“Woo-ee,” was the weary reply. “Another one?”
Then, suddenly, there was what seemed like a dozen people rushing into the room, and Mina was able to abdicate her position, although she felt strangely aggrieved about it. She’d delivered the baby, all by herself, but they weren’t going to let her cut the cord? It didn’t seem right.
But her part in it was over, so, as the obstetrician took her place, she dodged a nurse pushing a cart and turned toward the door.
And there was Kiah, shaking his head, amusement tipping his lips, although his eyes looked solemn, maybe even a little sad.
Haunted.
Why that touched her so deeply, she didn’t know, but she stepped close to him, wishing they weren’t in the hospital, so she could hug him tight, the way she wanted to.
“Delivering babies now? What’s next? Juggling?”
So they were going with the jokes. That suited Mina just fine, and she wrinkled her nose at him.
“Yep,” she answered, swinging by him and tossing her gloves into the bin by the door. “With knives.”
The triage situation at the hospital lasted most of the day, and Mina found herself back in theater that afternoon, supervising a delicate spinal operation on the driver of the bus.
“In the past, we’d have airlifted him to Port of Spain, but if you think you can guide Dr. Golding through it here, we’ll get him prepped for surgery,” Director Hamilton said.
Mina looked at the MRI and CT scans, and talked the operation through with John Golding. Then, reassured the young doctor seemed up to the task, she agreed to oversee the surgery.
Kiah, who’d also been in theater most of the day, came in to observe the operation.
“You missed the best part already,” Mina told him, sending John Golding a wink when he glanced up from the endoscope. “John’s just about finished, and ready to close.”
Since they hadn’t been in the operating room more than fifteen minutes at that point, Kiah knew she was just talking smack.
“Why are you even here?” he asked her. “I thought you’d be down in the mat ward again.”
Mina sent him a dirty look, before concentrating once more on what was happening on the table. With her guidance, John performed the bilateral thoracic laminotomy, to relieve pressure on the patient’s spinal cord, and then spinal fusion on two lumbar vertebrae, all without a hitch.
But, although pleased with the outcome of the surgery, it was the delivery of the baby that stayed with her afterward.
In that moment, when she’d seen the newborn lying there, she’d realized she really was ready for a family. She’d probably never have a baby of her own, but adoption was definitely an option, in her books.
The decision was bittersweet, since with the realization came the knowledge that the only man she wanted to father her child wasn’t interested in doing so. Kiah Langdon, although ideal father material, didn’t want children. And even if he did, it was doubtful he’d choose her as the mother anyway. Theirs was a relationship that had taken a turn neither of them expected, but the physically intimate part of it wasn’t destined to continue. He’d made that plain despite his obvious desire for her, which, although he’d said it wasn’t, actually probably was just a by-product of his self-imposed sexual drought.
Yet, however despondent that thought made her feel, Mina knew she’d make it through, no matter what. She’d come to comprehend that, prior to the accident and the end of her marriage, she’d lived a pretty charmed life. There’d been little struggle—if she didn’t count medical school—and things had come far too easily for her. Who was she to rail at fate, rather than try to steer her own destiny?
She’d always love Kiah, as a friend and more, but she wasn’t going to stop living, just because he didn’t love her as a woman.
As exhausted as he was that evening, Kiah felt restless, and jumpy, too.
When he’d gotten to the door of the maternity ward and seen Mina kneeling at the foot of the bed, looking at the newborn, he’d thought his heart would explode. The expression on her face, one of mingled wonder, joy and elation, was so beautiful he could only stare, enraptured.
Wishing for a moment like that for her.
Wishing he could be the one to share it with her wasn’t something he could contemplate and still retain his sanity, so he pushed that particular thought aside.
The barrier he’d built up over the years about fatherhood was too strong to overcome. Seeing his father die, knowing the pain that loss caused both him and Karlene, had made him leery. Recognizing his anger issues, inherited from his mother, had cemented the decision not to have kids of his own. Who knew what kind of parent he’d turn out to be? One who devastated his family by dying early, or one who did it by staying alive and bitter?
Sure, he was nominally Charm’s father now, but that in itself only made his choice seem even more sound. There were times when he barely controlled the impulse to holler at her, and he couldn’t help thinking sometimes that she was at the age now that he’d been when his father died. She’d already been through so much. He could only pray she would be a little older, on steadier ground, before she had to suffer any more losses.
Like losing Miss Pearl.
After all, she was already in a tailspin over hearing Mina was going back to Canada. Hopefully, she’d weather the parting with a minimum of trauma.
Yes, having a family was something Mina wanted. He could only hope she would one day get it, and he’d have the strength to be happy for her.
Then, as they were all in the living room watching TV, there was a news report about a baby who’d been born weighing a whopping seventeen pounds.
“What
