Midwives On-Call. Alison Roberts

though, knew that she wasn’t together. ‘I love you,’ she said, instead of answering the question.

      ‘I love you, too.’

      They had another hug and then Isla stood and watched as her sister headed towards customs and showed her passport and boarding pass. Just as she went past the point of no return Isabel paused and turned briefly and waved at a smiling Isla.

      Only when Isabel had gone did Isla’s smile disappear and Isla, who never cried, felt the dam breaking then. She was so grateful that she had an hour before Darcie arrived because she would need every minute of it to compose herself. As she walked back through the tunnel towards the car Isla could hardly see where she was going because her eyes were swimming in tears, but somehow she made it back to the car and climbed in and sat there and cried like she never had in her life.

      Yes, she fully understood why Isabel had to get away now that Sean had returned. The memories of that time were so painful that they could still awake Isla in the middle of the night. She fully understood, with Sean reappearing, how hard it must be for Isabel to see him every day on the maternity unit.

      It was agony for Isla, too.

      She sat there in her car, remembering the excitement of being twelve years old and listening to a sixteen-year-old Isabel telling her about her boyfriend and dating and kissing. Isla had listened intently, hanging onto every word, but then Isabel had suddenly stopped telling her things.

      A plane roared overhead and the sob that came from Isla was so deep and so primal it was as if she were back there—waking to the sound of her sister’s tears and the aftermath, except this time she was able to cry about it.

      Their parents had been away for a weekend. Evie, their housekeeper, had lived in a small apartment attached to the house and so, effectively, they had been alone. Isla, on waking to the sounds of her sister crying, had got out of bed and padded to the bathroom and stood outside, listening for a moment.

      ‘Isabel?’ Isla knocked on the bathroom door.

      ‘Go away, Isla,’ Isabel said, then let out very low groan and Isla realised that her sister was in pain.

      ‘Isabel,’ Isla called. ‘Unlock the door and let me in.’

      Silence.

      But then came another low moan that had Isla gripped with fear.

      ‘Isabel, please.’ She knocked on the door again, only this time with urgency. ‘If you don’t let me in then I’m going to go and get Evie.’

      Evie was so much more than a housekeeper. She looked after the two girls as if they were her own. She worried about them, was there for them while their parents attended their endless parties.

      They both loved her.

      Isla was just about to run and get Evie when the door was unlocked and Isla let herself in. She stepped inside the bathroom and couldn’t believe what she saw. Isabel was drenched in sweat and there was blood on the tiles, but as she watched her sister fold over it dawned on Isla what was happening.

      Isabel was giving birth.

      ‘Please don’t tell Evie,’ Isabel begged. ‘No one must know, Isla, you have to promise me that you will never tell anyone …’

      Somehow, despite the blood, despite the terror and the moans from her sister, Isla stayed calm.

      She knew what she had to do.

      Isla dropped down to her knees on instinct rather than fear as Isabel lay back on the floor, lifting herself up on her elbows. ‘It’s okay, Isabel,’ Isla said reassuringly. ‘It’s going to be okay.’

      ‘There’s something between my legs …’ Isabel groaned. ‘It’s coming.’

      Isla had been born a midwife, she knew that then. It was strange but even at that tender age, somehow Isla dealt with the unfolding events. She looked down at the tiny scrap that had been born to her hands and managed to stay calm as an exhausted Isabel wept.

      He was dead, that much Isla knew, yet he was perfect. His little eyes were fused closed and he was so very still.

      Tomorrow she would start to doubt herself. Tomorrow she would wonder if there was something more that she could have done for him. In the months and years ahead Isla would terrorise herself with those very questions and would go over and over holding her little nephew in her hands instead of doing more. But there, in that moment, in the still of the bathroom, Isla knew.

      She wrapped her tiny nephew in a small hand towel. There was the placenta and the cord still attached and she continued to hold him as Isabel lay on the floor, sobbing.

      ‘He’s beautiful,’ Isla said. He was. She gazed upon his features as her fingers held his tiny, tiny hands and she looked at his spindly arms and cuddled him and then, when Isabel was ready, Isla handed the tiny baby to her.

      ‘Did you know you were pregnant?’ Isla asked, but Isabel said nothing, just stared at her tiny baby and stroked his little cheek.

      ‘Does Sean know?’ Isla asked.

      ‘No one knows,’ Isabel said. ‘No one is ever to know about this.’ She looked at Isla, her eyes urgent. ‘You have to promise me that you will never, ever tell anyone.’

      Some promises were too big to make, though.

      ‘I have to tell Evie,’ Isla said.

      ‘Isla, please, no one must know.’

      ‘And so what are we supposed to do with him?’ Isla demanded.

      ‘I don’t know.’

      ‘You know what you don’t want me to do, though. You know that he needs to be properly taken care of,’ Isla said, and Isabel nodded tearfully.

      ‘You won’t tell anyone else,’ Isabel sobbed. ‘Promise me, Isla.’

      ‘I promise.’

      Isla sped through the house and to Evie. The elderly housekeeper was terribly distressed at first, but then she calmed down and dealt with things. She understood, better than most, the scandal this might cause and the terrible impact it would have on Isabel if it ever got out. She had a sister who worked in a hospital in the outer suburbs and Evie called her and asked what to do.

      Isla sat, her tears still flowing as she recalled the drive out of the city to the suburbs. Isabel was holding the tiny baby and crying beside her till the lights of the hospital came into view. Evie’s sister met them and Isabel was put in a wheelchair and taken to Maternity, with Isla following behind. The midwife who had greeted them had been so lovely to Isabel, just so calm, wise and efficient.

      ‘What happens now?’ Isla asked. It was as if only then had they noticed that Isabel’s young sister was there and she was shown to a small waiting room.

      It had been the last time Isla had seen her nephew.

      She didn’t really know what had gone on.

      Evie had come in at one point and said that the baby was too small to be registered. Isla hadn’t known what that meant other than that no one would have to find out.

      Her parents would later question Isla’s decision to become a midwife. They had deemed that it wasn’t good enough for a Delamere girl but Isla had stood by her calling.

      She’d wanted to be as kind and as calm as the staff had been with Isabel that night.

      With one modification.

      Though her sister had been gently dealt with by midwives who had been used to terrified sixteen-year-old girls who did not want their parents to find out, one person had been forgotten.

      Isla had sat alone and unnoticed in the waiting room.

      Now she knew things should have been handled differently—the midwives, the obstetrician, at least one of them should have recognised Isla’s terror and spoken at length with her