Our Kind of Love (12 page)
‘It was nothing. You’ll be pleased to know your coffee machine survived.’
Ry shook his head and laughed. ‘If it didn’t, you wouldn’t have.’
‘And now I have to move back home with my little sister.’ Joe realised as soon as the words were out of his mouth that he sounded like a bit of a sad bastard. Which was exactly how he was feeling.
That earned another elbow from Lizzie. ‘Tell me about it, Stinkface.’
‘As much as I like the whole family reunion thing, I’ve gotta find somewhere else to live, Mosquito.’
Lizzie slapped his leg. ‘No need to go on about it. It’s not as if I’m there much anyway, so stop your whining.’
This time Joe elbowed his little sister in the side, which elicited a playful howl from her.
‘Hey, Julia?’ Joe stood.
‘Yeah?’ Another yawn crumpled her face.
‘Need someone to share the driving on Monday?’
‘Sure.’
The idea had just hit him that second. ‘I’ve been thinking of going up to Adelaide myself.’
‘I’m leaving at seven. On the dot. I’ll swing by and pick you up.’
‘It’s a deal.’
Joe had to get back in the saddle. And this was his chance.
Anna had about sixty seconds between patients to process the fact that she’d just had to tell Mrs Matto that she should really see a gynaecologist about the abdominal pain she’d been experiencing, and to go to the loo. She’d been bursting since three patients ago, but it was a Monday morning and Monday mornings in the surgery were hell. Forty-eight hours of sniffles and colds and agonies suddenly became life-threatening emergencies come 9 a.m. and Anna and Grace were deluged.
She checked her watch and decided to make a run for it, only to be met by Grace who clamped her hands on Anna’s shoulders and pushed her sister back to her desk. Grace’s expression was all crinkled forehead and pursed lips.
‘What is it?’ Anna whispered through clenched teeth, in case anyone in the waiting room might hear her. ‘I’m busting. Sometimes a woman’s just gotta pee. I’m all for strengthening my pelvic floor, but if I have to hold on any longer you’ll need to get the mop.’
Grace glanced down at the floor and shuddered. ‘Hold that thought and hold on for just a second. There’s someone’s here to see you.’
‘What, like half of Adelaide isn’t out there already?’
‘No, someone else. She’s not on our books. And she doesn’t have an appointment. She just turned up.’
Anna crossed her legs. ‘God, Gracie, tell her we’re booked out. I haven’t been taking new patients in forever. We can barely keep up with the ones we’ve got.’ Anna blinked hard.
And if I work any harder I’ll collapse from exhaustion
.
‘I tried that already. She says she knows you.’
Anna hopped from one foot to the other. ‘What’s her name then?’
‘She told me to tell you she’s Julia from Middle Point.’
‘Julia. She’s the one from the wedding.’ Anna didn’t need a mirror to know that she was blushing. She felt the heat bloom up her neck and it pinked her cheeks, tingling the tops of her ears.
‘Tell her to grab a magazine and wait and I’ll squeeze her in, of course I will. But I’ll have to see all my other patients first. We can’t be having a riot in the waiting room.’
Grace played with an earring. ‘She’s not in the waiting room. She’s out back in the toilet, vomiting. She looks awful. Her husband almost had to carry her in and—’
That was all Anna had to hear. She bolted out of her room, past the reception area and into the back of the surgery to the toilet and bathroom.
Anna rapped her knuckles lightly on the door. ‘Julia? You okay? Can I come in?’
There was a groan, which Anna interpreted as a yes, and at the sound of the toilet flushing, she peeked her head around the door. Julia was on her knees, clutching the toilet bowl. Anna’s stilettos clickety-clicked on the pink 1960s speckled terrazzo floor as she walked over to her. She rested a consoling palm between Julia’s shoulder blades and rubbed in gentle circles.
‘Fancy meeting you here.’
Julia sucked in a heaving breath, held it, squeezed her eyes shut. ‘I’m so sorry to barge in like this. We don’t know any other doctors in Adelaide.’
Anna crouched next to her, pressed a hand to Julia’s forehead. It was clammy and her face was pale. Her deep breaths in and out were interspersed with more groans.
Anna figured Julia needed some distraction. ‘So, how was the honeymoon? What did you think of Italy?’
‘Adored it.’ She flopped her head back on to her forearm and her whole body seemed to melt against the toilet bowl. ‘How can you not love Italy, right?’
‘You’re telling me. So, what’s up with you?’ Anna nodded to the toilet.
Julia managed to half open her eyes. ‘This is not a hangover, I swear. It’s like a hangover but I haven’t had a drop to drink since Singapore. We stopped there on our way back. We only got back on the weekend.’
Anna found Julia’s wrist and her pulse. ‘And when did all this start,
bella
?’
‘About two hours ago. I was feeling fine and then I wasn’t. Wham.’
Anna reached up to the bathroom vanity and plucked a handful of tissues from a box. She handed them to Julia, who wiped her mouth gingerly.
‘Do you think you can get up?’
Julia gripped the bowl and leveraged herself to her feet. ‘Ta da,’ she smiled weakly.
Anna reached for her elbow and looked up into Julia’s eyes. ‘Let’s see if we can make it to my consulting room.’
Julia nodded weakly and a minute later the door was safely closed behind them. Anna helped Julia onto the examining table and Julia lay on her back, one arm crooked over her eyes, continuing to breathe in and out deeply.
‘Julia, I have an important question to ask you.’ Anna tried to hide her grin.
‘Uh huh.’
‘Have you, by any chance, been having unprotected sex with your husband?’
Julia’s eyes fluttered open and she pulled in a deep breath. ‘Yes. And a lot of it.’ A sly smile grew on her lips. ‘Who wouldn’t, right?’
Anna laughed. ‘So you know what having unprotected sex can lead to.’
Julia’s eyes widened.
‘Is there a chance you’re pregnant?’
‘I thought I might be. I hoped I might be. But I haven’t peed on the stick yet. I didn’t want to get my hopes up and we haven’t even told anyone we’re trying.’
Anna patted her shoulder. ‘Let’s be sure. Do you know how long it’s been since your last period?’
‘At least before the wedding. A couple of months ago?’
The wedding. This time, Anna felt another flush of heat flame her cheeks. Was every single thing in her life going to remind her of that night? She cleared her throat. ‘Come with me. I hope you’ve got a full bladder.’
A few minutes – and her own toilet stop later – Anna returned to the consulting room and handed Julia the pregnancy test.
Julia stared at it, open-mouthed and teary-eyed. ‘Oh my God. I’m up the duff.’ Her eyes lifted to Anna’s face. They were swimming with tears.
‘The pee never lies,’ Anna smiled. ‘Congratulations.’ She flashed a smile back at Julia, but all Julia could do was stare at the test in her hand. A heaviness landed with a thud in Anna’s heart, laden with all the things she’d lost. A husband. A life together. The potential for children and a family. It wasn’t that she was jealous of Julia, any more than she was of any pregnant woman who sat in her consulting room. She was genuinely happy for each and every one of them and was usually crying as much as they were at finding out the happy news. Seeing her patients go through their pregnancies and then seeing their little babies grow up into boys and girls and then teenagers? It was the clichéd circle of life coming true each and every day in her practice. It balanced out the sadness and frailty of what life was like for some, and gave Anna a balance and symmetry of hope and happiness.
But sometimes, especially today, she felt raw. These friends were taking this next leap into the adventure of their lives while she’d had a door slammed firmly shut in her face. The tears in her eyes hadn’t sprung just from happiness. They were half-formed with longing and regret, too.
‘So what about the vomiting, Anna? That’s part of the whole big adventure, isn’t it?’
Anna nodded. ‘I’m pretty sure your nausea is a case of good, old-fashioned morning sickness.’
Julia’s bright eyes faded and her shoulders slumped. She slowly took in another deep breath and swallowed. ‘You mean I’m going to feel like this for months?’
‘Sorry to break it to you,
bella
, but you might.’
Julia looked at her watch. ‘But it’s three o’clock in the afternoon. Shouldn’t it have gone by now, being “morning” sickness? You sure there’s nothing else wrong?’
‘I’ll let you in on a secret, Julia. The boy doctors who came up with the description are full of crap. I see some women who never feel sick and others who feel sick pretty much all day. But the good news? It should disappear by your mid-trimester.’ Anna reached out a hand and covered Julia’s with it. ‘And don’t forget why you’ve got it in the first place. You’re having a baby.’
Julia sighed, fresh tears glistening in her eyes. ‘Oh boy. I’m having a baby.’
‘Yes, you are and it’s wonderful news. Isn’t it about time you told your husband?’
‘Shit, I’d better ring him. No, scratch that. I want to tell him in person.’
‘Isn’t he out in the waiting room?’
Julia looked at Anna, bleary-eyed and confused. ‘Ry? He’s not here. He’s back at Middle Point.’
‘Oh. It’s just that Grace mentioned that your husband brought you in.’
Julia laughed. ‘Believe me, if Ry was up in Adelaide with me, he wouldn’t be in the waiting room. He’d be in here watching the stick turn blue. It’s Joe out there, you know, Lizzie’s brother. He hitched a ride to the city with me today.’
Anna’s pulse throbbed behind her eyes. She’d stopped listening somewhere around the mention of Joe. So he was out there. In her waiting room. She glanced over to the wall separating them. There was a bookcase filled with medical books, on it’s middle shelf a plastic model of the inner ear and a couple of old glass medicine bottles. Behind it, a brick wall and then on the other side a row of plastic chairs and a coffee table on which magazines and children’s books were scattered.
He was out there. Joe with the body and the smile and the tan and the denim blue eyes and that mysterious eyebrow.
‘We were just about to drive home, but when Joe saw me turning green around the gills, especially after I had to pull over and throw up in the gutter, so stylish, I know, he wouldn’t take no for an answer. He took the wheel and said I needed to see a doctor. He looked you up online and here we are.’
Anna swallowed. ‘He’s a wise man.’
‘Can you keep my secret?’
‘Of course I can, doctor-patient confidentiality and all that.’ Anna knew all about secrets, the kind that hurt and the kind that set you free when you told them. Happy secrets? She hadn’t seen too many of those in her life lately.
‘It’s just that I don’t want Joe to be the first to know. I haven’t even told Lizzie. She’d kill me if Stinkface finds out before she does.’
Anna was confused. ‘Who’s Stinkface?’
‘Joe. She calls him Stinkface. It’s a sibling thing. Not that I would know much about that, being an only child. Do you have brothers and sisters, Anna?’
‘Grace is out there and we have a brother, Luca.’ Anna crossed the room to her desk and sat down at the computer. There was some information she needed to find for Julia, as well as give her jittery hands something to do.
‘She’s your sister? She’s lovely and was so patient when we came storming in the front door. Don’t know what she must think of Joe. He was pretty insistent about you seeing me.’
‘Really?’ With a will of its own, Anna’s stilettoed foot began bouncing.
‘I kind of let Joe think it might be food poisoning. A bad oyster from lunch with a client.’
Anna flicked her eyes from the computer screen to Julia. ‘You really are a master of the dark art of spin, aren’t you?’
Julia managed to smile at that and Anna could see some of her sparkle returning.
‘I do have a reputation to uphold, you know.’
‘Well.’ Anna turned to her desk, leaned over and clicked the mouse to bring her screen to life. She needed a minute to think. The words and images on the screen blurred into fuzziness. Finally she clicked on a bookmarked website she often used to give information to expectant mothers and printed off a couple of sheets of information. ‘I’m going to give you a verbal prescription for what troubles you. Try dry crackers even before you get out of bed. Rest as much as you can. Lots of small sips of fluid – flat lemonade, ginger ale, weak tea, cordial. And rest. And make sure Ry tends to your every whim.’
Julia laughed. ‘That’s what got me into this mess in the first place.’
Anna collected the papers from the printer and passed them to Julia. ‘If you have the energy for that, go for it. But you’ll probably find that in the next few weeks, all you’ll want to do is lie down – alone. Here’s some information to take home to see you through the next few weeks. You should think about where you want to have the baby and don’t forget to make an appointment with your GP when you get back to Middle Point. They’ll get you started on your antenatal checks and book you in for your first ultrasound.’
Anna found a smile and tried to maintain her professional demeanour. So what if Joe was out there? Julia was her patient, if only for today, and she had important medical information to give to her about her pregnancy and about staying healthy.
‘And so we hit the first hurdle.’ Julia sat up gingerly and dangled her legs over the edge of the examination table. ‘You see Anna, I don’t have a GP in Middle Point. I’ve only been back a few months and I haven’t needed one. Up until now.’
‘There’ll be plenty to choose from, I’m sure.’
Julia stood on shaky legs, walked to Anna’s desk and took another deep breath. ‘Oh God.’ She clutched her stomach. ‘Looks like Joe will be driving home.’
Anna took Julia’s arm, tried to scare away the heebie-jeebies that had lodged behind her breastbone and together they walked into the narrow hallway.