A Love Against All Odds. Emily Forbes

Henry had always had a good bedside manner and everyone, young and old, loved him. He had an easy charm. People were starstruck by his arresting looks initially but he always won them over with his personality to match.

      She needed to be careful. Before he’d left she’d had him on a pedestal; she couldn’t let that happen again. But, listening to him chat to their young patient, she could tell he hadn’t changed.

      ‘Adam Evans.’

      ‘Nice to meet you, Adam. I’m Henry and this is Maia,’ he said. ‘You’ve hurt your knee, have you?’

      Adam nodded.

      ‘We’ll get you comfortable in here and have a look at it. Have you been in hospital before?’

      ‘No,’ he said. Maia grabbed a blank patient file from the triage desk as they wheeled the stretcher past.

      ‘Seen it on telly?’

      He nodded again as they pushed his bed into a cubicle and Maia pulled the curtain around to give them some privacy.

      Maia helped Henry transfer Adam to a hospital bed before she wheeled the stretcher into the corridor. She knew one of the ambulance crew would collect it before they left the hospital but she didn’t want them to have to interrupt, especially if it was Todd. She wasn’t ready to deal with two sets of inquisitive eyes.

      ‘Maia will attach a few leads to you,’ Henry told Adam as he washed his hands before pulling on a pair of disposable surgical gloves. ‘She’ll check your pulse and a few things like that but I reckon that’ll all be pretty normal, seeing as you’re talking to me.’

      They had worked together at the Queen Liz when Henry had been doing his fellowship. They’d worked well together then and slotted back into an easy rhythm now. It didn’t feel like three years since they’d worked side by side.

      Maia took a hospital ID bracelet out of the file and wrote Adam’s details on it before fastening it around his wrist. Next she snapped gloves onto her hands, connected Adam to the monitors and recorded his observations—blood pressure, oxygen sats and pulse rate.

      ‘Do you know what day it is, Adam?’ Henry asked as he shone a penlight torch into Adam’s eyes and checked his pupils.

      ‘Tuesday.’

      ‘Do you remember what happened?’

      ‘I was standing up in the bus when the driver swerved and I went flying, and my knee slammed into the side of one of the seats. It hit that metal bar that made up the seat frame. My brother was on the bus too. Do you know if he’s okay? His name is Bailey.’ Tears welled in Adam’s eyes and Maia could tell he was trying to be brave. She could imagine how she would have felt if she’d been in his situation at the same age.

      ‘Let’s get you sorted and then we’ll find out about Bailey,’ she told him. She wouldn’t tell him that she was sure Bailey was fine; she couldn’t promise that when she had no idea of the situation. Promising to investigate was the best she could do.

      ‘All right, Adam, I need to have a look at your knee, but first I want you to tell me about your pain. Can you give it a score out of ten? Where zero is no pain and ten is unbearable.’

      ‘Maybe a six?’

      ‘I need to have a feel of your knee but you can hold Maia’s hand if you like and squeeze it tight if your knee gets too sore and you want me to stop. I reckon holding Maia’s hand might help.’ Adam blushed and looked away and Maia almost felt sorry for him until she realised that Henry had started palpating the knee joint and had successfully distracted Adam so that he’d been able to start palpating without Adam even noticing. Obviously he hadn’t struck anything painful yet but as a technique Maia was impressed.

      The pain-relieving inhaler was lying where Maia had left it, on the bed. She picked it up and offered it to him. ‘You can use this if you like?’

      But Adam shook his head. ‘I’ll be okay,’ he said, still putting on a brave face.

      ‘Good choice, Adam. I’d choose to hold a pretty nurse’s hand instead too,’ Henry added as he palpated the medial and lateral ligaments and winked at Adam, who grinned. Now it was Maia’s turn to blush but she held out her hand and Adam latched onto it.

      As the young boy squeezed her hand, Maia wondered if anyone watching her and Henry would guess they had a history. Henry seemed relaxed; working with her didn’t appear to be throwing him off-kilter. Perhaps it was only her on tenterhooks, only her who still felt the spark of awareness in the air. There was no denying she was still affected by his easy charm.

      Henry moved his fingers centrally over the quadriceps tendon and muscle belly. There was marked oedema of this knee compared to the other and Maia watched as Adam grimaced, but he didn’t cry out.

      ‘Are you a cricketer, Adam?’ Henry asked.

      Adam nodded.

      ‘So, you’d be getting ready to watch the World Cup?’

      The World Cup was scheduled to start in India at the end of February. It was only a few days away and New Zealand’s citizens could barely talk about anything else. Maia knew that Henry also loved his cricket. He would slot straight back into the Kiwi culture even if he did barrack for the wrong team.

      ‘Do you reckon the Black Caps can beat my team—England?’

      Henry was having difficulty finding the borders of the knee cap. Adam flinched and his fingers tightened their grip on Maia’s as Henry’s fingers probed his patella but his bravado remained strong as he replied, ‘The Black Caps can beat everyone.’

      ‘I like your confidence.’ Henry laughed. ‘I’m looking forward to watching some cricket. I’ve been living in America—they’re not into cricket there. See if you can bend this knee for me. I’ll help you.’ Henry had again successfully distracted Adam but his assessment wasn’t over yet. He slipped one hand under Adam’s knee to support it. It was resting in about thirty degrees of flexion and he was able to bend it another thirty degrees before the pain got too much. But Maia knew that flexion of sixty degrees was well off the normal range of one hundred and forty degrees for thin adolescents.

      But Henry praised his efforts. ‘Well done, Adam. Now try to straighten it for me.’

      Adam tried but he couldn’t do it. His knee got stuck at thirty degrees.

      ‘Can you lift it off the bed?’

      Maia could see from Adam’s expression that he was trying but his quadriceps wasn’t following orders and his leg didn’t budge.

      ‘These kids are primary school age, yes?’ Henry asked Maia. ‘How old are you, Adam?’ he asked when she nodded.

      ‘Twelve.’

      ‘All right. I reckon you might have busted your knee cap; we need to get that X-rayed.’

      Maia frowned. Patella fractures weren’t common in children and she wondered why Henry suspected that. He must have seen her doubting expression. ‘I’ve seen a few in this age group, boys more than girls,’ he explained. ‘Once the patella has ossified it’s susceptible to fracture. Can we organise an X-ray? AP and lateral views?’ he asked.

      ‘Sure. They can bring the mobile X-ray machine in to do that. But we’ll need to get permission first, I suspect. Why don’t you ask Brenda to organise that when you get your next case and I’ll wait with Adam?’ Maia didn’t want to leave the young boy alone. He would be apprehensive, if not scared, and with the added worry of his brother’s whereabouts and potential injuries. ‘And see what you can find out about Bailey,’ she added as Henry pulled the curtain back and stepped out.

      She watched him leave the cubicle. His dark hair was neat at the nape of his neck. His back was straight, his shoulders square. He seemed relaxed, unhurried, in control, and Maia knew his calm demeanour was good for the patients.

      Henry turned to pull the curtain closed and saw her