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but his mind filtered the information, and, Nina noted, he really was listening.
‘Tommy had shut down from the trauma of being with his mother’s body, but apart from that there were issues with bonding with his father.’
‘Explain.’
She smiled. He didn’t waste words, but gave her a chance to speak.
‘When I first met Tommy and his father, Tommy took all his direction from me. He had more connection with me than with his own father. As you know, a child is normally unsure around strangers, but not in this case. Mike had had very few dealings with Tommy and that’s what we’ve been working on, whereas the psychologist has been dealing more with the issues of losing his mother. They’ve come on in leaps and bounds—despite enormous financial stress, Tommy and Mike are a real unit. He looks to his father now for prompts, he’s asking to see him right now …’
‘The father clearly has a temper problem. I saw the way he was with you.’
‘Yes,’ Nina said. ‘But never with Tommy.’
‘Never?’
‘He was cross this morning about the wet bed, but that was out of frustration and fear. He doesn’t understand the bruises and the cut. Mike told me that he was terrified that we’d take him away, what we’d think, that’s why he didn’t bring him in—which, yes, was a terrible call …’
Jack nodded. It had been a terrible call but one he had seen many parents make.
‘I remember one child that was referred to us for unexplained bruising had leukaemia …’
‘He’s had blood work.’ Jack shook his head. ‘He hasn’t got that and leukaemia wouldn’t account for two fractured ribs and an infected cut that actually looks as if it’s combined with a burn—and that he’s resumed bedwetting.’
‘Fine,’ Nina said, and Jack frowned.
‘What does that mean?’
‘You’ve already made up your mind.’ She walked out of his office and to the nurses’ station and set up her computer to input her notes—God, she was an angry thing, Jack thought. He felt like walking over and tapping her on the shoulder, telling her that, no, he hadn’t made up his mind, that he was still trying to catch up on the notes, and that he didn’t jump in with assumptions. He looked at all the facts and then he made up his mind.
So he started to.
He read the psychologist’s notes though they dealt more with the issues surrounding the mother, and then he read Nina’s.
They were incredibly detailed and her observations were astute, outlining how Tommy had first responded to her, that he had been precocious almost, sitting on her knee, playing with her lanyard, taking no direction from the father he knew, but in later visits he had turned more and more to his father, so much so that Nina had been about to close the case.
So what had gone wrong these last weeks?
Jack looked up and saw Nina tapping away on her laptop, then she stopped and yawned and gave her head a little shake. He watched as she stood and headed for the water cooler and then came back to the computer, frowning as she read through her notes. Then she must have hit ‘send’, because an update appeared in the notes Jack was reading.
And he read Nina’s account of today.
She was a brilliant report writer. He had expected more passion, a little dig at the medial staff perhaps, but instead she had detailed all that had happened, and her conclusion that, given the injuries and the lack of any explanation, she had obtained an urgent court order that allowed supervised access only for the next seventy-two hours.
And Jack sat and racked his brains.
He shut out all chatter.
He was head of paeds for more reasons than his financial pull.
No one argument swayed him, no tearful plea prompted his signature on anything that he didn’t believe in.
Jack walked over to the bedside where Nina now stood stroking Tommy’s dark curls as he slept. ‘Do you always get this involved?’
‘Always.’ She didn’t look up. ‘Right now my department is all this little guy’s got.’
‘As well as the medical staff.’
‘I’m talking about family.’ She looked up. ‘He wants his father and I’ve been to court to stop that contact; it’s not a decision that can be taken lightly. I have a worker booked for nine a.m. and she will supervise a visit, but really Tommy needs his father tonight.’
‘I’ve been reading through the notes,’ Jack said, only he didn’t get to finish as he was interrupted by a sudden wail from a sleeping Tommy. Nina looked down, moved to comfort him as his eyes opened and he sat up, clearly terrified.
‘It’s okay, Tommy,’ Nina said, sure the little boy was having a nightmare, but instead Jack told her to step out, already pressing the bell for assistance. He knew long before Nina did what was happening, because Tommy hadn’t woken up. He was experiencing an aura, a sudden panic before a seizure, and Tommy nearly bolted from the bed as Jack firmly held him, then laid him back down as his body gave way to spasms …
Nina felt sick. There was no question now that she should go home and she headed to the office, watching as the nurses ran with the trolley, IVs were put up and drugs were given.
Yet nothing seemed to be working.
She heard the call go out for the anaesthetist and then she saw through a chink in the curtains that after only brief respite young Tommy’s body was starting to seize again.
A grim-faced Jack came into the office a while later.
‘He’s anaesthetised and we’re taking him down for an urgent head CT,’ Jack told her. ‘You need to let his father know.’
‘What do I tell him?’
‘Just tell him to get here,’ Jack said. ‘I’ll be the one to tell him that it’s not looking good.’
IT WAS A wretched night.
She had to sit with a terrified Mike who arrived after Tommy had gone for his CT scan. Because of the court order, because of the possibility that he had caused the injuries, Mike would only be allowed to see Tommy supervised, and when Lorianna, the duty social worker, appeared in the waiting room to sit with him, although exhausted, the last thing Nina wanted to do was leave.
‘Go home.’ Lorianna pulled her aside. ‘It’s after one and you’re due back at nine.’
‘I want to hear the results.’
‘They’ll be the same results in the morning.’ Lorianna was practical. ‘Anything from dad?’
‘Nothing.’ Nina shook her head. ‘I’d just spent the best part of an hour trying to convince Jack that Mike hadn’t harmed Tommy and I’ve just heard a nurse saying that they’re flagging brain trauma …’ God, she was questioning herself, which Nina did often, but she had been so sure Mike hadn’t hurt Tommy. The sight of the little boy seizing had really upset Nina and standing outside the CT area, seeing more and more staff rushing in, in a race to save a little life, had tears stinging her eyes.
‘You need to go home.’ Lorianna was firm. ‘You know that.’
Nina did.
There would be another family or families that needed her tomorrow and it wasn’t fair to them if she hadn’t at least had some sleep, but it felt so wrong to be leaving, so terrible to just walk away, except Nina knew that she had to.
She said goodbye to Mike, told him she would