tiny baby and stroked his little cheek.
‘Does Sean know?’ Isla asked.
‘No one knows,’ Isabel said. ‘No one is ever to know about this.’ She looked at Isla, her eyes urgent. ‘You have to promise me that you will never, ever tell anyone.’
Some promises were too big to make, though.
‘I have to tell Evie,’ Isla said.
‘Isla, please, no one must know.’
‘And so what are we supposed to do with him?’ Isla demanded.
‘I don’t know.’
‘You know what you don’t want me to do, though. You know that he needs to be properly taken care of,’ Isla said, and Isabel nodded tearfully.
‘You won’t tell anyone else,’ Isabel sobbed. ‘Promise me, Isla.’
‘I promise.’
Isla sped through the house and to Evie. The elderly housekeeper was terribly distressed at first, but then she calmed down and dealt with things. She understood, better than most, the scandal this might cause and the terrible impact it would have on Isabel if it ever got out. She had a sister who worked in a hospital in the outer suburbs and Evie called her and asked what to do.
Isla sat, her tears still flowing as she recalled the drive out of the city to the suburbs. Isabel was holding the tiny baby and crying beside her till the lights of the hospital came into view. Evie’s sister met them and Isabel was put in a wheelchair and taken to Maternity, with Isla following behind. The midwife who had greeted them had been so lovely to Isabel, just so calm, wise and efficient.
‘What happens now?’ Isla asked. It was as if only then had they noticed that Isabel’s young sister was there and she was shown to a small waiting room.
It had been the last time Isla had seen her nephew.
She didn’t really know what had gone on.
Evie had come in at one point and said that the baby was too small to be registered. Isla hadn’t known what that meant other than that no one would have to find out.
Her parents would later question Isla’s decision to become a midwife. They had deemed that it wasn’t good enough for a Delamere girl but Isla had stood by her calling.
She’d wanted to be as kind and as calm as the staff had been with Isabel that night.
With one modification.
Though her sister had been gently dealt with by midwives who had been used to terrified sixteen-year-old girls who did not want their parents to find out, one person had been forgotten.
Isla had sat alone and unnoticed in the waiting room.
Now she knew things should have been handled differently—the midwives, the obstetrician, at least one of them should have recognised Isla’s terror and spoken at length with her about what had happened. They should have come in and taken care of the twelve-year-old girl who had just delivered her dead nephew. They should have carefully explained that the baby had been born at around eighteen weeks gestation, which had meant that there was nothing Isla could have possibly done to save him.
It would be many years before Isla got those answers and she’d had to find them out for herself.
Yes, that night had left scars.
Despite appearances, despite her immaculate clothes and long glossy hair and seemingly spectacular social life, Isla had equated sex with disaster. Not logically, of course, but throughout her teenage years she had avoided dating boys and in her final year at school Rupert had seemed the perfect solution. Still she’d kept the secret of that night to herself.
She had promised her sister after all.
ISLA DID WHAT she could to repair the damage to her face—her eyelids were puffy, her nose was red and her lips swollen. Isla never cried. Even at the most difficult births she was very aware that even a single tear might lead back to that memory and so she kept her emotions in check.
Always.
She put on some sunglasses and made her way to Arrivals, where she stood, her eyes moving between the three exit doors and wondering if she would even recognise Darcie when she came out.
As it turned out, it was Darcie who recognised her.
‘Isla!’ Her name was called from behind the rail and the second she turned Isla’s face broke into a smile.
‘I was watching the wrong door.’ Isla greeted Darcie with a hug. ‘Happy New Year,’ she said.
‘Happy New Year, to you, too.’ Darcie smiled.
‘I was starting to worry that I wouldn’t recognise you when you came out,’ Isla admitted.
‘Well, I certainly recognised you. You’re as gorgeous as you are in the magazine I was just …’ Darcie’s voice trailed off and she went a bit pink, perhaps guessing that the article she had read on the plane might not be Isla’s favourite topic, given that it had revealed Rupert’s infidelity.
Isla let that comment go and they stepped out into the morning sun. Melbourne was famous for its fickle weather but this morning the sky was silver blue and the sun had been firmly turned on to welcome Darcie.
‘It shouldn’t take too long to get home,’ Isla said as they hit the morning rush-hour traffic. ‘Did you get much sleep on the plane?’
‘Not really.’ Darcie shook her head. ‘I shan’t be much company today.’
‘That’s fine.’ Isla smiled. ‘I’m dropping you home and then I’ll be going into work so you’ll have the place to yourself.’
‘You should have told me that you were working this morning!’ Darcie said. ‘I could have taken a taxi. You didn’t have to come out to the airport to meet me.’
‘It was no problem and I was there anyway to see Isabel off.’
‘Oh, of course you were.’ Darcie glanced at Isla. Despite the repair job that Isla had done with make-up and dark glasses, it was quite clear to Darcie that she had been crying. Now, though, Darcie thought she knew why. ‘It must have been hard to say goodbye to your sister.’
‘It was,’ Isla admitted. ‘I’m going to miss her a lot, though I bet she’s going to have an amazing year in England.’
They chatted easily as they drove into Melbourne. Isla pointed out a few landmarks—Federation Square and the Arts Centre—and Darcie said she couldn’t wait to get on a tram.
‘We’ll be catching one tonight,’ Isla told her. ‘I’ve organised for some colleagues to get together and have drinks tonight. It’s a bit of a tradition on the maternity unit that we all try to get together before a new staff member starts, just so we can get most of the introductions out of
