Starting Over

'Why don't you ring your husband?' the nurse suggested gently.

MAX WAS IN the middle of a conference meeting with a client's solicitor when Maddy's call came through.

As she tried to tell him what had happened he could hear in her voice her fear and distress. He felt as though a knife were being turned in his heart. Maddy was ill...his Maddy, and she was frightened as well.

'I'm sorry,' he told the solicitor swiftly. 'But I'm afraid I'm going to have to leave. My wife isn't well.'

The solicitor, a sophisticatedly elegant thirty-something with a high-profile reputation and a prestigious client list, thinned her carefully made up mouth.

She had travelled up especially from London for this meeting and she was not accustomed to dealing with Counsel who put their wives before their clients.

At the back of her mind was something a little more than professional irritation. Max was stunningly attractive and even more stunningly male. She was certainly not the sort to indulge in seedy one-night stands with good-looking business associates but the thought of suggesting to Max that they share dinner together after their meeting had crossed her mind. As had her mentally wondering if she possibly had the time to pay a visit to that very chic designer store she had just happened to notice as she walked through Chester this morning before her appointment with Max. Now, though, she wouldn't need to pick up something alluring to wear this evening.

IT TOOK MAX twenty minutes to reach the hospital.

He found Maddy sitting anxiously on her bed in a small private room off the main ward.

As he crossed the room and took her in his arms she burst into tears.

'What is it? What's happened? What's wrong?'

Max asked her anxiously as he smoothed her hair back off her face and cupped it, his gaze searching hers as his heart hammered against his ribs.

She was so precious to him, so very much beloved, the bedrock on which his life was now built.

Whilst Maddy tried haltingly to explain the situation Max tried and failed to comprehend how he could possibly endure his own life if he were to lose her. All the sins of his own past came back to him; this was his deepest and most secret dread; this fear that somehow the same fate which had given him so much, forgiven him so much, should choose with savage and inescapable malignancy to punish not him but those he loved most; and of all those that he did love, Maddy was his most beloved.

In his more logical moments he knew his fears were unfounded and illogical, but the same change of heart which had shown him the error of his old ways and opened the locked door in his heart to show him the true meaning of love, had also opened that same door to show him fear; fear, not for himself but for those he loved.

He could hear Maddy telling him something.

Above the fierce pounding of his own heartbeat he could hear Maddy's voice. Determinedly he focused on it and on what she was saying.

The obstetrician had told her that she was suffering from pre-eclampsia, a condition which could, if left untreated, threaten the life of both her and her baby.

In order for them to treat it she would have to stay in hospital where her progress could be monitored and she would not be allowed to return home until they were satisfied that she was well enough to do so.

A nurse appeared in the room giving Max a frowning look as she reminded Maddy that she must try to keep calm.

'Can I see Mr Lewis?' Max asked her.

She pursed her hps.

'He's with another patient at the moment and I don't know how long he will be.'

'I'll wait,' Max told her in a tone of voice that said he wasn't going anywhere until he had spoken to the consultant.

'Oh, Max, I'm so afraid,' Maddy confessed. 'And I feel so guilty. If I hadn't missed my last antenatal appointment they would have found out then what was happening but Ben wasn't well and—'

His grandfather! Max closed his eyes and willed himself not to over-react.

'You're going to be fine,' he tried to reassure Maddy as he held her tightly, 'Both you and the baby.'

Ten minutes later, having told her that she wasn't to worry about anything and having promised that, yes, he would get in touch with Jenny and, yes, he would pick the children up from school and bring a bag of things into the hospital for her, Max kissed his wife and followed the nurse who had come to tell him that the consultant was ready to see him.

'...and there's nothing you can do?'

'In the sense of making the condition completely disappear, no,' the man agreed. 'But in the sense of getting it under control, yes. Our first priority is to bring your wife's blood pressure down and for that we need to keep her here in hospital. Once we are satisfied that it is safely under control then she will be allowed to return home but only on the understanding that she does not overdo things.'

'And if you can't bring her blood pressure down?'

Max pressed.

The consultant stood up and walked over to the tiny window of his office, keeping his back towards Max as he said quietly, 'That shouldn't happen....'

'But if it does?' Max persisted.

There was a long pause before the consultant replied.

'If the condition runs its course unchecked in the final three months of pregnancy it can lead to the mother suffering from fits and to the deterioration of the placenta which obviously affects the baby. Ultimately—" he paused and looked at Max "—when this happens the mother can suffer from convulsions which in a worst-case scenario causes brain damage for mother and child and potentially death.'

Max stared at him in white-faced disbelief, and sensing his feelings the other man assured him, 'These days the risk of that happening is minimal. As I've explained, now that we've detected the problem we should be able to bring your wife's blood pressure back to normal and keep it there.'

'You say should,' Max interrupted him grimly.

'What if you can't?' he demanded, his heart hammer-ing against his ribs.

There was a long pause before the doctor told him carefully, 'If we were to consider that there was any threat to your wife's life then we should need to discuss with her terminating her pregnancy.'

'Have you told Maddy any of this?' Max asked him grimly.

The consultant shook his head.

'At this stage I do not believe it is either necessary or constructive to add to your wife's anxiety. And I must reiterate to you that we are talking about a worst-case scenario.'

'There is no way I would ever countenance anything that would put Maddy's life at risk,' Max started to tell him. 'Even if that meant that...the baby...that a termination...'

The consultant looked at him with sympathy. 'We'll advise you and your wife of the best course of action as her pregnancy progresses.'

Max closed his eyes in mute despair. He knew full well just how Maddy would react. She was the kind of person who would always put the needs of others before her own, all the more so when that other was their unborn child.

Behind his closed eyelids Max cursed himself for the fact that she was pregnant. They already had a family, three children. He found himself wishing passionately that the coming baby had never been conceived, hating it almost for the danger it represented to Maddy, and hating himself even more for what he was feeling. Surely the best thing that could happen now for all their sakes would be for this pregnancy to end.

Couldn't nature step in on Maddy's behalf and remove from her the danger to her life?

Guilt burned like bitter gall in Max's throat and belly as he acknowledged the grim horror of what he was thinking. The death of his own child before it had even known life.

'Surely if Maddy's life was at risk you could just act,' he began, but the consultant was shaking his head.

'We would strongly recommend a termination if your wife's life were in jeopardy, but we would need to consult with her first,' he told Max sternly.

He felt sorry for Max, but the needs of his patient were his prime concern. His patients, in this case—

both Maddy and her unborn child. And there was another problem that he still had to raise with Max.

A little brusquely he did so. 'Your wife is eighteen weeks pregnant,' the consultant reminded Max stee-pling his fingertips together. 'Twenty weeks is the latest time I personally would want to perform a termination. After that...'

'After that, what?' Max could hear the raw fear in his own voice, taste it in his mouth. 'That only leaves two weeks to bring Maddy's blood pressure down.'