In Falling Snow by Mary-Rose MacColl Read Free Book Online Page B

panic until she remembered her eldest daughter was sleeping across the road at her friend Julie’s. She went on to Phil, who was talking nonsense in her sleep, light still on, Tolkien on the floor beside her, snoring quietly, a single tail thump when he saw Grace. Then Henry, on his back, arms splayed, covers off. Grace went in, replaced the covers, took in his little-boy smell, and turned and headed out, dumped the toothbrush in the kitchen sink and grabbed a sip of water from the tap to rinse.
    By 2:41 a.m. she was in the Citroën, David’s car; he’d parked her Honda in, she didn’t much like the symbolism but didn’t have time to address it now. She drove over the Paddington hill and down through the floodplain of Milton as the moon came up over the city. She came in the back gate and pulled into her space outside the maternity unit. She heard a storm bird somewhere down near the river but the night was clear as glass. She went straight to the labour ward and found an enrolled nurse who looked about fifteen at the desk.
    â€œWhy am I here?” Grace said. Her voice was gravelly. She wanted coffee.
    â€œI’m sorry?” The girl looked flatly at Grace.
    â€œI’m Dr. Hogan. Alice called me. Get her for me, would you?” A question that wasn’t a question.
    â€œSorry, Doctor, of course.” She left the desk.
    Alice Jablonsky came down the corridor with that calm, brisk gait of the best midwives and steered Grace back towards the operating theatres. They talked as they walked. “So which one is it?” Grace asked.
    â€œMargaret Cameri.”
    â€œWhich one was she?” There had been three on the ward when Grace left at 10 p.m.; two who should have been sent home, one a young girl from the hostel in early labour, the other with slightly elevated blood pressure but no need for hospital yet. The third was a multi in established labour, no complications, close to transition. Grace hadn’t even waited. Nothing expected from outlying districts, a good registrar, a good, experienced midwife in Alice. Grace had looked forward to a night of unbroken sleep.
    â€œRoom four, third baby, straightforward, eight centimetres when she came in. Margaret Cameri.”
    The transition one. “And?”
    â€œLabour stalled for a bit and then sped up again on its own. She pushed the baby out and he’s fine. She had a bleed, maybe four hundred mils. Something not right so I called Andrew. We started some Pitocin thinking PPH but then the fundus was wrong, too low, we couldn’t figure out why, and then her uterus came out. It just came out. She’s lost a lot of blood.” There was a hint of fear in Alice’s voice.
    Take a breath, Grace thought to herself. “Where’s Andrew now?”
    â€œHe’s in theatre with her. We think we’ve controlled the bleeding and we’ve ordered more blood.”
    â€œAll good.” They’d got her to theatre and stopped the bleeding. It gave Margaret Cameri her best chance. “I’ll need another consultant. Try Lindsay or Frank if they’re in town. And an anaesthetist. You been through one of these before?”
    â€œNo. Anaesthetist already there. I’ll find another ob.”
    â€œWe’ll be fine. Alice?”
    â€œYes?”
    â€œYou’ve done very well.”
    By the time her pager went off again, Grace was walking through the double doors into the theatre. Nine minutes, twenty-four seconds, a record. “I’ll be there in a sec,” she said to Andrew through the intercom.
    Once in the theatre, Grace confirmed Andrew Martin’s diagnosis. “You seen one of these before?” she said quietly to him.
    â€œNup.”
    â€œYou know what we’re going to do?”
    â€œYep.”
    â€œGood.” She was glad it was Andrew Martin, easy to work with, liked by docs and midwives, didn’t mind taking orders from Grace, something male registrars