peculiar reaction in her skin—prickly, like mild sunburn making its presence felt at the end of a day at the beach.
‘I could come now but Jean-Luc looks as if he’s busy,’ she replied, checking out Theo’s eyebrows close up and confirming they really were wonderful—strong, but neat, and with a decided arch.
‘Then I will show you first and Jean-Luc some other time,’ Theo said calmly, putting out his hand as if to usher her ahead of him.
‘Isn’t that a nuisance for you?’
Grace had no idea why she was feeling unsettled, but she was—and even more unsettled when he added, ‘It will be my pleasure.’
He didn’t mean it in any other way than that he loved showing off his machines and twice was better than once, while his tone of voice suggested nothing more than cool politeness. She knew that, but the prickly sunburn effect continued as she left the room with him.
‘Why the switch from surgery to perfusionist?’ she asked as they entered the lift to go down a floor to see the infants on ECMO.
He looked at her for a moment, then smiled, his teeth very white against his olive skin.
‘Straight to the point,’ he said. ‘Are you always so blunt?’
Grace pretended to consider this—for all of two seconds—before replying.
‘I hope people don’t think of me as blunt but, yes, I do find asking questions is the easiest way to get answers.’
Theo ushered her out of the lift, nodding as he went.
‘Cuts out a lot of chit-chat,’ he agreed. ‘What’s the next question?’
‘Why aren’t you married?’
Oops! That surprised even her, although undoubtedly her subconscious mind had sorted through the list of staff, checked the bios and, like a good computer, come up with four possible candidates for her Grand Plan—which probably should be labelled Grace’s Silliest Idea Yet. Theo was one of these, Jean-Luc another. Living in the flat above his, she’d have ample time to check out Jean-Luc, but she wasn’t sure how often she’d come into contact with Theo.
Hence the question…
Not that he’d answered either of her questions, parrying the first with one of his own and ignoring the second! She hoped it was because they’d walked into the paediatric intensive care unit, not because he was so insulted he’d never speak to her again. She found it difficult enough to make friends—to trust people enough to let them into her life—without setting colleagues against her from the first meeting.
‘This is Scarlett Robinson. She was born with hypoplastic left heart syndrome and although Phil and Alex at first decided to do the first-stage operation, she hasn’t been well enough and now they’re considering heart transplantation if we can get hold of a donor heart.’
‘Without doing even the first-stage op—a Norwood to connect the right ventricle to the aorta?’ Grace asked, looking down at the tiny baby girl and wondering, as she always did, why some embryonic hearts formed perfectly while others, like Scarlett’s, had a very underdeveloped left side.
‘She’s not tolerating drugs particularly well,’ Theo explained, ‘and after a lot of thought and consultation her parents, who live way out west in the bush, decided that rather than weaken her further with the first of the three HLHS ops, we’d list her for a transplant.’
Grace stared at the little girl, all alone in the hospital, and though she told herself Scarlett didn’t know she was all alone, and in fact she wasn’t, surrounded as she was by staff, Grace still felt a flutter in the region of her heart which could only be sympathy for the baby.
But the one thing she’d learned very early on in her medical career was never to show what she was feeling—especially not when babies were concerned. It was her job to be detached because, as numerous lecturers and professors and even her own father had told her, she could be more help to the patient that way.
So in case Theo had caught a glimpse of her momentary weakness, she spoke with cool, calm competence as she pointed out the downside of this.
‘And in the meantime, she’s on ECMO which could have devastating consequences on her other organs if she’s on it for too long.’
Theo turned to her and shook his head.
‘You certainly believe in telling it like it is,’ he said, but Grace thought she detected a smile behind the words. ‘You’re right, of course, but it was up to her parents to make the decision and now my job is to keep her alive on the least amount of support she can handle. Because of her condition she has to be on full support, so the machine is helping both her lungs and her malformed heart do their jobs, but by gearing it down as much as possible I’m hoping to avoid things like brain haemorrhages or kidney problems.’
‘Hard to get a heart small enough for her,’ Grace murmured, her eyes feasting on the tiny infant, thinking of other newborns she’d operated on—thinking of other infants.
Or one other infant…
One hypothetical infant…
Could she do it? Could she ask some man…?
‘But they do come up,’ Theo said, and Grace stared at him, struggling against the thoughts that kept intruding, thoughts she knew were stupid and sentimental and all the things she didn’t want to be—thoughts about a baby of her own…
She pulled herself together, hiding the moment of weakness behind a bland observation.
‘It’s usually women who are unrealistically optimistic,’ she said.
Theo frowned.
‘I don’t consider optimism a gender-based trait, and pointing out that small hearts do become available was stating a fact, not being unrealistic.’
As the words came out he realised he was being as blunt as his colleague—was it catching, this brusqueness of hers?
And as for the question he hadn’t answered earlier, what business was it of hers why he wasn’t married?
Ah! He’d answered his own question. He probably wasn’t getting as snappy as Grace Sutherland, but she’d prodded a sore spot he rarely thought about these days, and his brusqueness was reaction to her prodding.
‘Where are her parents?’
Another question but at least one he could answer.
‘Her mother was here. She flew down with the Royal Flying Doctor Service when they brought the baby to us. But she had to go home to the rest of the family—she’s hoping to get down again next week but even with really cheap accommodation available at the hospital, she still has to pay air fares and, I imagine, pay someone to mind the other children at home.’
‘Poor thing, it must be so hard to not be able to be with her baby,’ Grace murmured, but in such a way Theo had to look at her. Did she really feel for Scarlett’s mother or was she mouthing a platitude while thinking something else entirely?
He didn’t know this woman so he had no idea and, really, did it matter? Yet again he sensed a puzzle…
They’d moved away from Scarlett’s crib, out of the PICU to the lift foyer where they met up with other members of the team waiting to go down.
‘Grace and I are barely settled in and, speaking for myself, I need to shop before I can eat,’ Jean-Luc said, joining his and Grace’s names in a way that suggested a relationship, although as far as Theo knew they’d only met since their separate arrivals in Australia. ‘Is there a good restaurant close by?’
‘Scoozi!’
Jean-Luc had spoken to Aaron who was standing beside him, but the reply was chorused by most of the team.
‘It’s the other side of the park,’ Jasmine Summers, one of the PICU nurses