Perhaps it was when he saw the image come into focus on the sonographer’s screen. Or when he saw the distinct outline of the baby’s head. Or maybe it was when he heard the strong, rapid beat of his baby’s heart.
He didn’t know. And yet in that instant everything...shifted. His world began to tilt, slowly at first, then faster. It started to rotate, and spin, and he felt himself toppling, then falling.
His baby.
And Saskia’s.
And he knew he would go to the ends of the earth to protect it.
‘We should talk...’ Saskia bit her lip as they stepped out of the consultation room together.
‘We should,’ he agreed smoothly. ‘I think we need to start again.’
She smiled, almost shyly. ‘I’d like that.’
Whatever he’d expected her to say, it hadn’t been that. But why object when she was only voicing the thoughts in his own head.
‘A late lunch?’ he suggested, glancing at his watch.
It was the kind of timepiece that cost more than some people’s cars. He’d prided himself on that purchase. A reward for his first half a million.
Suddenly it seemed empty.
‘I can’t.’
Saskia shook her head, and he might even have thought she sounded genuinely disappointed.
‘I have to get back to the ward. Technically, I’m in the middle of a full weekend shift.’
‘A full weekend?’
Was this her way of giving him the brush-off?
After the scan he’d thought they’d turned a corner.
Had that just been in his head?
‘Friday to Monday,’ she confirmed. ‘We don’t get them that often, but when we do it’s pretty full-on.’
‘Fine. Lunch Tuesday, then. That will give you a day to recover.’ It wasn’t a question. ‘Look after yourself and the baby, and I’ll pick you up at midday. I’ll take you for lunch.’
‘Tuesday.’ She nodded, and then she flashed him a smile which seemed to send light cascading right through him.
He really was in trouble.
* * *
‘Yep, small bowel atresia.’ The paediatric surgeon eyed the X-ray with Saskia. ‘Good call.’
Good call—crappy outcome, Saskia thought as she considered the newborn baby at the other end of that X-ray.
She had practically floated back to the ward after her scan—and after talking to Malachi—but now everything had crashed back in. Hard. Painful.
The tiny girl they were discussing had only come into the world days before—a little premature, but apparently healthy, if a touch jaundiced, and passing a little meconium. Within hours it had become clear that she was vomiting every time she tried to feed, and the green colour, along with an examination, had revealed a swollen abdomen, leading Saskia to consider a bowel blockage.
She dealt with sick babies and children on a daily basis, but today it was really getting to her.
She fought to pull her head back into the game. ‘No contrast scan?’ she verified with the surgeon. ‘Enema?’