Page 34 of Prognosis Do Over

That was what maternity leave was for, after all. Getting ready for the birth and bringing the baby home.

Her grand plans to attack the nursery this weekend had died a quick death with her back pain and the tiredness that had hit her from out of the blue. She turned the taps off and resolved to start preparations tomorrow.

Please, Jan, if you’re out there, let me get this right.

There was a hive of activity in the hospital canteen when she arrived. A stage had been set up down at the far end, and crowds of people were milling around. Patients in their pyjamas, some of the kids from Ward Two with their parents, nurses, doctors, domestics, physios, reps from the local leukaemia foundation and even some local media.

The clown doctors were there too, spreading their cheer, twisting balloons and pulling coins out of the air for the kids.

Somebody spied her and started to cheer, and everyone turned and looked and then joined in. She blushed and made her way to the Ward Two crowd, who were waving madly at her.

‘Goodness,’ she said. ‘Is anyone manning the ward?’

Lydia laughed. ‘We’re covered. Don’t worry.’

‘Are you ready?’ Pete asked, holding up the clippers and turning them on so they buzzed threateningly.

‘Is it too late to change my mind?’

Pete laughed. ‘Yes.’

A low voice growled in her ear, ‘No.’

Lou felt the kick in her chest a second before she registered that the words had come from Will. She turned to look at him. He was gorgeous. ‘Hello, Will,’ she said, going for a teasing, friendly tone. They were friends, after all, right? ‘Are you ready?’

‘Piece of cake,’ he grinned.

‘Where’s Candy?’

‘Over getting a balloon animal,’ he said, turning to watch his daughter patiently waiting in a short line.

Lou watched her too. She was so much like Will. She wondered what a daughter of theirs would look like. Would she be the spitting image of her big sister? More Will than her? Or would she be a perfect blend of them both — Will’s brown eyes and her honey-blonde hair? Will’s height but her petiteness?

Candy spotted Lou and she waved excitedly. ‘She looks like she’s having a ball,’ Lou said.

He grinned. ‘She loves the clown doctors. She’s decided she wants to be one when she grows up.’

‘Really?’ Lou laughed. ‘There are worse things she could be.’

Candy dashed over to them a few moments later. ‘Lou, Lou,’ she said, ‘look at what the clown doctors twisted me. It’s a green and pink zebra.’

‘So it is,’ said Lou, looking at the bizarrely garish animal. ‘Very...talented.’

‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ said Harold into the microphone from up on the stage. It broke through the chatter in the room, ‘if you could all please be seated, we can get the Shave for a Cure under way.’

It was great entertainment. There were six stools on the stage. They brought up the willing victims in sixes, caped them, and then six eager apprentice cutters either shaved or coloured.

The audience cheered and clapped and wolf whistled. Raffle tickets were sold and then drawn at intervals throughout the morning. Pete had set a twenty-thousand-dollar fundraising target which, thanks to Lou, they were going to achieve easily.

It kept Lou’s mind off her backache and rib-ache and the Braxton Hicks that kept coming with monotonous irregularity. Candy chattered to her excitedly and her enthusiasm was infectious and, before she knew it, it was their turn.

Will and herself.

And, as they were the two star attractions, Harold got them up on the stage together.

‘Okay, folks, a lot of interest has been raised in the hospital over these two heads. Dr William Galligher, our staff paediatrician, and Sister Louise Marsden, Ward Two’s Nurse Unit Manager. Or at least she was until Friday.’

There was general cheering, and Harold smiled enthusiastically and waited for it to die down. ‘Now, Will has decided to go for a colour—’ The crowd interjected, booing good-naturedly and clucking at him like a henhouse full of chooks. ‘So we’re going to do him first and leave the real draw card to last.’

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