Lisa. She screwed her eyes closed as screams carried through the department. Jed must have broken the news.
She just wanted to go home to her own baby, could not stand to think of their grief.
‘Are you okay, Jasmine?’ Vanessa asked as she stocked her trolley to take into Resus, preparing to wash and dress the baby so that his parents could hold him.
‘I’ll get there.’ She just wanted the shift to be over, to ring her mum and check that Simon was okay, for the past hour not to have happened, because it wasn’t fair, it simply was not fair. But of course patients kept coming in with headaches and chest pains and toothaches and there was still the crash trolley to restock and plenty of work to do.
And now here was Penny, all crisp and ready for work.
‘Morning!’ She smiled and no one really returned it. ‘Bad night?’ she asked Jed, who, having told the parents and spoken to the police, was admitting another patient.
‘We just had a neonatal death,’ Jed said. ‘Two weeks old.’
‘God.’ Penny closed her eyes. ‘How are the parents?’
‘The paediatrician is in there with them now,’ Jed said. Jasmine was restocking the trolley, trying not to listen, just trying to tick everything off her list. ‘But they’re beside themselves, of course,’ Jed said. ‘Beautiful baby,’ he added.
‘Any ideas as to why?’ Penny asked.
‘It looks, at this stage, like an accidental overlay. Mum brought baby back to bed and fell asleep feeding him, Dad woke up to go to work and found him.’
She heard them discussing what had happened and heard Lisa come in and ask Vanessa if the baby was ready, because she wanted to take him into his parents. She didn’t turn around, she didn’t want to risk seeing him, so instead Jasmine just kept restocking the drugs they had used and the needles and wrappers and tiny little ET tubes and trying, and failing, to find a replacement flask of paediatric sodium bicarbonate that had been used in the resuscitation. Then she heard Penny’s voice …
‘The guidelines now say not to co-sleep.’
And it wasn’t because it was Penny that the words riled Jasmine so much, or was it?
No.
It was just the wrong words at the wrong time.
‘Guidelines?’ Jasmine had heard enough, could not stand to hear Penny’s cool analysis, and swung around. ‘Where are the guidelines at three in the morning when you haven’t slept all night and your new baby’s screaming? Where are the guidelines when—?’
‘You need to calm down, Nurse,’ Penny warned.
That just infuriated Jasmine even more. ‘It’s been a long night. I don’t feel particularly calm,’ Jasmine retorted. ‘Those parents have to live with this, have to live with not adhering to the guidelines, when they were simply doing what parents have done for centuries.’
Jasmine marched off to the IV room and swiped her ID card to get in, anger fizzing inside her, not just towards her sister but towards the world that was now minus that beautiful baby, and for all the pain and the grief the parents would face. Would she have said that if Penny hadn’t been her sister?
The fact was, she would have said it, and probably a whole lot more.
Yes, Penny was right.
And the guidelines were right too.
But it was just so unfair.
She still couldn’t find the paediatric sodium bicarbonate solution and rummaged through the racks because it had to be there, or maybe she should ring the children’s ward and ask if they had some till pharmacy was delivered.
Then she heard the door swipe and Jed came in.
He was good like that, often setting up his drips and things himself. ‘Are you okay?’
‘Great!’ she said through gritted teeth.
‘I know that Penny comes across as unfeeling,’ Jed said, ‘but we all deal with this sort of thing in different ways.’
‘I know we do.’ Jasmine climbed up onto a stool, trying to find the IV flask. She so did not need the grief speech right now, did not need the debrief that was supposed to solve everything, that made things manageable, did not really want the world to be put into perspective just yet.
‘She was just going through the thought process,’ Jed continued.
‘I get it.’
He could hear her angrily moving things, hear the upset in her voice, and maybe he should get Lisa to speak to her, except Lisa was busy with the parents right now and Greg was checking drugs and handing over to the day staff. Still, the staff looked out for each other in cases like this, and so that was what Jed did.
Or tried to.
‘Jasmine, why don’t you go and get a coffee and …?’ He decided against suggesting that it might calm her down.
‘I’m just finishing stocking up and then I’m going home.’
‘Not yet. Look—’ he was very patient and practical ‘—you’re clearly upset.’
‘Please.’ Jasmine put up her hand. ‘I really don’t need to hear it.’
‘I think you do,’ Jed said.
‘From whom?’
‘Excuse me?’ He clearly had no idea what she was alluding to, but there was a bubble of anger that was dangerously close to popping now, not just for this morning’s terrible events but for the weeks of confusion, for the man who could be nice one minute and cool and distant the next, and she wanted to know which one she was dealing with.
‘Am I being lectured to by Dr Devlin, or am I being spoken to by Jed?’
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about. You’re distressed.’ He knew exactly what she was talking about, knew exactly what she meant, yet of course he could not tell her that. Jed also knew he was handling this terribly, that fifteen minutes sitting in the staffroom being debriefed by him wasn’t going to help either of them.
‘I’m not distressed.’
‘Perhaps not, but I think it would be very silly to leave like this. It would be extremely irresponsible to get into a car and drive home right now, so I’m suggesting that you go to the staffroom and sit down for fifteen minutes.’ She stood there furious as she was being told what to do, not asked, she knew that.
‘Fine.’ She gave a terse smile. ‘I will have a coffee and then I’ll go home, but first I have to put this back on the crash trolley and order some more from pharmacy.’
‘Do that, and then I’ll be around shortly to talk to you.’ Jed said, ‘Look, I know it’s hard, especially with one so young. It affects all of us in different ways. I know that I’m upset …’
She
