Twins On Her Doorstep. Alison Roberts

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       CHAPTER THREE

      THE PACKET OF TABLETS, a combination therapy for the treatment of malaria, was easy enough to find in the bag that Sophie carried back into her consultation room in North Cove’s medical centre.

      Finding head space where she could even start trying to process this turn of events in her life was rather more difficult.

      Impossible, even.

      Her daughters? Hardly. The mother of those two little girls was a woman called Stella who’d chosen to bring them into existence. Who’d carried them in her belly for nine months and given birth to them.

      It would be a different story if she’d had these babies herself and then given them up for adoption but her only contribution had been an egg donation. She’d given up some biological material to be used by someone who’d had need of it.

      Like giving a blood donation. It had been made and that was the end of it.

      So why did it feel as if an uncontrollable series of future events was only just beginning?

      It was too huge even to know where to start.

      And she had something more important to think about right now, in any case.

      ‘I’m not sure I’m happy to hand out drugs without making a clinical diagnosis,’ she told Finn.

      He looked as though it was taking an effort to open his eyes. Such dark eyes, Sophie noticed, that it was hard to tell if his pupils were dilated or not. And, when his gaze touched hers again, there was something different about it. Because she knew why he was here, now?

      No. Sophie suspected it would have been the same if they’d caught each other’s gaze on a street somewhere. There was something else here. A sense of connection. Recognition, even?

      ‘You’re not handing them out. They’re mine. I diagnosed myself. I’ve kept the drugs on hand ever since I contracted malaria in the first place. In case this happened.’

      ‘What about differential diagnoses?’

      Finn sighed. ‘Such as?’

      ‘A viral illness like influenza. Sepsis. Food poisoning. Hepatitis…’ Sophie racked her brains. Malaria wasn’t a common illness in these parts. ‘Plague,’ she added.

      Unexpectedly a corner of Finn’s mouth twitched. ‘It does kind of feel like plague at the moment, I have to confess.’

      So he had a sense of humour? Even more unexpectedly, Sophie felt a twinge of liking this guy, closely followed by a wave of sympathy. He hadn’t actually come here with the intention of ruining her life, had he? He was faced with a massive problem and he’d been grasping at straws.

      ‘Even if your self-diagnosis is correct, it’s my job to decide whether you’re sick enough to be admitted to hospital.’ Sophie picked up her tympanic thermometer and fitted a plastic shield onto it. She smoothed back rather damp waves of his hair to find his ear hole. It was a perfectly normal thing to be doing, so why did it suddenly seem a little too personal? Intimate, even? Maybe her words were for herself as much as him. ‘Right now, you’re a patient in my medical practice.’

      Finn submitted to having his temperature taken. ‘It was uncomplicated malaria the first time round. I don’t need to be admitted anywhere. I just need to take my medication and find somewhere to stay for a day or two. Until I’m fit to drive.’

      Oh, yeah… He’d already realised that he’d made a mistake and he’d been intending to rectify it by leaving and taking the children with him. She had to admire that decision given that he’d said he was no more in a position to take on his orphaned nieces than she was.

      But why had he only met them so recently? There was more to this story than she’d been given. Possibly because she hadn’t wanted to listen and had told him as much in no uncertain terms. She hadn’t wanted her heartstrings tugged, to get involved with this story at any meaningful level.

      The thermometer beeped and Sophie glanced at the readout. ‘Forty point one,’ she announced. ‘That’s quite an impressive fever.’

      ‘Which will probably drop quite soon and then make a reappearance later.’ But Finn was pushing away the blanket she’d covered him with. ‘Would you have a glass of water available? I’d like to take my pills.’

      ‘Just a minute… I want to have a listen to your chest. And a feel of your tummy, if you don’t mind.’

      Finn’s head dropped back against the pillow again. ‘It’s not necessary.’

      ‘You’re currently my patient,’ Sophie reminded him. ‘You don’t get to fall over in my consulting room and then tell me what is or isn’t necessary. Okay?’

      He made no response but Sophie almost got the feeling that he was happy to comply. Maybe he was feeling so awful that being forced to get checked was almost a relief?

      Malaria could have nasty complications. Fatal ones, such as cerebral oedema, organ failure and coma due to hypoglycaemia. This might be the first case of malaria that Sophie had come across but the professional part of her brain was actually revelling in retrieving information learned long ago.

      ‘Your lungs sound clear. No pulmonary oedema.’

      ‘I could have told you that. I’m not having any respiratory issues.’

      Sophie had got past that disturbing beat of feeling that this situation had a personal rather than purely professional edge. She was totally focussed now. ‘Would you mind undoing your jeans for me, please?’

      She laid her hand on a very flat abdomen, pressing gently to examine a lower quadrant. ‘When did you last have something to eat?’

      ‘I’m not sure. We stopped for lunch but I was more worried about whether Ellie and Emma were eating. Which they weren’t…’

      ‘Don’t worry. If I know my mum, she’ll be filling them up with something like fish fingers and ice-cream right about now. Hmm…that hurt, didn’t it?’

      ‘A bit…’ The admission was reluctant.

      ‘That’s right over your spleen and I’d say it’s enlarged. It can rupture, you know, in a severe case of malaria.’

      ‘Yeah…thanks for that.’

      ‘I’m going to take some blood as well. I can do a blood glucose here but I’ll have to send the rest away to check on your renal function.’

      She helped him roll up the sleeve of his woollen jumper and pulled a tourniquet tight above his elbow. He didn’t flinch when the needle pierced his skin. A high pain threshold? She’d need to СКАЧАТЬ