A Special Kind Of Family

‘Sure thing. Is Enid dead, then? We thought it might be soon.’

So the town was expecting this death. More and more, she knew this was something she could deal with. Yes, it’d be better for Hughie if Dom was able to come, but right now triage said those little boys needed him more.

She’d stowed her clothes in the downstairs bathroom so she could have privacy when she dressed. That meant she didn’t need to go back into the living room. Two minutes later she was dressed in jeans and a thick sweater- and Dom’s boots again-and Graham was ushering her out of the house.

‘Thank God you’re here,’ he said, stowing Dom’s medical bag into the back of his truck. ‘Doc’s driving himself into the ground. You don’t want to move here permanently, do you?’

‘I might,’ she said, and he came close to tripping over his feet as he climbed into the truck.

‘You’re kidding.’

‘Maybe I’m not,’ she said cautiously. But the idea was taking solid form.

Dom had said flatly it was impossible. Okay, living in the same house was impossible-she conceded that. But what he was doing with the kids was so worthwhile. If she could share his medical load…

‘Everyone says you need two doctors.’

‘We need half a dozen,’ Graham told her. ‘We’ve been advertising for ever.’

‘So if I were to stay…’

‘You’d never move in with him,’ Graham breathed.

‘I…No.’ Dom had said they couldn’t work together because of this ‘thing’ between them. But maybe they could. If they stayed apart.

Apart for as long as he wanted.

‘I reckon our Tansy’d have something to say about that,’ Graham said, grinning. ‘But that means you’d be needing somewhere to live. What about old Doc’s place?’

Whoa. Things were suddenly moving really fast, even for her newly formed resolutions.

The dawn light was just starting to edge over the horizon. Their truck was headed out of town on a bumpy road. Around them were open paddocks full of sleepy sheep.

How could she move here?

But Graham wasn’t treating the suggestion as silly.

‘Where’s…old Doc’s place?’ she ventured.

‘How about I take you there after we finish at Hughie’s?’ Graham said, warming to his theme. ‘It’s a bachelor pad-a tiny house attached to the building that used to be the hospital. The government closed the hospital when old Doc died. This doc says he can’t open it again-he can’t have inpatients without back-up. But old Doc’s place is owned by the town and it’s for medical staff. That’d mean you. Hell, with two doctors we might be able to open the hospital again. What d’yer reckon?’

‘I reckon I need to think about it,’ she said cautiously. ‘I need to talk to Dom.’

‘What’s this got to do with Dom?’ Graham said easily, chuckling. ‘In my other life I run the local hotel. I’m head of the chamber of commerce, plus I’m shire president. If there’s the possibility of an extra doctor for this place, I’m not letting you go. Consider yourself hired.’

Enid Matheson was indeed dead, peacefully in her own bed, dying in her sleep with her husband beside her.

‘There’s not a lot of women lucky enough to have this as their farewell,’ Erin said gently as she checked all vital signs. Then, just as gently, she touched the lady’s face in the gesture of farewell she always used. Working in Emergency in a big city hospital meant most of her farewells didn’t seem as right as this one. Enid had been in her eighties. There were photographs all over the house-Enid and Hughie, with kids, dogs, grandkids, ribbons for prize bulls, certificates for prize fruit cakes…The house was a cosy, well-loved testament to a woman who had known how to make a home.

Erin thought fleetingly back to her parents’ home, to the super-clean granite and stucco architectural statement her parents worked so hard over-and she was aware of a stab of envy.

Then she thought of the bikes and pogo stick and general chaos in Dom’s yard and felt a stab of something else. The same but different.

But now wasn’t about her, she thought as she finished her examination. Hughie was sitting at the kitchen table, his head in his hands, silently weeping.

She put on the kettle and found two mugs. Outside Graham would be waiting but he’d said, ‘You’re not to worry-there’s others taking care of things back at Dom’s place and I have all the time in the world. Hughie’ll need you. I’ll wait for as long as you need.’

So she took him at his word. In a while she’d do the official stuff-fill in the death certificate, organise an undertaker, ask Hughie who she should call.

But if he’d desperately wanted his family to be with him he’d have called them by now. It seemed he wanted a little time first, before the business of dealing with death began. Thanks to Graham, she could give it to him.

‘Tell me about Enid,’ she said softly, as she put a mug of hot, sweet tea in front of him. ‘This house is lovely. I’m guessing she’s been a wonderful woman.’

‘She is,’ the old farmer said brokenly, and looked through into the bedroom. ‘She was.’ He shook his head. ‘You…you really want to hear about her?’

It was a plea, pure and simple.

‘Yes, I do,’ Erin said strongly, and surprised herself by the truth of what she’d said.

This was a facet of medicine she’d never thought about. Trained and working in city hospitals she’d never been in the position where…

Where patients could be friends, she thought suddenly, with a flash of insight. This Easter was really changing her perspective.

Up until now she’d thought that Dom was a self-sacrificing hero. Now, as she sat in front of the ancient kitchen stove and shared a second and then a third cup of tea and heard about Enid from the time she and Hughie had first met, she thought, No, it worked both ways.

She could do this. What’s more, she wanted to do this.

‘Doc’s been great,’ Hughie said, and she had to haul herself out of her own thoughts and back to him.

‘He’s looked after Enid well?’

‘When we knew the cancer had spread, our kids said we should put her in a hospice. But Doc said if she wanted to stay home then stay home she would, and he’s moved heaven and earth to keep her here. He’s been here nearly every day. He brings those kids with him-I take ’em for a ride on the tractor while he looks after Enid. You know, she’s hardly had pain at all. The minute there’s pain you ring me, he says, and we do…we did…and he’d be here. He’s one in a million. But he works too hard.’

‘I know that,’ she said. ‘I’m thinking of helping him.’

The old farmer’s gaze lifted from the dregs of his tea. His eyes were red-rimmed from weeping but he looked at her now-he really looked.

‘That’d be great,’ he said simply. ‘You’re such a one as he is. I can see it sticking out a country mile. And now…’ He took a deep breath.

‘And now?’

‘It’s time to call the kids,’ he said. ‘It’s time to call the church and the funeral chaps. Thank you for giving me this time, miss. I’ve appreciated it more than you can say.’

‘You want me to make the calls for you?’

‘If you would,’ he said with dignity. ‘I’ll sit with Enid until they come.’

Afterwards Graham drove her home past the old doctor’s house and the building that had once been Bombadeen’s hospital. Weirdly it still looked neat and freshly painted-a long, low building of rendered brick surrounded by well-tended gardens and ancient eucalypts.

‘It looks like it closed yesterday,’ Erin said, confused.

‘The locals hated it when it closed,’ Graham told her. A few of the oldies have taken it on as their retirement project. If we can ever attract another doctor to the place, we can get it open again in a trice.’

‘I’d imagine there’d be heaps of bureaucracy.’

‘I’m really good at bureaucracy.’ Graham was casting her thoughtful, sideways glances.

‘Dom probably likes being the only doctor.’

‘Are you kidding?’