Secrets of a Career Girl. Carol Marinelli

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СКАЧАТЬ feed while you go and call Paeds,’ Ethan said to Penny, handing the crying baby back to his mum. ‘Wait one moment before you feed him.’ He stepped out with Penny. ‘He’s to be transferred. I know he seems fine at the moment but, given his age, he needs to be somewhere with PICU.’

      ‘I know.’ Penny nodded.

      ‘Can you get Lisa to come in and watch him feed? I’ll stay in for now.’

      Penny nodded. The coughing episodes were scary at best and someone calm and experienced needed to be in with the mum to help deal with them. ‘I’ve never actually seen whooping cough,’ Penny said to Lisa.

      ‘I’ve had it,’ Lisa said. ‘Hundred-day cough they call it and I know why. Poor baby and poor mum having to watch him. I’ll go and relieve Ethan.’

      Penny spoke again to the paediatrician and started the baby on antibiotics, but really there was no treatment that could stop the coughing attacks and, as Ethan had said, given his tender age, he really did need to be somewhere with paediatric intensive care facilities in case he suddenly deteriorated.

      ‘They’re going to come down and see him just as soon as they can,’ Penny said when Ethan came out. ‘I’ll go and let mum know.’

      ‘She’s in for a tough time,’ Ethan said. ‘Are you immunised?’

      ‘All up to date,’ Penny said, because though she was terrified of injections, before embarking on IVF she had made herself get all her immunisations up to date and poor Jasmine had been the one who’d had to do them. Still, it was worth it, Penny realised, for days such as this.

      ‘Right.’ Ethan glanced at his watch. ‘I’m going home.’

      ‘See you tomorrow,’ Penny said, but Ethan shook his head.

      ‘I’m on days off now.’

      ‘Enjoy them.’

      He didn’t answer. In fact, since her attempt to apologise, unless it was about a patient, Ethan had said nothing at all to her and she felt like poking her tongue out at his back as he and his bad mood walked off together.

      Maybe it was just as well he was on days off. Hopefully by the time he was back they could put yesterday’s incident behind them and start again.

      And she’d hopefully be finished with the hot flashes by then.

      As predicted, there wasn’t a hope of her getting away at six, but when it neared, Penny told Lisa she was taking a short break and, seeing Jasmine walking down the corridor with Simon in his stroller, the moment she had been silently dreading all day was finally here.

      ‘I don’t want Simon seeing me upset.’ Penny was starting to panic. ‘It could make him as terrified of needles as I am.’

      ‘There’ll be someone in the staffroom who can watch him for five minutes,’ Jasmine said. ‘You go on and get everything ready and I’ll come in.’ They both knew it wasn’t a question of Penny being brave because her nephew was there—it was the one thing, apart from her fertility, that Penny couldn’t control, and her response to injections was varied and unpredictable.

      ‘Vanessa’s watching him,’ Jasmine said when she came into the office a few minutes later.

      ‘I don’t know if I can do this again,’ Penny said. Her hand was shaking as she checked the doses the IVF nurse had given her.

      ‘In a couple of moments you’ll be one evening down.’

      ‘With God knows how many more to go,’ Penny said. She took a deep breath and undid her skirt. ‘Just do it.’

      She closed her eyes but could not stop shaking as Jasmine walked over. She had hoped so much that things would be different this time, but she was crying again, just as she had that morning at her blood test, and she was very glad that Simon wasn’t there to see his aunt make an absolute fool of herself.

      ‘It’s done.’ Jasmine massaged in the medication. ‘You’re done for the day.’

      ‘It’s ridiculous,’ Penny whimpered. ‘I’ve given so many injections today, I’ve taken blood from an eight-week-old …’

      ‘Don’t worry about it,’ Jasmine said. ‘You’re actually better than you used to be.’

      ‘Really?’

      ‘A bit,’ Jasmine lied. ‘How are the hot flashes?’

      ‘Only two today.’

      ‘How’s Ethan been?’ Jasmine asked as Penny tucked herself in.

      ‘Horrible,’ Penny said. ‘He’s still sulking about yesterday. I tried to apologise but he wasn’t having any of it. There’s not much more that I can do.’

      But even if she shrugged it off to her sister, Penny was rattled because, yes, she had wanted to put it behind them, had wanted to start again, and, no, she didn’t want to but she felt the tiniest bit attracted to him.

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