Marion Lennox - To the Doctor: A Daughter

But she’d slept all day and she felt terrific.

‘Go on. Ask. I can always refuse.’

His brows rose at that and she thought, Great-he’s not the only one who can read minds. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Nate Ethan.

She’d disconcerted him and it showed. When he spoke again his voice had lost some of its certainty. ‘I was wondering…’

‘You were wondering what?’

And out it came. ‘OK. I was wondering whether you’d cover me tonight.’

She thought about it. ‘Medically?’

‘Certainly medically.’ He smiled that endearing smile that would obtain anything he wanted. ‘Graham’s involved with the local repertory society-he’s playing the Major-General in their production of The Pirates of Penzance and it’s their dress rehearsal tonight.’

‘The Major-General?’ Gemma twinkled across the table at Graham. How wonderful. She could really see him in the role, waving his walking sticks at the pirates and the world in general and thumbing his nose at his disabilities. ‘That’s fantastic.’ She turned back to Nate. ‘So don’t tell me. You need to go, too, because you’re the Pirate King.’

‘No.’

Her nose wrinkled in disappointment. ‘That’s a pity.’ She had a great vision of him bare-chested and piratical, complete with cutlass and sword. The thought was enough to make her blink. ‘You’d make a wonderful pirate.’

He didn’t know how to take that one. ‘Thanks very much.’

‘Think nothing of it,’ she said expansively. The food, the warmth and the overall sense of security were getting to her, making her feel fantastic. ‘But if you’re not the pirate…’

‘I’m not in the play.’

‘Oh?’

‘Both of us can’t be,’ he said-as if she was a bit simple not to have thought it through. ‘Until now Graham and I haven’t been able to go out together. There’s always been the need to cover.’

‘But now?’

‘Now there’s you.’

Right. She was here. And she might as well work. Why not? ‘And you want to go out?’

‘If I can.’ There was a knock on the door. ‘Whoops. There’s Donna now.’

Donna. Right. Donna-the-girlfriend.

‘Donna and I were supposed to spend yesterday evening at the Jazzfest,’ Nate told her. ‘She was a bit upset when I was called away.’

‘I imagine she was.’ She tried not to mind. Why should she mind? Donna and Nate were nothing to her.

Were they?

‘Anyway, there’s a party on tonight for a couple of our friends who are getting married this weekend.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Starting about now.’

He hadn’t gone to answer the door and there was no need. Donna had let herself in. She stood in the doorway looking fabulous in a beige silk pantsuit that must have set her back half a year’s salary. She looked gorgeous!

And Gemma felt just like she always did when someone like this was around. Someone like Donna. Someone like Fiona. She felt frumpy and frazzled and like she was middle-aged already. At the ripe old age of twenty-eight.

‘Are you ready, love? Have you asked her?’ Donna didn’t bother to greet either Graham or Gemma, and Graham shoved his plate away with unnecessary force. As if he was suddenly faced with something distasteful.

‘If you’ll excuse me, I need to be going. I’ll be home at about eleven, Gemma.’

Which left Nate and Donna and Gemma. And one sleeping baby.

‘You don’t mind, do you?’ Nate asked politely. ‘There shouldn’t be any problems. We’ve gone through every patient’s history so there shouldn’t be any surprises, but if you’re worried give me a call.’ He motioned to his cellphone. ‘I wear my phone on my belt.’

‘I don’t mind.’ She was trying hard not to.

‘That’s great.’ Donna held out her hand to Nate and he rose and took it. ‘Lovely. Let’s go, sweetheart, before she changes her mind.’

She… She, the cat’s mother?

Gemma told herself she shouldn’t mind the way Donna was referring to her. Being a doormat was her role in life. But there was something stirring-the same thing that had stirred when the doctors had placed the newborn Mia in her arms. There was love and commitment-but there was also anger and resolution, and that resolution had to be brought to the fore right now.

‘You’ve forgotten something,’ she said flatly as they headed out the door.

‘Sorry?’ Nate turned, expecting her to point to the car keys or something trivial. ‘What?’

‘Your daughter.’

‘My…’ He stared at the crib. ‘Mia.’

‘That’s right.’

‘But you can look after her.’ It was a statement-not a question-and her anger built.

‘I told you, Nate. I won’t.’

‘But-’

‘But last night the hospital staff looked after her and today Mrs McCurdle looked after her. And tonight I’m not. I told you, Nate-she’s your daughter. Not mine.’

‘YOU have to be kidding.’ Donna was staring at her as if she’d lost her mind.

‘Why should I be kidding?’ Gemma’s tone was flat and lifeless, which was exactly how she felt. Nate was using her. Of course. Why on earth had she expected anything else?

‘Gemma, she’ll probably sleep,’ Nate told her, reasonableness personified. ‘And you’re going to be here anyway.’

‘I want to go and sit by Cady.’

‘Cady will be asleep. But, of course, you can go into the hospital. Mia will be only through the door and if there are any problems with patients you can wheel her through to kids’ ward.’

She glowered. ‘I might want to go for a walk.’

‘Then wheel her through to the hospital and take your phone. The staff will call you if she wakes.’

‘No.’

‘No?’

She stood and faced them. OK. She was about to be a totally unreasonable human being but it had to be done. She could see her time here stretching into the future. Doctor, Cady’s mother and Mia’s mum by default.

‘I told you, Nate-’

‘Gemma, you’re being irrational.’

‘No. I’m not. I’m keeping myself sane. I told you-I can’t afford to get any more attached to Mia. She’s your daughter, Nate. If you want to go out then you take her with you.’

‘I’m not taking any baby anywhere,’ Donna said flatly.

‘It’s cold outside.’ Nate was struggling to be reasonable. ‘She’ll catch a chill.’

Gemma looked at him in disbelief. ‘Oh, how medically sound is that? Catch a chill… What’s going to happen? Are all those little bugs labelled “chill virus” just hovering round in the night air waiting to strike? That’s nonsense, Nate Ethan, and you know it.’

He backed off a bit but persisted. ‘She could get cold.’

‘Yeah. Leave her naked in the night air and she’ll catch hypothermia. Bundle her up in her baby capsule with only her nose poking out, take a change of nappy and a couple of bottles, and she won’t know the difference from staying here all night.’

He glowered, and she glowered right back. Force meeting force. ‘Gemma, it would be much easier to leave her here, and you know it.’

‘Easier for who?’

‘For me,’ he said, and he suddenly stopped glowering and grinned.

Damn, he just had to smile at her. The great Labrador-puppyish grin had the capacity to take her breath away. That was the way he always got what he wanted, she decided-but he wasn’t getting it now.

Fiona had wheedled what she’d wanted by smiling just like that. Fiona and Nate… They were a pair in more ways than one, and she wanted nothing to do with it. She was through with being manipulated.

‘No,’ she said flatly, and backed against the sink. She was holding her empty plate before her like a shield, as if he was likely to broach her defence by sheer emotional force. Which was entirely possible.

‘Gemma…’

‘No!’

‘You really mean it?’

‘I really mean it. If you go out then you take your daughter with you.’

Accepting finally the impossibility of working on Gemma, Nate turned to Donna.

‘I’m not-’ Donna started.

‘Love…’

‘No.’

‘If we don’t take her I’ll have to stay home.’

Donna hesitated. She really wanted Nate, Gemma could see. But she didn’t want attachments. Well, why should she? Gemma asked herself, thinking of Cady sleeping peacefully just the other side of the wall. She knew more than most that attachments hurt.

‘If we take her tonight then you’ll want to take her everywhere,’ Donna was saying. ‘She’s not going to change her mind.’

At least Donna understood, Gemma decided. At least Donna could see it.

‘Just for tonight…’

‘No.’ Donna’s voice was suddenly just like Gemma’s. Implacable. ‘Kids don’t interest me, Nate. Hell, we’d be stuck. I mean, having a kid in the back seat…’

It would cramp her style, Gemma thought, not without sympathy. But her twinge of sympathy wasn’t enough to let her relent.

‘Gemma…’ Nate had turned to her again.

‘No!’

‘Hell!’ Nate closed his eyes. ‘Gemma, this is just plain unreasonable.’

‘Ring the discrimination board,’ she said flatly. ‘They’ll tell you how reasonable it is to expect a work colleague to look after your children.’

‘I don’t-’

‘You do. That’s what this is. Coercion. Do you want me as a doctor or do you want me as a babysitter?’

‘As a doctor, of course.’

‘Then look after your own kid.’

‘We’re giving you your keep for nothing…’

That was all she needed! Her eyes flashed fury. ‘Then I’ll move into the motel tonight.’ She slammed the plate into the sink and stalked to the door. ‘Thanks for the bed last night. Send me the bill for accommodation when you bill me for Cady’s medical expenses.’

‘Gemma, don’t be ridiculous.’

‘Goodbye, Nate,’ she said, and walked out the door, slamming it behind her. Before the pair of them could see the tears of frustrated rage welling in her eyes.

‘Gemma?’

‘Go away. I’ll be out of here in five minutes.’ She was shoving her hairbrush into her handbag. She had nothing else to pack, she thought bitterly, which made stalking out in style a whole lot easier.