Page 219 of Feathers in the Wind
Mark shot a glance at Christian, now seated on my lap, playing with one of the drug company mannequins he had pulled off the desk.
He ran his hand through his thinning hair. ‘I’ll do it for the kid, Jess. Not for you or for whatever his name is.’
I rose to my feet. ‘Nathaniel Preston. Thank you, Mark. I won’t forget this.’
‘Do you have the money to foot this operation?’
I nodded. ‘I still have a little left over from my parents’ estate.’
‘And you’d blow it on someone else’s child?’ Mark stared at me, his lip curled in what looked like a sneer.
‘He’s not just anyone,’ I said as I closed the door.
* * *
Waitingrooms of hospitals are grim places at the best of times, let alone when you have a small child undergoing surgery.
The wait was taking its toll on both of us. The worst thing a doctor can do is become emotionally involved with a patient, and I had complete faith in Mark and his team but the minutes ticked by with agonising slowness. I forced myself to flick through dog eared magazines filled with endless photographs and gossip about Princess Diana and her latest flame.
After a cursory inspection of modern royalty, Nat lost interest and if he had not been on crutches, he would have been pacing the floor instead of tapping the toe of his shoe with the end of the crutch.
The last few days had not been easy. Nat, like most convalescent males, was not the best of patients but I found Christian took most of my time and energy. Despite my years of medical training, adjusting to life with a two-year-old, particularly an ill two-year-old, in an unfamiliar setting, presented its challenges.
Nat did what he could but, as dislocated as his son and hampered by the injury to his leg, he drew into himself and spent the day propped up on the sofa watching television. Even the crutches I borrowed for him didn’t improve his mood.
The reality of Nat’s situation began when I handed Nat a pen to sign the consents. As he turned it over in his hand, I sighed. He’d had no cause to write on his previous visit. A modern biro would be completely unfamiliar. He pushed the forms to one side, drew a piece of paper toward him and scratched his signature a few times. I grimaced; the florid seventeenth-century writing would raise questions. He huffed out an exasperated sigh and after some practice reduced his signature to a more acceptable basic twentieth-century scrawl.
We had a long road to travel.
‘How much longer?’ Nat asked, breaking the silence.
He had wanted to know what the surgery entailed so I had pulled out my text books and gone through it in detail with him. I’m not sure if it helped.
‘A few more hours. It's complex surgery, Nat.’ I set aside my magazine. ‘Coffee?’ I offered.
He shook his head.
‘Is there a chapel here?’ he asked. I nodded and pointed down the corridor.
He rose awkwardly to his feet and settled the crutches. ‘Show me.’
I led him to the peaceful room and he sat on one of the chairs. He looked up at me and gave me a small, tight smile. ‘Do you mind leaving me, Jessie?’
I shut the door and returned to the waiting room to drink another cup of warm, vaguely coffee-flavored water from the machine in the corner.
By the time Mark came out of the surgery, Nat had returned. He struggled to his feet, his face taut with expectation. Mark looked exhausted and I read the signs. It had not been as straightforward as he would have liked.
‘He’s through,’ Mark said, ‘but the damage was worse than the scans had indicated. He’s a very sick little boy.’ He turned to Nat. ‘How in God’s name did he get to this age without any doctor picking it up?’
Nat met his accusatory eyes. ‘We were not living anywhere near doctors,’ he replied.
‘Where the hell were you living? The Amazon jungle?’
‘Mark!’
He glared at me and his expression softened as he ran a hand over his eyes. ‘Sorry, just a little tired. He’s in recovery. Gown up, if you want to sit with him.’
How many times had I stood in the intensive care unit, just as I did now, looking down at a patient, wondering whether he would live or die, whether we had done enough? Now, for the first time in my life, that professional concern was tinged with sheer panic. What if, after all we had been through, we lost him?
