‘Doreen, I’m not sure this is just angina,’ she said, trying to keep her voice steady, not wanting to put fear into the equation as well. ‘I think we should get this checked. Can I call an ambulance?’
‘No!’
‘At least let me call Jake.’
‘No,’ Doreen whispered, but she said it much less force-fully-and then she stopped breathing.
One minute she was sitting on the edge of her bed, half supported by Tori. The next she simply swayed backwards, falling onto her pillows, unconscious.
Tori’s fingers had been on her neck, feeling her pulse. Her hand followed her down-and there was no longer a pulse.
Doreen had said not to call Jake. That was five seconds ago. This was now.
‘Jake,’ she yelled at the top of her lungs. ‘Jake, I need you
He was with her before she’d stopped yelling. She was still searching for a pulse, but with her other hand she was hauling Doreen’s legs back onto the bed, shoving away the bedclothes that were half covering her.
‘She said angina. I think now…cardiac arrest. No pulse.’
Jake was on the other side of the bed, like her, searching for a pulse, then hauling pillows away, lying her flat, checking her airway.
‘Breathe for her,’ Jake snapped, and took the neckline of Doreen’s flannelette nightgown and ripped it to the waist. His big hands rested on Doreen’s chest for a moment, steadied, then moved rhythmically into cardiac massage. ‘Breathe,’ he snapped at her again. ‘Tip her head back, hold her nose and fill her lungs with your breath. Twice. Then I pump. Come on, Tori…’
She needed no third bidding. She breathed while Jake took a short break from chest compressions. Fifteen pumps per minute, down, down, down, while Tori breathed and prayed and breathed and prayed and breathed and prayed.
They needed an ambulance, defibrillator, oxygen, adrenaline, but there was no time, no space, to call for help. If they didn’t get Doreen back now, no amount of equipment or expertise would help her.
No more deaths. Please, no. Not Doreen.
Breathe and pray. Breathe and pray.
‘Don’t panic,’ Jake said softly and he must have sensed rather than felt her surge of despair. ‘Steady, Tori, slow and steady, don’t stop breathing until you’ve seen her chest rise.’ He wasn’t altering his rhythm. Down, down, down, over and over, over and over.
How long now? Please, please…
‘Early days,’ Jake said. ‘Two minutes, no longer. Big breaths, Tori, deeper, I’m going harder.’
He did, and she heard the unmistakable sound of a rib cracking. She winced but kept on breathing, kept on breathing. Another crack. And then…
A ragged, heaving gasp, so harsh it caught them both by surprise. Doreen’s whole body shuddered. Tori drew back a little, hardly believing, but Doreen dragged in another breath and then another.
Life.
Jake was hauling her onto her side, clearing her mouth again, supporting her, making sure she didn’t gag, choke, while Tori sat back on her heels and stared and felt sick to the stomach. And then suddenly…not sick.
She could hear Doreen breathe.
Where had that come from? It was weird little song, a child’s tune from her past, and suddenly as she watched Jake work, as she waited to see that she was no longer needed, that she was free to go for help, the song was in her head. Her mother had taught it to her. She remembered sitting on her mother’s bed singing it. And then after her mother’s funeral, she remembered her father bringing home two puppies, one for her and one for Micki.
‘I’m calling him Itsy,’ she’d told her father, and Micki had called her puppy Bitsy. She thought suddenly, crazily and totally inappropriately, if Doreen lived, then she wanted another dog and she wanted to call him Itsy. It was part of her prayer.
Doreen’s breathing was steadying. Tori was grinning like a fool, and Jake’s smile was almost as wide as hers.
But he wasn’t relaxing yet. His smile was there but it was intent, and his attention was totally fixed on Doreen. He was moving on, she thought, totally concentrated on medical need. She, however, could back away a little. With Doreen’s breathing settling they could risk Tori leaving for a moment.
‘Call the ambulance,’ Jake said. ‘You have mobile cardiac units here?’
‘MICAs, yes. Mobile intensive-care ambulances.’
‘That’s what I want and I want them here yesterday. Then wake Rob. I want the first-aid kit he keeps. We have oxygen. Move, Tori.
She moved. She might be a vet and not a doctor but she didn’t have to be a doctor to know the situation was still grave. Something had stopped the flow of blood to Doreen’s heart, and that something was still not resolved.
‘See if Rob has dissolvable aspirin,’ Jake snapped, and then as Doreen’s eyes widened, focused, his tone changed. He sat down on the bed beside her and he took her hand in his.
‘Hey, Doreen, you’ve given us all one hell of a fright,’ he told her, as Tori headed for the door. ‘You passed out on us. I’m supposed to be an anaesthetist, not a cardiologist. And I’m not supposed to practise medicine in Australia. Are you trying to get me into trouble?’
He was wonderful, Tori thought dreamily. She fled.
When the ambulance arrived it came complete with its own paramedical team. They moved swiftly and efficiently, and Tori and the now wide-awake Rob were no longer needed. And Doreen still wouldn’t let them wake Glenda.
‘She hasn’t slept for weeks,’ she whispered. ‘I checked on her before I went to bed and she was sleeping like a baby. Please don’t wake her. I don’t need anyone to go with me.’
‘I’ll go with you,’ Tori said.
‘I don’t need anyone.’
‘Of course you do.’ Tori smiled down at her, the events of the night making her feel spacey and happy and floaty. Nothing would happen now. Jake had saved Doreen. And somehow…somehow it felt as if Jake had saved
She glanced down as something brushed against her leg and it was Rusty, but he wasn’t brushing against her. He was simply positioning himself so he could press more closely against Jake.
You and me both, she thought mistily, and then Doreen’s hand reached out and took Jake’s and she thought, You and me, three?
‘Could you come with me?’ Doreen whispered to Jake, and the force she’d used to forbid them to wake Glenda was gone. She sounded frail again, and frightened. ‘You’re Old Doc’s son.’
‘I’m-’
‘That’s a really good idea,’ Rob said, sounding relieved. ‘It’d be great if she had a doctor go with her.’ In case she arrests again. It was unspoken but definitely implied.
And for reasons of her own, Doreen agreed. ‘Old Doc’s son,’ Doreen whispered. ‘Combadeen has its doctor back.’ Her hold on Jake tightened. ‘It’s so good to have you home.’
Who could sleep after that? The ambulance left, with Doreen and Jake aboard. Despite Rob’s protestations Tori sat on the verandah and watched the dawn. Rusty was watching the road again, but things had changed. Who he was watching for had changed.
‘There’s no use changing your allegiance in that direction,’ she told him. ‘But as a transitional tool he’s very useful.’
The only problem was, Jake didn’t seem like a transitional tool. He felt permanent.
But, of course, he wasn’t.
When she’d run into him tonight he’d been shocked to the core, thrown out of kilter by what he’d heard about his father. He had a lot of thinking ahead of him.
