‘Her finger?’ Eve nearly choked on the coffee she was drinking.
‘No, the ring, you eejit!’ Aidan started laughing and, as everyone else joined in, it felt so normal, so much like the old days in Leeds, but for once it didn’t hurt as much to make the comparison. There would always be an ache for everything and everyone she’d lost, but time was finally dulling the pain of leaving that part of her life behind and it felt as if she’d begun to reach the acceptance stage in grieving for what had happened to Max, at last. She just wished Annie could reach the same point.
‘So, what happened to Emma? Did she have to confess to her friend?’ Eden leant forward in her seat as she spoke, but Isla just shrugged.
‘That’s the worst part of working in A&E. Amy and I were desperate to know what the fallout of it all was, and Amy even did a bit of internet stalking after Emma left to see if she could find anything out, but there was nothing. No viral social media posts or articles inChatmagazine orTake a Break.Nothing!’ Isla shook her head. ‘Ames and I had to make up our own scenario instead. I just hope the girl who got cheated on had the last laugh one way or another.’
‘I miss Amy so much,’ Gwen said, as she came to join them at the table. She’d told them she was closing the shop after she’d served them and she was never one to pass up the chanceof a coffee and a chat. ‘How is she enjoying life as a popstar’s girlfriend?’
‘She’s having a great time.’ Isla smiled. ‘You know her and Lijah, they act more like the couple next door than my actual neighbours, and they like keeping things low key rather than living any kind of celebrity lifestyle, but she’s getting to see so many amazing places. Despite all of that she keeps claiming she misses hospital life and she’s still insistent she’ll be working some shifts as bank staff when they finally get back to Cornwall, but I’ll believe it when I see it.’
‘Oh, I can easily believe she misses all of this. There’s never a dull moment, is there?’ Gwen paused for a moment. ‘Although after almost fifty years as a midwife, I reckon I’ve got more funny stories then you lot put together.’
‘Treat us to one, Gwen. You know we love it when you’re gloriously indiscreet.’ Aidan gave her a gentle nudge and it was all the encouragement she needed.
‘Let me think… okay, how about this one, from when I was working at a hospital. I won’t say which one, but it was before the midwifery unit in Port Agnes opened. I told the father-to-be to put scrubs on and he didn’t realise they were meant to gooverhis clothes, I turned away for a moment to check the foetal monitor and, when I looked back, he’d stripped everything off and was just pulling the top of the scrubs over his head.’
‘So, you got an eyeful, Gwen. I bet it wasn’t the first time or the last?’ Aidan waggled his eyebrows at her. ‘Although that’s a bit tamer than I was expecting if I’m honest.’
‘That’s because I haven’t finished yet.’ Gwen wagged a finger at him. ‘His pubic hair had been sprayed green and shaved into what was apparently supposed to be a four-leaf clover, although it looked more like wispy grass that could do with a good drink of water.’
This time Eve really did choke on her coffee and Isla had to pat her on the back as Gwen continued the story.
‘The baby decided to arrive four weeks’ early, and he’d had to fly back from his brother’s stag do in Dublin to be at the birth. He told me he’d been forced by the rest of the stag party to do it as forfeit, after being the first one to be sick. His mates had assured him that the dye would wash out, but even scrubbing it in the shower hadn’t made a difference and he’d had to grab the next available flight to get home in time for the birth. I’ll never understand men sometimes, but it made me laugh so much I thought my own waters were going to break and I wasn’t even pregnant!’
‘I should have known we could trust you to come up with a corker, Gwen.’ Aidan laughed again.
‘Trust me that’s just the tip of the iceberg, in fact there’s a story I could tell you that would make having a four-leaf clover down there seem like?—’
‘Help, someone help us, please!’ The woman’s shout cut Gwen off and Eve shot straight to her feet, instinctively knowing that this wasn’t just someone being overly dramatic; the utter desperation in her tone couldn’t be faked. She rushed towards the wild-eyed woman, who had one arm around the waist of a much taller man, his face completely drained of colour. The man’s hand was wrapped in what looked like a tea towel and there was already blood dripping down onto the floor where he stood, with a blank expression on his face, as if he couldn’t see anything at all.
‘It’s okay we can get you some help, what’s happened?’ Eve did her best to keep her voice level, as the others followed her over to where the woman was standing, visibly shaking with what was almost certainly shock.
‘I couldn’t get the car anywhere near the emergency department and Dan was bleeding so much.’ She was cryingnow. ‘We’ve been renovating our house and I didn’t realise he was using the table to steady himself when he bent down to pick up the pieces of wood I’d been cutting to make the framing for a new stud wall. And when I lowered the mitre saw again it took three of his fingers off.’
She took a huge gulping breath and lifted up the clear plastic bag of ice she was holding in her other hand, all three of the man’s fingers were clearly visible, one of them still wearing a shiny gold wedding band.
‘Please tell me you can sew his fingers back on.’ Dan’s wife, whose name turned out to be Sienna had begged Eve to make her the promise, as they hurried her husband away from the hospital shop to the emergency department, with the aid of a wheelchair Aidan had quickly found. Eve had wanted to be able to reassure Sienna and tell her that it was all going to be okay, but she wasn’t a surgeon and she knew there were a lot of factors that could affect the viability of reattachment. Fingers were far easier to attach than a whole arm and the fact that it was a clean cut with a mitre saw, rather than a crush injury, or a blunt blade, like a lawnmower, all went in Dan’s favour. It would still be up to the surgeons to decide if they wanted to attempt reattachment and, even if they did, there was no guarantee of how successful it would be. Dan might be better off without the fingers, if the reattachment served no purpose other than to get in the way of him adapting to his new normal.
Imogen Turner, one of the orthopaedic surgeons, who held a specialism in hand and microsurgery, had arrived in A&E within minutes of Eve putting in the call. Her assessment had brought good news. She was confident that the digits could be reattachedwith a good chance of achieving at least partial function, and Eve had expected Sienna to be overcome with relief. But as Dan was wheeled away to face surgery, his wife began to whimper.
‘I did this to him. We’ve only been married a month and I’ve chopped off three of his fingers. How the hell are we supposed to get through this? Every time he looks down at his hand, he’s going to remember what I did. Even if they manage to reattach his fingers, he’s never going to benormalagain, is he?’
‘The surgeons are incredible, but the most important thing is that whatever happens Dan has lived to tell the tale. You can cope with anything else.’
‘He did two tours of Afghanistan without getting seriously injured and now I do this to him. I don’t deserve him. I’ve never deserved him and now he’s going to realise he should have picked someone else. If he’d chosen anyone but me, he’d still be okay. I should’ve just cut my own bloody fingers off.’
‘It was an accident and you had the presence of mind to pack his fingers in ice. He won’t forget what you had to go through trying to help him and I’m sure the last thing on earth he’d have wanted was for you to get hurt.’
‘I can’t bear the thought of him looking down and seeing a hand that’s dead, with all its function lost. He’s left-handed, so it’s even worse. We were going to start trying for our first child when the house renovation is done, but what if he can’t even hold the baby properly. I’ll have robbed them both of all those bonding moments, all because I wasn’t concentrating when I should have been.’ Sienna’s voice had gone several octaves higher and nothing Eve was saying seemed to be making a difference. Sienna needed some kind of practical reassurance; to speak to someone who knew more about it than Eve did, and hear that there could be a good outcome, no matter how bad it looked right now.
‘Would it help you to talk to someone who’ll be involved in Dan’s rehabilitation after the operation? He’ll be able to tell you how likely it is that Dan will regain certain functions and what can be done to adapt to any permanent injuries.’
‘I think it really would.’ Sienna turned towards her with such hope in her eyes and Eve nodded.
‘Okay, just give me couple of minutes and I’ll see what I can do.’
‘Thank you.’ Sienna seemed to slump with relief as Eve headed off to make the call, she just hoped she’d be able to deliver on her promise.
