatherhood, revel in it even. But part of her wished a little of that miracle was coming her way.
That he’d look at her and talk about the miracle of the love he felt for her. A very different love from what he was talking about now.
Because while Isaac needed Finn’s love, so did she. The kind of love that would fill her soul and warm her days.
A man’s love for a woman.
‘And you,’ Finn said, shaking his head, in awe of what she’d been through. ‘You are amazing. Incredible. What your body has done is truly awesome.’ He looked at his son, so small but so perfect. ‘Isaac and I are so lucky to have you and I’m going to spend the rest of my life taking care of you. Nothing … nothing will be too good for the mother of my child. I love you, Evie,’ he said, watching Isaac. ‘I couldn’t have picked a more perfect mother if I’d tried.’
Evie’s breath caught at the words she’d been waiting to hear ever since they’d met at that hospital function five years ago. And they felt so empty.
He was on his daddy high and she was the mother of his child swept up in the raw newness of him coming inside after a long cold winter.
Suddenly she felt overwhelmingly tired.