Will having the woman I want cost me my place in her family? The only family I’ve ever really known. Or if I can keep her safe until graduation, and then prove how much I love her, will that be enough?
21
VICTORIA
‘Sherri Fitzpatrick?’ I call the next patient in from the waiting area. We’re short-staffed. Three nurses called in sick with a stomach bug, and the place is overrun with patients. Even more so than usual.
A red-haired woman stands, a distant look in her olive eyes. With a grimace, she motions for a little girl next to her to get up. The child has her mother’s eyes and the same bone structure. Her strawberry blonde hair is plaited into two neat braids that drape across her pink duffle coat.
She’s about the same age I was when I lost my parents, which is the last thought that pops through my head before Sherri Fitzpatrick’s body hits the floor.
Archie leaps from his position a few feet away to assist me. ‘Doctor Dickson!’ My voice is fraught with emotion. I’ve never seen this mother and daughter before, but I’m already overly invested in their well-being.
‘Mum? Mum?’ the child screeches, dropping to the floor and shaking her mother’s shoulders.
‘Stand back, sweetheart.’ A maternal instinct I didn’t realise I possessed kicks in, overriding my usual instinct to tend to the wounded. I reach for the little girl, pulling her to her feet and in the direction of a private family waiting area. Doctor Dickson and another SHO are more than capable of attending to her mother.
The child’s small hand slips into mine, but her neck cranes over her shoulder. ‘Don’t look, pet. The doctors are helping your mammy.’ I send up a silent prayer that I’m right. The sudden vacant look in her eye appeared pretty final to me. Aneurism? Head trauma? Fuck.
‘What’s your name, sweetheart?’ Archie asks, flanking the other side of the child’s tiny body.
‘Lily-May.’ It’s little more than a whisper.
In the family room, I find Lily-May a book to read while Archie fetches her a bar of chocolate and an apple juice from the vending machine.
Within minutes, Doctor Dickson appears in the doorway.
He looks at me and then at Lily-May, and bows his head, a look of resignation in his eye. Sherri Fitzpatrick is gone.
The waiting room is overflowing with patients, many of whom are understandably distraught at what they’ve just witnessed. I have no choice but to go back to the ward. But I can’t bear to tear myself away from Lily-May. I feel her pain so acutely, as if it’s my own. It was my own once.
Archie’s fingers brush across my spine. ‘I’ll stay with her until a family member comes,’ he promises.
‘I’ll get one of the nurses to check her over. I think she’s in shock,’ I whisper in his ear before kneeling and enveloping Lily-May in a tight embrace. ‘I’m here if you need me, sweetheart. The receptionist is contacting your family. Someone will come soon, okay?’
My legs weigh a tonne as I force them to walk away.
That night,I lie on the couch, my conscience torturing me with what I should have done. Could have done. Sherri might still be alive if A&E hadn’t been so busy, and she’d been seen quicker.
Archie pulls me onto his lap, cradling me like a baby. ‘There’s nothing you could have done.’ He’s uncannily good at reading my mind, as well as the room.
‘I don’t know. Maybe if I’d…’
A strong hand cups my chin, tilting my head upwards to face him. ‘Look at me, Vic. It wasn’t your fault.’
Lily-May’s cries for her mammy repeatedly ring through my ears.
My palms cup a tumbler of whiskey, rolling it between them. ‘I just wish…’ I can’t even articulate what I wish.
‘I know, believe me, I get it. More than you’ll ever know.’ Archie swirls his whiskey around his own glass.
Physically, I’m here, but mentally, I can’t leave that ward. ‘Who came for Lily-May?’
‘Social services. They’re still looking for a relative.’ His eyes flicker with understanding. He knows. ‘You were seven when your mother passed.’ It’s a statement, not a question.
I nod, lifting the glass to my lips. It burns, but nowhere near as much as my heart burns for that child.
‘It was at that exact age I decided to become a doctor. Even though they couldn’t save my parents, they saved me. It changed me forever. Inspired me. What have I inspired that child to do? Nothing. That’s what.’
