Earthquake Baby. Amy Andrews

a huge operation involving the chest being cracked open and the blood being shunted out of the body through an artificial pump. Most patients described it afterwards as feeling like they’d been run over by a truck. But the improvement in their lives was astounding.

      Laura saw Dr Jenny Dexter, the intensive care consultant, arrive and head for the tearoom. She checked her watch. It was time for morning rounds.

      The only really routine event on the unit was eight a.m. rounds. It was a multi-disciplinary meeting with all specialities represented. Individual patients’ surgical and/or medical teams, as well as those in allied health fields, attended—occupational therapy, physiotherapy, pharmacy, social work. With a full unit, ward rounds often took an hour, sometimes longer.

      As team leader, Laura attended. It was Steve’s job to relieve the bedside nurse as each patient was discussed, so they could also contribute information. The medical staff and the nurses worked as a close team on the unit. The doctors relied on the bedside nurses and valued their opinions and judgements. The good doctors, anyway.

      Laura was surprised to see Jack enter the room. She knew from nursing handover that one of his patients had been admitted overnight but he didn’t need to be here himself.

      She eyed him suspiciously as he smiled and plonked himself in the chair beside her.

      ‘Don’t you have a registrar?’ she whispered as she leaned in, immediately regretting the impulse. The smell of his aftershave lured her into the past. How could she ever forget how he had smelt the day they had made love? The mix of aftershave and pheromones had created an intoxicating aroma.

      He looked at her and winked. Jenny called for quiet. Laura blinked, snapping back to the present. For heaven’s sake! It had been ten years. You’d think the man would have changed his brand of aftershave!

      ‘Right, as you’re here first, Jack, we might as well discuss Simon Adams. He’s your patient, I believe?’ said Jenny.

      ‘I’ve just taken over his treatment. He’s been clinically depressed since his wife died last year.’

      ‘Has he expressed a suicidal tendency before?’

      ‘Initially, yes, but not for some time.’

      ‘Well, something happened yesterday because his eleven-year-old son found him unconscious with two empty pill bottles beside him,’ said Jenny, indicating for the night registrar to begin her patient review.

      Laura watched Jack as he joined in the discussion. He was quite animated when he spoke, using his hands, sitting forward in the chair. Every movement caused his sleeve to brush against her bare arm. It was like a caress and Laura fought the urge to purr.

      His voice was just as she remembered it, too. Deep and rumbling. She knew his voice intimately, even more than his body. For hours, as she’d lain trapped, his voice had been her only connection with the outside world. She knew every lilt and nuance. His voice had kept her from the brink of despair.

      ‘How much longer does he need to be here?’ asked Jack as Laura got back on track with the round.

      ‘Because of the potential for cardiac toxicity and lethal arrhythmia, we’ll need to keep him for another twenty-four hours. He should be over the worst of the effects by then.’

      ‘Right, well, I’ll go and talk to him now and if you can discharge him to the psych unit tomorrow, we can follow him up properly. I may need to section him if he doesn’t voluntarily agree to stay. I hope it doesn’t come to that.’

      There was a general murmur of agreement and they moved on to the next patient.

      ‘See you outside,’ Jack whispered in Laura’s ear, and then excused himself.

      She took a sip of her hot tea as his aroma invaded her personal space again. She grimaced as the delicate mucous membranes of her mouth protested the temperature of the hot beverage. The discomfort gave her something else to concentrate on.

      By the end of the round Laura had noted down three discharges. She emerged from the tearoom organising in her head what would be required and trying to factor in teabreaks and not think about Jack and his aftershave. Thankfully, he appeared to have left.

      She noticed a young boy standing beside Simon Adams’s bed. It must be his son. Poor boy! He didn’t look much older than Isaac. How terrible to find your father like that.

      Her heart went out to him. If it wasn’t enough that he lost his mother last year, his father obviously wasn’t coping. How alone and sad he must be at the moment.

      She watched as his young face crumpled and tears spilled from his eyes. The boy turned away from his father and ran blindly towards the front doors.

      Laura gave chase, not wanting him to be alone at a time like this or end up lost somewhere in the hospital because he wasn’t paying any attention to where he was going.

      She rounded the corner in time to witness the boy running smack bang into Jack.

      ‘Whoa there, matey,’ he said holding the boy gently by the shoulders. ‘What’s your rush, Andrew?’

      ‘Let me go. Let me go,’ Andrew sobbed, pushing ineffectually against Jack’s hold.

      ‘Come on, mate,’ Jack said quietly as Laura approached. ‘Why don’t I buy you a soft drink from the machine and we can have a talk?’

      The boy’s shoulders sagged as his struggle died and he nodded his head miserably. He walked back to the unit with Laura and she showed him into the ‘quiet’ room.

      It was a small but comfortably appointed room generally used as a place for relatives of new admissions to wait, as well as a place for doctors to talk to relatives about their loved ones. More often than not it was the place where bad news was given.

      She tried to engage Andrew in conversation but he sat tight-lipped and head bowed. Laura felt a little inadequate. She had a son about his age, surely she could think of something to say to help Andrew to open up?

      Jack arrived with a can of lemonade. He cracked the lid and handed it to the boy.

      ‘Thanks,’ he said quietly, and took a small sip.

      Jack weighed up the situation as Andrew continued to stare at the floor, hoping he was up to the challenge. Children weren’t exactly his forte. Would he be able to reach the boy?

      ‘Tough time, huh?’ asked Jack tentatively, initiating dialogue.

      ‘I guess.’ Andrew shrugged.

      ‘Want to talk about it?’

      Jack held his breath as Andrew stared solemnly into his lemonade can. Just when Jack thought he’d have to try a different tack, Andrew raised his head slowly and fixed him with a stare that belied his young years.

      ‘Why did he do it?’

      Laura’s heart lurched at the directness of this eleven-year-old boy.

      ‘Your dad’s very sad at the moment. He’s finding it really hard since your mum died.’

      ‘But he’s got me. Why does he want to leave me as well?’ Andrew’s voice broke.

      Jack felt helpless in the face of such earnestness. How did you explain the complexities of adult emotions to children when they dealt in simplistics?

      ‘Andrew, mate, he doesn’t want to leave you. It’s not about that. He loves you. He loves you with all his heart and all his soul and all his mind. He’s just so sad at the moment he’s not thinking properly. He just wanted to stop feeling so sad. It’s not about leaving you, I promise.’

      The boy was quiet as he mulled over Jack’s words. ‘Can you help him?’

      There was that directness again!

      ‘I reckon I can. I reckon we both can. What do you say? Partners?’ Jack held out his hand palm up and waited.

      Andrew sat unmoving for