St Piran's: The Wedding!. Alison Roberts

to work.

      He was an emotional coward.

      Or a control freak?

      As a modus operandi it was fine as far as his career went. Kept him on top. Moving forward. He could deal with a thousand people professionally and win acclaim. But he didn’t seem to be able to deal with even one person on an intimate level and not cause serious harm.

      What made anybody think he would be a good father?

      Maybe he’d end up just like his own father had been. Worse than useless.

      Maybe he would fail all his children before they even had a chance of life.

      No.

      The word was wrenched from deep inside Josh.

      These babies couldn’t die.

      Megan wouldn’t let them.

      The baby looked dead.

      Delivered to Megan’s area of the theatre seemingly within seconds of the emergency surgery starting, the nurse laid her limp burden down under the lights, gave the paediatric team a grim glance and moved swiftly back towards the main table. Another baby would be delivered almost as quickly.

      The resuscitation protocol was automatic for Megan. Airway, breathing, circulation, drugs.

      She couldn’t allow the fact that this was Josh’s baby anywhere near the conscious part of her brain. Even a hint of distraction, let alone panic, could be disastrous.

      ‘Suction,’ she ordered.

      Making sure the newborn’s head was at the correct angle to keep the airway open and holding the end of the soft tubing at a length that couldn’t go too far and trigger a laryngeal spasm, Megan cleared away any possible obstruction. Against the soft chugging of the suction machine, Matt was gently stimulating the baby’s body by rubbing the skin with a warmed towel.

      To one side of them, the tension was escalating.

      ‘Pressure’s dropping again.’ The anaesthetist’s tone was a sharp warning. ‘Ectopic activity increasing.’

      ‘We’ve got to get this second baby out. Where the hell’s the suction? I can’t see a damned thing …’

      On Megan’s side of the theatre the baby was showing no signs of starting to breathe.

      ‘Bag mask.’ Megan’s order was clipped.

      With the tiny mask covering both the mouth and nose of the infant, she gently depressed the soft bag to deliver the tiny amount of air needed to inflate the lungs. Again. And again.

      ‘Not pinking up,’ Matt noted.

      ‘He’s in shock.’ Megan signalled for a technician to take over the bag mask. ‘Start chest compressions, Matt.’

      ‘You going to intubate?’ Matt was already slipping his hands around the tiny chest, keeping his thumbs in front ready to start compressions.

      ‘In a minute.’ Megan could see over her registrar’s shoulder. The second baby was lying on a towel a nurse was holding flat on both hands as the cord was cut. She was close enough to be able to see if there were any signs of life.

      There weren’t.

      They needed a second paediatric team in here but there hadn’t been one available. It was up to Megan and Matt here. At least they had a second resuscitation trolley set up.

      ‘Keep up the CPR,’ she instructed Matt. ‘One hundred and twenty beats per minute. He may need some adrenaline. We’ll need to cannulate the umbilical vein as well as soon as we can. Let’s see where we are with baby two.’

      Baby two was a girl. Just as flat as her brother was.

      Or maybe she wasn’t. After the first puff or two of air from the bag mask, the tiny girl gave a gasp and began trying to breathe on her own. It wasn’t enough, though. The heart rate was still falling.

      At ten minutes the Apgar score for both babies was still unacceptably low. They needed intubation, stabilisation and transfer to PICU—the neonatal intensive care unit.

      They were both alive, however, and Megan was fighting to keep them that way.

      The battle on the other side of Theatre Three was not going so well.

      Part of Megan’s brain was registering the increasing tension as she slid a small tube down the first baby’s airway to secure ventilation. The obstetric surgeon had found the torn abdominal artery but too much blood had been lost. The fluid replacement and the drugs being used were not enough. Rebecca’s heart had stopped.

      CPR continued on the mother as Megan checked the settings on both incubators and watched the recordings being taken on both babies reach a level that meant it was safe to transfer them to PICU.

      As the second incubator was wheeled from the theatre, she heard the defeated note in the surgeon’s voice.

      ‘Time of death … sixteen forty-three.’

      November in Cornwall could provide a bone-chillingly grey day with an ominous cloud cover that threatened a torrential downpour at any moment.

      The rain held off for the duration of Rebecca O’Hara’s funeral but the background was suitably grim for the final farewell of a young mother who had never had the chance to see her babies.

      ‘I hope nobody gets too sick today,’ somebody muttered as the congregation filed into the chapel. ‘Looks like practically the entire staff of St Piran’s is here.’

      There were whispered conversations in every pew.

      ‘Who’s that sitting beside Josh?’

      ‘Tasha. His sister. The one that married the prince. I didn’t know she was pregnant.’

      ‘No. On the other side. The older woman. Is that his mother?’

      ‘Yes. Her name’s Claire. I heard that she’s planning to move to Penhally to help him look after the babies.’

      Further up the aisle, St Piran’s CEO, Albert White, was sitting with a member of the board of directors, Luke Davenport.

      ‘Thank goodness the babies are doing so well,’ he muttered. ‘Josh looks wrecked enough as it is.’

      ‘It’s all so sad.’ Luke’s wife, Anna, tightened her grip on her husband’s hand. ‘All of it. Rebecca was so unhappy for so long. I think she really believed that the babies would make everything all right.’

      She exchanged a glance with her husband. One that suggested that—given enough time—maybe things would be all right eventually.

      For Josh, anyway.

      At the very back of the church, a woman noted for her tendency to gossip wasn’t about to rely on meaningful glances.

      ‘You’ll see,’ she muttered to the colleague sitting beside her. ‘Now that the wife’s out of the way, he’ll be married to his fancy piece in no time flat. You just wait and see.’

      ‘Shut up, Rita,’ her companion hissed.

      For once, Rita did shut up. She spent the next few minutes watching as the final people squeezed in to take up the last of the standing room at the back of the church. She’d been watching the congregation ever since she’d arrived. Early.

      ‘Where is Megan?’ Rita finally had to ask. The organ music was fading and the funeral director was taking his place to start the service.

      ‘Haven’t you heard?’ The person on the other side seemed amused that Rita was out of the grapevine loop for once. ‘She left St Piran’s yesterday.’

      ‘Where’s she gone?’

      ‘Africa.’

      ‘She’s coming back, though … isn’t she?’

      ‘Doubt