The Nurse by J. Corrigan (list of ebook readers txt) 📕

I already saw. A toddler, a young child, a teenager, a woman. I would not ever meet her.

Daniel was already a distant memory.

A mistake. All of this was the universe’s revenge. My body had become enslaved to Daniel and now it was kicking back.

I saw a figure standing in the delivery room doorway, but I couldn’t make out who it was, not until they spoke. A voice that sounded familiar. A scent that smelt familiar.

Don’t you dare do this, Daniel.

Despite the situation, I was still Rose, the med student and scientist, and I knew I was most likely hallucinating. And this knowledge calmed me as I lost consciousness.

46

I opened my eyes, but a long strip light flickered above and I quickly squeezed them shut. I waited, then tentatively tried again, squinting into the laser-like glare. It took seconds for me to remember where I was, who I was, and about Samira. I tried to move but could not; only my eye muscles seemed to be functioning. There was a man in the doorway. He turned away quickly, but I recognised him. He looked agitated and anxious. Was I imagining Ed as I’d imagined my mother? Why was he there? Where was my baby?

Cam was standing next to me. She must have been there all the time.

‘Where’s the man gone?’ I said.

‘What man?’ Cam replied, her voice tense. ‘It’s all right, Rose. Try not to move.’

‘My baby, where is she? I want to see her.’

‘She hasn’t been born yet, Rose. You’ve been asleep for a while.’

I was just about to answer when a tornado of pain shot through me. ‘The contractions—’

‘Mark’s examined you and Samira will be here soon.’

‘How long have I been asleep?’

How could I have fallen asleep?

She didn’t answer immediately. ‘A while.’

‘How long?’

‘It’s very late in the evening, Rose. Shush, Daniel’ll be here soon.’

‘I don’t want Daniel. I want to have my baby. What the fuck is going on?’ But before she could answer, Mark appeared.

‘Contractions are regular,’ Cam said to him, as if I were not there.

But then a searing pain.

Mark was standing at the bottom of the bed, and I tilted my head. My legs were elevated. ‘Full dilation.’ And as he said it, another contraction, tearing my body in two.

It seemed to go on like that for hours. I heard Cam and Mark talking about getting SCBU ready. ‘What the hell is happening?’ I shouted, although I knew my voice was only a whisper. Where was Daniel?

A horrendous pain.

‘Push, Rose, push,’ Cam was saying.

Mark at my feet, holding forceps.

‘What’s wrong?’ I tried to ask, unsure if the words had fallen from my numb lips. But then the pain subsided, and along with it, so did I. I tried to lift my head and saw my baby, the cord, saw the problem Samira had been having, and despite everything, I sighed with relief. She was out. I waited for her to cry, but Cam was cutting the cord and my head had flopped down again in exhaustion; then Daniel was standing next to me, holding my baby, wrapped in white.

I tried to sit up, but couldn’t move. The carotid artery in my neck was pulsating at a rate I knew was too rapid. I closed my eyes and counted. One hundred and twenty. I became acutely aware of the blood pounding through my body. And I felt hot. So very hot.

‘You haemorrhaged badly, Rose, but it’s under control,’ Daniel said.

I managed to focus on Daniel, and my baby.

‘They did everything they could—’

‘Let me see her,’ I croaked.

‘I’m so sorry.’ He pulled away the blanket’s whiteness and placed my daughter gently on my chest.

I gazed at her face, so unwrinkled. She didn’t move. I held her tight and the tears burned my cheeks. ‘What did you do?’

‘The team did everything they could. Samira’s cord prolapsed; your contractions caused too much pressure, stopping the blood flow to her—’

‘You killed my baby.’

‘Don’t do this.’ He stepped forward, leaned closer. ‘You need to rest.’

My daughter was dead. I was dead. My relationship with him was dead.

He placed his hand on my arm, touched the blanket near to my daughter’s beautiful face. ‘It was never meant to be like this,’ he whispered.

No, it was never meant to be like this.

It was never meant to be.

I held Samira so close, somehow hoping that by doing so I could return her life to me. Daniel bent forward again. ‘Leave me,’ I tried to shout, but it came out as a trail of condensed air on a winter’s morning. ‘Leave me with my baby.’

‘I’ve lost a child too.’

‘It’s over. Everything is over.’ I meant it, and I would never change my mind. I wasn’t sure what I expected him to say. I just wanted him to go and leave me with Samira. But then the old Rose reappeared. ‘I want to see the surgical notes.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous. You need to get some sleep. We’ll talk later.’

He thought I didn’t mean what I said. Hysteria rose and filled me from the inside out. ‘You killed my baby.’

‘Stop it, Rose.’ His voice was quiet. ‘Your mum’s in the waiting room.’

‘Leave me alone, Daniel.’

He flinched but didn’t move.

‘Is Abigail here?’ I asked.

‘Of course Abigail isn’t here.’

‘I saw her… smelt her.’

‘Rose, she’s in Herefordshire.’ He took hold of my hand, and its coldness jerked at me. I was so, so hot.

‘Ed was here too.’

‘Of course Ed wasn’t here, just as my sister isn’t.’ He touched my forehead again. ‘Try to sleep.’

He left without another word, and then Mark came into the room with Cam.

‘We need to get you to your room, Rose,’ he said. ‘Get you comfortable.’ He touched my arm, which still had the cannula inserted.

‘You killed my baby.’

Cam was standing on the other side of the bed, trying to get the syringe tip into the cannula. I wanted none of it. I wanted to be awake and lucid.

‘Get off me,’ I said, still holding Samira.

Mark snatched the syringe from her and adeptly managed to do what