that feel like?’
‘Like my hand doesn’t belong to me,’ Glenda whispered. ‘Like it’s not there-only it is. I can feel it but not like I want to feel it. Sometimes it hurts so much I just want to chop it off. It’s not mine any more. It’s not real.’
‘It is real.’
‘I’m being stupid,’ Glenda said, as finally Jake rested her hand in his again and let it lie.
‘No.’ It was such a flat response that Glenda stared. ‘You’re not being stupid. How long have you been putting up with pain like this?’
‘A while.’
‘Months,’ Doreen said dully. ‘And it’s getting worse.’
‘But at the beginning it did seem to get better?’
‘Yes,’ Glenda whispered. ‘That’s why it’s stupid. It got better and all the scans are good and the doctors say I’m cured. Only then the pain started…’
‘I’ve seen this before,’ Jake said. He was still holding her hand in his, so gently he couldn’t possibly be hurting.
‘I’m thinking this is something called complex regional pain syndrome,’ he said, and it was as if he was alone with Glenda-everyone else had disappeared. ‘Everything fits. You’ve had major trauma. So many of the bones and blood vessels and nerves were damaged that often a physical recovery masks more complex nerve problems. The symptoms often occur months after the injury itself. Your hand feels cold and there are areas of sensory blunting. It feels strange and stiff, like it doesn’t quite belong to you. And then there’s the pain. You protect it to stop it hurting, and the more you protect it, the worse it gets. Your fingers are already starting to curl. It’s hard to make them move.’
‘I don’t want to move them,’ Glenda whispered. ‘But it’s only my hand. I was so lucky… I’m better.’
‘You’re not better. You have nerve damage that needs to be addressed,’ Jake said sternly, and Glenda blinked and looked at him with something akin to hope.
‘The doctors say there’s nothing they can do.’
‘That might be because you’ve been talking to surgeons,’ Jake said. ‘And no, there’s nothing more surgeons can do. Now it’s time to move to another specialty.’
‘Like you?’
‘Someone like me. I can’t prescribe in this country-I’m not registered. But I’m happy to write a note for you to take to your family doctor, asking that you be sent to a pain specialist.’
‘More morphine?’
‘Morphine’s not great for this type of pain,’ Jake said. ‘What you need is a drug specifically targeting nerve pain, and there are good ones. My guess is that we can give you immediate relief the moment we get you a nerve- specific drug. If you agree, first thing tomorrow we can find out who knows who in this valley and get you on something that will help.’
‘I know people,’ Tori offered, and Jake sent her a smile that made her feel even more dazed.
‘There you go, then. First cab off the rank is our local vet. They say there are six levels of connection between you and anyone else in the world. I’m thinking Tori will do it in two.’ And then, as Glenda looked at him in disbelief, he touched her cheek, a huge gesture, Tori thought, for someone who seemed to hold himself so aloof.
‘It’s okay,’ he told her. ‘The nerve-specific pain relievers are easy on the tummy, and it’s not like you’ll need them forever. You also need a hand therapist, and you need her urgently as well, if that hand isn’t to turn into a claw. You think you might be able to find us one of those, Tori?’
‘Dad’s old vet nurse has a daughter who’s a hand therapist,’ Tori said, absurdly pleased. ‘She works in the same clinic as the doctor I use.’
‘There you are, then,’ Jake said. ‘But first…let’s pack that hand in heat before you go to bed. We’ll pack it in hot-water bottles, or heat packs if Rob’s got them. We’ll give you some of that morphine-yes, it has side effects, but I’m thinking this is the last time you’ll take it-and then you’ll sleep. That’s an order.’
And he said it so sternly that, to Tori’s astonishment, Glenda giggled.
‘Yes, Doctor,’ she said.
‘That’s what I like,’ he said. ‘An obedient patient.’
‘Thank you,’ Doreen breathed, and Tori looked from Jake to Glenda and then back to Jake and she thought, I am in such trouble.
Do not trust?
How could she not?
She didn’t have a choice. Concentrate on work, she thought suddenly, fiercely. Jake was being kind because he was a doctor. Maybe she should think of a way she could be useful, too.
‘Rob, tomorrow you and I need to talk about your pet policy,’ she ventured, as Glenda glowed at her and then glowed back at Jake. She looked as if she might be as smitten as Tori was feeling. ‘If you’re giving fire victims time out, what they most need is the people and pets they love. Are you allergic to cats, Jake?’
‘No, but…’
‘But what?’
‘But nothing,’ he told her and shrugged and smiled. ‘There don’t seem to be many buts right now.’
Where was the aloof man she’d met at five-minute dating? He was unbending by the minute.
‘You organise it,’ he said. ‘Tell Rob what he needs to do and he’ll do it. What you’re capable of…are you sure you’re just a vet?’
‘I’m just a vet,’ she said, a trifle unsteadily, but Jake’s smile was making her feel as if she didn’t know what she was any more.
‘If you’ll excuse me,’ she said unsteadily, ‘I’m really very tired and Rusty will be waiting. Goodnight, all.’
And because the night really was getting blurry-because she didn’t understand how the expression on Jake’s face was making her feel-she rose and fled, just as fast as her dignity allowed her.
CHAPTER FIVE
EXHAUSTION took care of the first part of the night. It almost always did. But despite the wonderful meal, the fabulous bed and the feeling of being nurtured, the demons were never far away. Tori woke as she’d done for the past six months, at three in the morning, to stare wide-eyed into the dark. Remembering a darkness she’d never forget.
Rusty had gone to sleep on her bed. Now, however, he was where he always was at this time of the morning, with his nose hard against the door, waiting for someone to come home.
‘It’s time we both stopped waiting for them,’ she told him, but he whimpered and pawed the door and she rose to let him out, to show him that no one was on the other side of the door.
Rusty had been one of a pack. Maybe she should get a new pup, she thought. Maybe that’d help. Somewhere, sometime, she’d read that a measure of a life well lived was how many good dogs could be fitted in. As a vet and dog lover since childhood, she accepted that for a fundamental truth. But still… To take that last step and move on…
She wasn’t ready and she wasn’t sure Rusty was either.
She walked out onto the verandah and gazed up at the mountains looming above. The moon was vast and full, turning the night into a sepia version of daylight, with the blackened landscape softened, disguised.
Rusty nosed her ankle and whimpered.
‘We shouldn’t be off the ridge,’ she whispered, stooping to hug him. ‘It feels wrong.’
It wasn’t wrong. She had to start her new life. Tomorrow?
But maybe she’d come down too quickly. Right now it felt as if she’d forgotten something very important.
‘Maybe we need to say goodbye,’ she whispered. ‘Come on, Rusty, we can do this. Do this and move on.’
She slipped back into her room and tugged on jeans and windcheater, then headed out again, her little dog at her heels. She didn’t go out through the house, though. She didn’t want to wake the household, so she slipped out onto the verandah, down through the rose garden, around the corner of the house to the car park-and she barrelled
