I’m being selfish, and Bianca, though she says I should go for it if that’s what I want …’ Her voice trailed off. ‘If I can’t talk about it with my own friends, what’s it going to be like at work?’
‘Lisa especially would be really good.’
‘Lisa is a nurse unit manager,’ Penny broke in. ‘I’m not a nurse.’
‘She runs the place, though,’ Jasmine said. ‘She’d be able to look out for you a little bit.’
‘I don’t need looking out for.’
Jasmine wasn’t so sure. She could see that the treatment was taking its toll on her sister, not that Penny would appreciate her observations.
Jasmine wanted so badly to help her sister. They had never really been close but Penny had always looked out for her—several years older, Penny had shielded her from the worst of their parents’ rows and their mother’s upset when their father had finally left. It had been the same when their mother had been brought into Emergency—Penny had made sure Jasmine hadn’t found out about their mother in the same way that she had.
‘I know this is all a bit new to you, Jasmine,’ Penny said. ‘But I’ve been living with this for years. I’ve known for ages that I had fertility problems.’
‘How long did you and Vince try for?’
Penny heard the tentativeness in Jasmine’s question. They were both working on their relationship, but there were still areas between them that were rarely, if ever, discussed.
‘Two years,’ Penny finally answered.
One year of serious trying and then a year of endless tests and consultations and a relationship that hadn’t been able to take the strain. ‘We didn’t just break up over that, though,’ Penny admitted. ‘But it certainly didn’t help. I can tell you this much.’ She gave a tight smile. ‘We’d never have survived IVF. It doesn’t exactly bring out the best in you.’
‘How are you feeling this time?’ Jasmine asked.
‘Terrible,’ Penny admitted. ‘I’m getting hot flashes.’
‘Are you serious?’
‘I’m completely serious. I’d forgotten that part—you know, at the time you think that you will never forget, but you actually do.’
Jasmine opened her mouth to agree with her sister and then closed it again as Penny turned around.
Penny knew that Jasmine had been about to admit to the same thing, but for very different reasons—Jasmine’s breasts were noticeably larger and she’d had nothing to eat at the airport and had then screwed up her nose when Penny had suggested they get some takeaway for dinner, choosing instead a slow walk on the beach.
Jasmine was pregnant.
Penny just knew.
‘I don’t need the whole department watching me for signs of a baby bump,’ Penny said, though it was the opposite for Penny with her sister. She had been trying so hard to ignore the signs in Jasmine, but more and more it was becoming evident and Penny wished she would just come out and tell her now. ‘Or gossiping,’ Penny added.
‘It wouldn’t be like that.’
‘Of course it would,’ Penny snapped. ‘And, of course, they’ll all have an opinion on whether I should be doing this, given that I haven’t got a partner.’ She gave an exasperated sigh. It wasn’t a decision she was taking lightly, not in the least. At thirty-four there was no sign of Mr Right on the horizon and with her fertility issues, even if he did come along, it was going to be a struggle to get pregnant.
After many long conversations with the fertility consultant, more and more Penny felt as if time was running out. ‘If there’s good news at the end of this, I’ll tell people, but they don’t need to know that I’m trying.’
‘But the treatment is so intense. If people only knew …’
Penny didn’t let her finish. ‘You don’t walk into the staffroom and tell them that you’ve come off the pill and had sex with Jed last night.’ When Jasmine laughed, Penny carried on. ‘No, you feed the sharks when you’re good and ready.’ Penny paused, waiting for her sister to open up to her, because even if Penny snapped and snarled a bit she wasn’t a shark, but Jasmine changed the subject.
‘I can’t believe that Mum has finally made it to her cruise.’ Jasmine smiled. ‘Well, she’s made it to her flight.’
‘And she’ll make it to her cruise.’ Penny was firm.
‘What if something happens while she’s stuck in the middle of the ocean?’
‘There’s a medical team,’ Penny said, but of course that didn’t reassure her sister. ‘Jasmine, are you going to spend the next month worrying about things that might happen and every imagined scenario while Mum is no doubt having the absolute time of her life?’
‘I guess,’ Jasmine conceded. ‘Though I really did think we were going to lose her.’
‘We didn’t, though,’ Penny broke in.
While Louise Masters’s heart attack and emergency admission had been a most difficult time, from there good things had sprung—an urgent reminder for all concerned that you should live your life to the full.
Which was why their mother would soon be sailing around the Mediterranean, why Jasmine had followed her heart and opened up to Penny’s then fellow senior registrar Jed, and why Penny was, at this moment, walking along the beach with a face that was bright red and breaking out into a sweat as she experienced yet another wretched hot flash. Not that Jasmine noticed; her mind had moved on to other things.
‘What do you think of Ethan?’ Jasmine asked for Penny’s thoughts on the new consultant, but Penny didn’t answer; instead, she suggested a walk in the shallows, much to little Simon’s delight. Both holding his hands, they lifted him up between them, swung him over the water, and finally Penny felt herself calm, the heat fading from her face, her racing heart slowing, and then Jasmine asked her again what she thought of Ethan.
‘He thinks that he’s God’s gift.’
‘So do a few other people,’ Jasmine pointed out, because since Ethan had arrived, a couple of hearts had already been broken. ‘He is funny, though.’ Jasmine grinned.
‘I don’t think he’s funny at all,’ Penny said, but then again she didn’t sit in the little huddles at the nurses’ station, neither did she wait for the latest breaking news to be announced in the staffroom. Penny loathed gossip and refused to partake in it, though, given it was Jasmine, there was one thing she did divulge. ‘He seems to think that he got the job over me.’ Penny gave a little smirk. ‘He has no idea that I declined to take it.’
‘He doesn’t know?’
‘God, no!’ Penny said. ‘I would assume he knows that Jed turned it down to take the position at Melbourne Central, but it would be a bit much for him to know that he was actually the third choice.’
‘Wouldn’t Mr Dean have told him?’
‘Mr Dean wouldn’t discuss the other applicants with him—you know what he’s like.’ Penny rolled her eyes. Mr Dean had put her through the wringer over the years—he was incredibly chauvinistic and had been reluctant to promote Penny to senior registrar. Penny was quite sure it was because she was a woman—she’d heard Mr Dean comment a few times how you trained women up only for them to get pregnant. Still, Penny had long since proven herself and, though Ethan might think otherwise, the consultant’s position had been Penny’s. She had chosen not to take it, deciding it would be too much on top of going through IVF, and more and more she was glad she had made that decision.
‘Ethan’s gorgeous.’ Jasmine nudged her. ‘He’s so sexy.’
‘Jasmine!’
‘What?