Emma, page 7
There were lesser degrees, and some of those with the gene lived normal lives to pass away without signs of the dormant time bomb, but the worst-case scenario—the definition reeled off his brain and he murmured it out loud. ‘Hereditary disorder with mental and physical deterioration, leading to death.’ The bottom dropped out of his stomach. ‘Emma has inherited this gene?’
Louisa spread her hands in a helpless gesture. ‘I never did understand the genetics, though my late husband tried to explain it. I was always under the impression she did, but that’s something you’d have to ask Emma.’
Of course. But perhaps not something you could mention as you ducked under a branch. Dio. Poor sweet, adorable Emma.
Another tragedy-laced thought followed and Gianni winced and looked down at his own steady hand. ‘And her daughter? Grace?’
‘Aye. The wee one is Emma’s main concern.’
Of course. He needed to research. Adesso. He washed his hands. ‘I will return shortly.’
‘Off you go, then. Dinner will be half an hour and I can stretch it for another fifteen if you hit a snag.’ Louisa shooed him away. She understood.
Gianni switched on his computer a few minutes later.
He read up on the disease process for Huntington’s to refresh his memory, the statistics of having the gene and the worst-case scenario and, finally, he made a search with Emma’s name. Louisa had said she’d told her story.
There she was.
Her photo stared out at him, smiling into his with a serenity that made him ache, the face of Huntington’s in Queensland, and her family story.
He read how her mother’s diagnosis had been unexpected, a run of early accidental deaths of close relatives had masked the genetic footprints that led to expected diagnosis, and only the progression of the disease, awkward and jerky movements, and the slow deterioration of both physical and mental self-sufficiency had pointed to the answer.
One in ten thousand sufferers.
Around three hundred and fifty sufferers in Queensland.
Was Emma one of those?
His eyes skimmed as he searched for the place where she discussed her own testing and results and couldn’t see it. He searched again, and still didn’t know whether she’d been tested. But she must have. How could anyone not want to find out?
What he did see was her brothers’ diagnoses and that both were positive. Gianni sighed. Cruel fall of the dice for a fifty per cent chance. He eased his neck and stood up. He would eat and return to this site when he could see the screen and not Emma’s face.
Chapter Thirteen
Emma
The next morning, still bereft of birthing women, Emma returned to Emergency. Today, Emma felt Gianni’s eyes on her wherever she walked. There was something different in his appraisal this morning.
Grey smudges darkened his eyes and frown lines came and went on his forehead. He smothered another yawn with his hand. What had he done last night? Had he also had trouble resting or had he been too merrily oblivious to the turmoil he’d left for Emma?
She gave up the struggle not to ask. ‘Big night, Gianni?’ She’d had very little sleep and most of the reason could be laid at the door of Gianni Bonmarito.
His gaze flicked to the empty doorway and back. No patients to distract him. ‘I was studying a case on the internet.’
And she’d thought it was because of her and their conversation by the path. Silly girl. ‘Was that wise with a work day ahead?’
The gravity in his face as he considered her question made her frown. ‘We all make choices,’ he said.
Huh? She’d been teasing but apparently his sense of humour was way different to hers. And she was tired. ‘You’re too deep for me today.’
The emergency doors opened and she looked up. ‘You need to see these people. This little boy, Lucas, has haemophilia. He’s probably had a fall.’
Gianni looked across and nodded. ‘Grazie.’
He strode across in that unhurried graceful stride of his that covered ground with deceptive speed and Emma watched him greet the newcomers. Even with the little exposure she’d had to him she could tell there was something on his mind. Maybe there was someone at his home who’d become sick. She needed to remember he had a family and a life away from here. Another reason it would never work.
She’d decided last night there’d be no happy ending to an affair with Gianni Bonmarito. Even a brief one. It was just that the inner Emma had argued there was no happy ending anywhere, so maybe she should grab what she could of the good life.
But that’s what she was doing already. Enjoying her daughter and the fabulous friends she’d made in the Huntington’s network – she’d been privileged to talk to those affected from all over Australia – and the community of Lyrebird Lake cared for her like an extra family.
A broken heart was the last thing she needed when she had enough to concentrate on. And she had no doubt her heart would break when Gianni Bonmarito left for Italy because already it ached just looking at him from across the room.
But it was lonely while she waited.
The emergency doors opened and Emma’s brothers, Russell and Craig, brought in another stretchered patient. Every time she saw her brothers she ached.
Russell, the second of her brothers to test positive for the gene, had now gone on to make a life for himself. Happily married to a wonderful woman and with genetic help at conception, they planned to have babies in the future. She considered her brothers the bravest people she knew.
She just wasn’t that brave.
Emma smiled at them but they didn’t return it, which made her gaze sharpen. She recognised the patient. Seamus.
Christine’s Irish husband. The truck whisperer, they all called him. His rapport with anything mechanical was legendary. Recently returned from Africa where he’d been paid handsomely to resurrect a rare vintage fire engine for a minor dictator, but it seemed Christine’s big anniversary night had been short-lived. Seamus lay with his pale skin blotched with fever and his red hair a damp sweaty mop, tossing on an ambulance stretcher.
His eyes squinted as he groaned in distress and guarded his knees when Emma helped to slide him across to the bed. Joint pain? She stood back and rubbed her fingers where the heat from his body had been absorbed into hers. He was burning up. Ominous, Emma fretted, and glanced at her brothers. ‘What happened?’
‘We had our weekly fishing trip yesterday and he was fine. Today he’s as sick as a dog and he seems even worse now than when we picked him up,’ Russell said. ‘He didn’t have a hope of driving in.’
Emma waved to catch Christine’s attention as she began to hook up the cardiac and oxygen saturation monitors.
‘Gianni.’ Emma’s voice carried to where Gianni was chatting with Lucas’s mother and he looked up. He too made his way down to the bed.
They both arrived at the same time and Christine took her husband’s hand in shock and with her other smoothed his brow. ‘What happened? What’s wrong?’
‘Seamus is Christine’s husband, Gianni.’ Emma glanced at the other woman. ‘Will I take over up there, Christine?’
Christine dragged her eyes away from her man’s face. ‘Oh.’ She blinked worried eyes. ‘Thanks. Yes, please, Emma. I’ll call you if I need help here.’
Emma left them to Seamus but her concentration was divided between the two ends of the room as she helped ice the swelling above little Lucas’s knee from his fall.
‘The bleeding under the skin seems to have stopped,’ Lucas’s mother said.
‘Did the doctor say you could go?’ Emma picked up the notes and scanned them to see Gianni’s orders.
Lucas’s mum nodded. ‘It stopped sooner than we’d thought it would.’ She looked at her husband. ‘We probably didn’t need to bring him in and waste your time but I always worry when he falls.’
‘You absolutely did the right thing.’ Emma nodded her head to reinforce the message. ‘Never hesitate. Listen to your instinct.’ Emma believed that passionately and that went for midwifery, as well. ‘A worried mother never wastes our time, and it gave Dr Bonmarito a chance to meet your Lucas without a big emergency.’
The little boy’s parents looked relieved. ‘As long as you’re sure?’ They all looked at Gianni down the end of the room. ‘He was very good with Lucas. We need more good doctors now Dr Ned has gone. Is he here for long?’
‘A month, while Dr Angus is away, and then he has to return home.’ There was no uncertainty. Emma needed to remember that herself.
The little boy spoke up. ‘Can we go home now?’ Emma recognised the darting looks Lucas directed at the door and she bit back a smile. He’d had enough. Lucas wanted out of hospital before someone did something to him, like stick a needle in him or put up a drip, which usually happened.
Emma shook her head. ‘Soon, buddy. I just need to take some blood first. Is that okay?’
Lucas sighed resignedly. ‘I knew it.’
They all smiled and his father ruffled his son’s hair. ‘Have I told you how proud I am of you today, Lucas?’
Lucas brightened. ‘Do I get a treat?’
‘You don’t have to make your bed this morning,’ his mother teased, but everyone knew a treat was in the offing.
After they’d gone, Emma finished up the last of the patients to be discharged and tidied her end of the ward before she drifted back down towards the critically ill Seamus. They’d taken blood, run through two litres of fluid and given paracetamol for the fever and his aches and pains, but there was talk of transferring him to Brisbane if he worsened.
* * *
By lunchtime the pathology results were back for Christine’s husband and as Gianni had suspected Seamus had brought home an infection from Africa. Dengue antibodies were isolated and at least they knew what had caused his fever. The implications for his family were something nobody discounted. Seamus must have incubated the bug since he’d been home and now three weeks later he was sick.
‘This threat is cross-infection to others. More so if bitten by the local mosquitoes,’ Gianni told Christine. ‘I have seen many epidemics in disaster areas. In the cycle of dengue, the female mosquito feeds on an infected and viraemic human. Ten days in the salivary glands of that mosquito to become infected for life. That way the disease is spread to other humans. Thus an outbreak.’
He glanced at the wall clock. ‘I will notify the local infectious-diseases department but doubt action with only one case.’
Christine held her husband’s hand. ‘How soon will he feel better?’
‘A week at least,’ Gianni said, ‘though sometimes, a relapse for a few days.’
Emma remembered that adults were more likely to be infected than children, because the town had had a small outbreak a few years ago, but children could become quite ill with the worst forms of the disease. She’d have to watch Grace.
Gianni went on. ‘Headaches and muscle pain will become worse. Perhaps gastric symptoms. This part of the disease process has to pass before he will improve sufficiently to feel normal.’
Christine stroked her husband’s forehead. ‘Does he have to stay in hospital? Can we do anything for him by keeping him in, that I can’t do at home?’
‘Perhaps not now he is rehydrated, and as you are such an excellent nurse... ‘ He smiled. Patted Christine’s arm. ‘As long as he drinks. He will be sick and uncomfortable, if you think you can manage.’
Christine looked at Seamus who muttered, ‘Let’s try home, love.’
Emma touched Christine’s arm. ‘I’ll set up a roster. Someone will come to see you morning and afternoon to give you a hand.’
That was how it worked in Lyrebird Lake. If someone needed help, the load was shared through the network of friends, especially with those who worked at the hospital. ‘I’ll come around in the morning and help with his sponge and changing the bed,’ Emma promised.
Gianni continued, ‘If he worsens, ring for an ambulance again and bring him back. For isolation. Otherwise, paracetamol for the pain and fever. No aspirin or anti-inflammatory drugs because of the risk of bleeding.’
Gianni laid his hand on her arm. ‘Keep the insect repellent on all of you. We do not want any mosquitoes that have bitten Seamus, biting you. Or your son.’
‘Patrick,’ Emma said quietly.
Gianni nodded. ‘Is your son, Patrick, old enough to empty any plant pots with water and clear away piles of leaves. It is best when there is no water lying around for mosquitoes to breed in.’
If they haven’t already bred, Emma thought, and promised herself she’d check around her own house.
Gianni hadn’t finished. ‘A mosquito net over Seamus through the day, as well. Remember it is those mosquitoes that feed morning and afternoon that pass on dengue, not those at night.’
Christine nodded. ‘I’ll get Patrick to see to it.’
They strapped Seamus, head drooping, in the passenger seat of Christine’s car and Gianni closed the door for them.
They stood together as Christine and her husband drove off.
‘That’s how it spread last time, a teacher back from Indonesia and then through the local insects.’ She watched the car drive away with a worried frown. ‘Do you think she’ll manage? He’s a big man.’
Gianni shrugged. ‘It is the right of a wife to care for her husband. And vice versa. If he’s too much for her to handle?’ That particular elegant shrug. ‘Then we can care for him here. Or if he becomes more unwell, he will be transferred out to Brisbane.’
They turned to go back inside. ‘I think your Christine needs to try at home first. You seem to have a good support system in place.’
‘We do.’ She stripped the bed and wiped it over. To her surprise, Gianni returned the monitors to their place against the wall and cleared the paper litter. She hadn’t imagined he was used to helping nurses. To cover her confusion, Emma rattled on. ‘I called Montana earlier about staffing with Christine off. We’ll finish the shift one down but she’ll cover Christine’s shifts for the next few days with my friend Tammy.’
Gianni helped her tuck the sheet in and then watched her as she slid the new cover over a pillow. ‘It is a very efficient service here. I’ve never worked in a hospital that feels as close knit and supportive as your Lyrebird Lake.’
‘Thank you.’ She looked at him and could tell he was sincere. No doubt it would be totally different to his work conditions in extreme environments. ‘I imagine it’s pretty fraught when you arrive at disasters with very little back-up. Here we have Andy for the doctors and Montana for the nurses. They’re both great troubleshooters. They’ve been here since before Grace was born.’
‘And one day, your daughter, Grace, she will work here too?’ He smiled and she nodded.
She just hoped she was well enough to see that.
Emma checked one last time around the tidy room and realised there was just the two of them now the influx of patients had cleared. ‘Cup of tea? Might be a good idea to have lunch—this place is feast or a famine with patients.’
Gianni also looked around and she could see his surprise that the ward was empty. ‘You finished everyone. They have gone home? Well done, when we weren’t looking.’
She felt a little glow from his praise. A glow was safe enough. As long as he didn’t touch her. ‘You’d written in their notes, so no problem. We’re a good team.’
There was a pause as they both thought about what she’d said, and suddenly the banter died.
‘Everyone who works here is a good team,’ Emma said quickly, and turned away. ‘Have you any lunch or do you want to go to the kiosk and buy something? I’ve brought mine.’ Not that she felt like eating. ‘I’ll watch the door as I eat.’
‘Louisa has packed my lunch. Like a bambino. She gives me fruit, as well.’ He shrugged and grinned, and she saw for a moment the small boy he’d been many years ago.
‘Lucky you.’
Bummer, Emma thought. So much for him giving her a brief respite. She chewed her lip. Of course, Louisa would enjoy looking after a man again. For herself, she wished Louisa hadn’t.
Five minutes to get her head together would have been very welcome.
They moved to the tearoom, through an open door adjacent to the emergency entry, and both sighed as they sank with relief onto the chairs in the little room.
He was so close.
Emma slid across to the far edge of her chair. The space was much too small to sit comfortably with Gianni, Emma grumbled to herself. Strange when she’d had many a pleasant break in here with Christine.
He opened his lunch and bit into a roll with relish.
Emma looked at her salad and put the lid back on it. How did you behave normally with a man you barely knew yet knew intimately? Where did she look? How could she make her body ignore the fact that he’d touched every inch of her with magic and she him?
She picked up a magazine and fanned herself before she realised what she was doing. Horrified she’d given herself away, she replaced it carefully on the table. Her eyes slid across to his and found him watching her. With the barest hint of a smile on his face, but it was enough for her to know. Her face flamed.
‘Well, it is embarrassing.’
‘Si. ’ His dark eyes softened on hers. ‘Perhaps a little.’ And he smiled again. ‘But delightful.’
She rolled her eyes. ‘Great. You find it delightful that I want to sink into a hole in the ground.’
‘I have no shame, only if I have caused you distress, and neither should you.’ He turned to face her fully, and before she realised it he’d lifted the hand from her lap and clasped it in his.
In that movement he could make her feel small and protected. Something she hadn’t felt since Gianni had left.
‘No,’ he said earnestly. ‘Shame is not what you should be feeling. You should feel pride at bestowing a precious, healing gift on a man who had no expectation of feeling life again.’ He glanced around as if for support. ‘You asked me not to contact you. That it was a moment in time for you, so instead I thought of you. Every moment. But in the end, I am glad of my chance to see you again.’
