were the odds such a kid would look like Jess?
Sure, this kid was a surfer and all surfers had similar characteristics. Bleached hair. Zinc on their faces. But...but...
The kid’s green eyes were Jessie’s eyes, and they were looking at him as Jess’s had looked that last time.
Make the pain go away.
Focus on medicine, he told himself harshly. This wasn’t his older brother. This was a kid with a compromised blood supply. He flipped the sheet over the leg cradle and it was all he could do not to wince. The undamaged foot was colourless. He touched the ankle, searching for a pulse. Intermittent. Dangerously weak.
‘We took X-rays on the way in,’ Beth told him. ‘Comminuted fracture. That means there’s more than one break across the leg,’ she said, for Jessie’s benefit. ‘Matt, he needs your skill.’
He did. The leg was a mess. The compound fracture had been roughly splinted into position but he could see how it had shattered. Splinters of bone were protruding from the broken skin.
‘Blood flow was compromised on impact,’ Beth said softly. ‘Luckily Jess has one awesome mum. It seems Kelly was on duty as surf doctor. She went out on a jet ski and got Jess’s leg aligned almost before they reached the shore. The time completely without blood couldn’t have been more than a few minutes.’
So it was possible he’d keep his leg. Thanks to this woman.
He glanced at her again.
Kelly?
It was impossible to reconcile this woman with the Kelly he’d met so briefly all those years ago. This couldn’t possibly be her.
But then her eyes met his. Behind her eyes he saw pain and distress, but also...a hint of steel.
Kelly. A woman he’d blamed...
‘Well done,’ he said briefly, because that was all he could think of to say. Then he turned back to the boy. If they had a chance of keeping this leg, he had to move fast. ‘Beth, we need an ultrasound, right away. Tell Caroline this is priority. This blood flow seems fragile. Jess...’ He had to force himself to say the name. ‘Jess, you’ve made a dog’s breakfast of this leg.’
‘Dog’s breakfast?’ Jess queried cautiously.
‘Dog’s breakfast,’ Matt repeated, and summoned a grin. ‘Sorry, I forgot you were a foreigner.’ Gruesome humour often helped when treating teens, and he needed it now. The anaesthetist needed Jess settled—and he needed to settle himself. ‘It’s slang. A working dog’s breakfast is usually a mess of leftovers. That’s what this looks like.’
‘Ugh,’ Jess said, and Matt firmed his grin.
‘Exactly. We need to pin it back together and make sure enough blood gets through to your toes. That means surgery, straight away.’
The kid’s sense of humour had been caught despite the pain. ‘Cool...cool description,’ he said bravely. ‘Do you reckon someone could take a picture so I can put it on Facebook? My mates will think “dog’s breakfast” is sick.’
‘Sure,’ Beth said easily. She’d stepped back to snap orders into her phone but she resurfaced to smile. Beth had teenage boys of her own. Priority one, Facebook. Priority two, fixing a leg. She waved her phone. ‘I’ll snap it now if that’s okay with your mum. But then it’s Theatre to make you beautiful again.’
‘If your mother agrees,’ Matt said.
Jess’s mother. Kelly. Doctor in charge at the world surf championships.
Kelly Eveldene. The undernourished waif curled up in a funeral director’s parlour eighteen years ago?
The images didn’t mesh and Matt didn’t have time to get his head around it. The boy’s leg was dreadfully fractured, the blood supply had already been compromised and any minute a sliver of bone could compromise it again. Or shift and slice into an artery.
‘You have my permission,’ Kelly said, her voice not quite steady. ‘If it’s okay with you, Jessie?’
What kind of mother referred to her kid for such a decision? But Kelly really was deferring. She had hold of her son’s hand, waiting for his decision.
Jessie. This was doing his head in.
Maybe he should pull away; haul in a colleague. Could he be impersonal?
Of course he could. He had to be. To refer to another surgeon would mean a two-hour transfer to Brisbane.
No. Once he was in Theatre this would be an intricate jigsaw of shattered bone and nothing else would matter. He could ignore personal confusion. He could be professional.
‘Matt, Jessie’s mother is Dr Kelly Eveldene,’ Beth was saying. ‘She’s an emergency physician trained in Hawaii.’
‘Mr Eveldene and I have met before,’ the woman said, and Matt’s world grew even more confused.
‘So it’s not a coincidence?’ Beth said. ‘Matt...’
Enough. Talking had to stop. History had to take a back seat. These toes were too cool.
‘Jess, we need to get you to surgery now,’ he told the boy. There was no way to sugar-coat this. ‘Your leg’s kinking at an angle that’s threatening to cut off blood supply. Caroline Isram is our vascular surgeon and she’s on her way. Together we have every chance of fixing this. Do we have your permission to operate? And your mother’s?’
Finally, he turned to face her.
Kelly Eveldene had been a half-starved drug addict who’d been with his brother when he’d died. This was not Kelly Eveldene. This was a competent-looking woman, five feet six or seven tall, clear, grey eyes, clear skin, shiny chestnut curls caught back in a casual wispy knot, quality jeans, crisp white T-shirt and an official surf tour lanyard on a cord round her neck saying, ‘Dr Kelly Eveldene. Pro Surf Medical Director.’
Mr Eveldene and I have met before.
‘Are you a long-lost relative?’ Jess asked, almost shyly. ‘I mean, Eveldene’s not that common a name.’
‘I think I must be,’ Matt said, purposely not meeting Kelly’s eyes. ‘But we can figure that out after the operation. If you agree to the procedure.’
‘Dr Beth says you’re good.’
‘I’m good.’ No place here for false modesty.
‘And you’ll fix my leg so I can keep surfing?’
Something wrenched in him at that. Suddenly he heard Jess, long ago, yelling at his father over the breakfast table. ‘All I want to do is surf. Don’t you understand?’ And then saw Jessie arriving home from school that night, and finding his board in the backyard, hacked into a thousand pieces.
But now wasn’t the time for remembering. Now wasn’t the time to be even a fraction as judgmental as his father had been.
‘I’ll do my best,’ he said, holding Jessie’s gaze even though it felt like it was tearing him apart to do so. ‘Jess, I won’t lie to you—this is a really bad break, but if you let us operate now I think you’ll have every chance of hanging ten or whatever you do for as long as you want.’
‘Thank you,’ Jess said simply, and squeezed his mother’s hand. ‘Go for it. But take a picture for Facebook first.’
* * *
She’d been a doctor now for nine years, but she’d never sat on this side of the theatre doors. She’d never known how hard the waiting would be. Her Jess was on the operating table, his future in the hands of one Matt Eveldene.
Kelly had trained in emergency medicine but surfing had been her childhood, so when she’d qualified, she’d returned. Her surfing friends were those who’d supported her when she’d needed them most, so it was natural that she be drawn