her ‘jobs’ well.
‘It worked for a while,’ Caroline sighed, ‘but he walked out on us when Jadie was two.’
‘That must have been tough.’
‘Yeah.’ The tone was bitter. ‘If it hadn’t been for my mum, I wouldn’t have survived.’
‘You were lucky to have her, then.’ Hannah had had no family to help her. She had had to cope on her own. Emotionally, financially, physically. It hadn’t been easy but it had made her strong and in retrospect Hannah was glad it had been that way. She could handle whatever life chose to throw at her now, which was why the odd feeling that there was something looming to be afraid of was so disconcerting. She had been through so much— what could happen that would be worse?
She tuned out the sound of Caroline’s voice listing the various crises with unpaid bills and the usual medical woes involved in raising a child as the horrible thought struck. Had she been tempting fate telling William about her daughter’s fantastic immune system? Or boasting that she never got sick? Livvy could get sick. Really sick. That would be the worst thing that could happen. A need to see her child and reassure herself followed hot on the heels of acknowledging that fear, and Hannah stole a glance at her watch. At this rate it might be hours before she could leave to collect her daughter.
‘I did most of it by myself.’ Caroline sounded defensive now. ‘I’m a good mother. I never put Jadie in child care. I did everything for her. I still do.’
Hannah simply nodded again. She wasn’t going to allow her own guilt buttons regarding child care to be pushed. She’d never been lucky enough to have a choice. Not with the kind of debt that medical training had left her with. She focused on Caroline as she finished her cup of tea. There were enough clues to make Hannah believe that a psychiatric evaluation of Jadine’s family circumstances would be worthwhile.
‘Jadine should be back in her room by now.’ Hannah stood up to signal an end to the conversation. ‘Will you be staying in with her tonight?’
‘I can’t.’
Hannah couldn’t help looking surprised. During the previous three admissions, it had been an uphill battle to persuade Caroline to even take an extended break from being with her daughter.
‘I’ve got a…date,’ Caroline confessed as she followed Hannah from the office. ‘He lives in Wellington and doesn’t get down this way very often. I’ll be back first thing in the morning, though.’
‘That’s fine,’ Hannah said calmly. ‘We’ll take good care of Jadine.’
She tucked the additional snippet of information away. So Caroline’s attention was being diverted to some extent away from her daughter. Munchausen’s was still a possibility but maybe it wasn’t by proxy. Perhaps Jadine was trying to find a way of dealing with the competition or a perceived rejection by her mother. Hannah’s query as the two women neared Room 4 was deliberately casual.
‘Does Jadine’s father still see her at all?’
‘No.’ The response was vehement. ‘And I intend to keep it that way, thanks.’
Hannah was quite grateful for an interruption from William, which precluded digging any further into the new can of worms she had opened regarding Jadine Milton’s family problems. He waited until Caroline had gone through the door of Room 4.
‘I’ve got Jamie’s serum electrolyte results. Sodium’s well above 150 mmol per litre so he’s hypernatraemic.’
‘Have you adjusted the IV solution?’
‘I’ve started 0.2 normal saline in 4.3 per cent glucose.’
‘Plus KCl?’
William nodded. ‘Thirty to 40 mmol per litre.’
‘Good. Restrict fluid to 150 mmol per kilo for the first twenty-four hours. We need to aim for total correction over about forty-eight hours. How’s he looking?’
‘A lot better.’
‘That’s good.’ Hannah was eyeing her open office door and thinking of the phone on her desk. A quick call to the Maysfield Child Care Centre to set her own mind at rest would make her feel a lot better. ‘Anything else going on that I should know about?’
‘No. Things are pretty quiet generally. About time you headed home, isn’t it?’
‘I won’t argue with that.’ It was only 4 p.m. but Hannah always started at 7.30 a.m. so she could leave before 5 when she wasn’t on call and get a few hours with Livvy before bedtime. She could take her paperwork home with her. It might take a while to find an appropriate way to document her suspicions about Jadine Milton, and a quiet hour late this evening would be a lot easier than trying to do it here, with the inevitable interruptions that would occur.
It would also mean she didn’t have to appear overanxious by ringing the child care centre with no reason other than to enquire whether her daughter looked healthy. She would find out soon enough for herself. Prompted by her desire to get away, Hannah hurriedly bundled up the paperwork she needed from her desk, stuffing it into her briefcase as she headed briskly for the door. She hadn’t quite secured her armload as she entered the corridor and turned to pull her door shut. Her movements were still swift. Far too swift to prevent a near collision as she swung around again to move towards the exit.
‘Whoops!’ Peter Smiley’s tone commiserated for the fact that Hannah’s paperwork was now strewn all over the floor but Hannah couldn’t have cared less about the mishap. She hadn’t even seen the shower of paper. She was too stunned to move her gaze away from the man standing beside Peter.
‘I was just coming to find you,’ Peter said cheerfully. ‘We’re doing the tour.’ Anything odd about Hannah’s expression was apparently being dismissed as embarrassment due to a clumsy moment. ‘This is our new consultant surgeon for Paediatrics, Hannah…Jack Douglas.’
Suddenly Hannah knew that her premonition had had nothing to do with her job application. Or any challenging case. Or her daughter’s state of health.
She had been right to trust her instincts because the premonition of disaster had been spot on.
The disaster was standing right in front of her. As large as life. And its mouth was moving. A rich, deep rumble of words sent reinforcements to enhance the paralysing visual effects Hannah was still experiencing.
‘Hello, Hannah,’ Jack Douglas said. ‘This is a bit of a surprise, isn’t it?’
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