A Family Again

Book 0: Three Sisters Series

by Gill Sanderson

Genres: Romance; Contemporary Romance; Medical Romance; Workplace Romance

Synopsis

Instant Attraction Emily was amazed to find herself kissing Dr Stephen James. She?d come to Africa to forget men after her marriage had failed and the last thing she needed was to fall for a man who was returning to England in two weeks. So when Stephen asked for more Emily had to say no. But when Emily was forced to return to England she was surprised to find out that Stephen was her new boss. Emily had a second chance and this time she wanted to say yes. Three caring sisters -in need of a loving family-

Release date: December 4, 2013

Publisher: Accent Press

Print pages: 135

Sample

Chapter One

They met by coincidence. Afterwards, when she looked back on that first magic encounter, Emily thought she’d known at once that this was the man for her. Perhaps she had. But it was a long time before she’d fully realised it.

The hut roof was filled with acrid smoke from a tiny fire, and two hurricane lamps shed a scarcely adequate light. Emily’s patient, Nupala, had been in labour all night, and now the contractions were only five minutes apart. Nupala leaned patiently against the hut wall, only the odd hiss of breath and the sweat on her forehead indicating how she felt. Women did not cry in labour.

Two older women squatted to one side of the hut, fanning away the flies. They were Nupala’s mother and mother-in-law, and they had spent much of the night rubbing Nupala’s abdomen, so much so, in fact, that Emily had asked them to stop. The skin was almost abrading.

Emily’s trainee midwife, Eunice Latifa, was kneeling on the packed-mud floor, leaning over to listen to the baby’s heartbeat with a Pinard stethoscope. Good variability with slight accelerations, returning quickly to the baseline. The baby wasn’t in distress.

There were no partograms here to record the baby’s progress. Emily looked at Eunice’s notebook, and  nodded approvingly. One of the hardest lessons to get over was the necessity for writing down the results of every investigation or observation immediately.All the trainees at the mission felt that they were to be nurses or midwives, not clerks. They didn’t like writing – especially when they were recording that everything was normal. Emily smiled wryly. She could think of quite a few colleagues in far-off England who thought the same way.

But Eunice had diligently recorded temperature, blood pressure, pulse and foetal heart rate. She had checked that the bladder had been emptied regularly. She had carefully tested Nupala’s urine, which showed no signs of ketones or protein.

Eunice was anxious, not about the birth but about the fact that her tutor was observing her. Somehow her anxiety was communicating itself to the patient.

Nupala was more restless than was necessary.

‘I’m just going outside a minute, Eunice,’ Emily said. ‘You’re doing fine – you don’t need me.’ Great dark eyes flashed at her anxiously. ‘Call if you want me,’ Emily added gently, ‘but I see no reason why you shouldn’t carry on by yourself.’

Eunice took this as it had been intended, as a signal of confidence in her work. ‘Yes, Mis’ Grey,’ she said. ‘But I think this baby doing fine.’

Outside it was nearly dawn, and there was a lightening in the eastern sky. Emily looked at the conical huts, huddled in a circle, and the thorn trees that surrounded the settlement. There were sounds – the thump of cattle feet in. their enclosure, the cackle of hens, roosting in the trees. And everywhere there was the smell of Africa – part wood-smoke, part cattle dung, part vegetation. It was instantly recognisable, instantly evocative. It had been part of her life for two years now.

She breathed deeply and for a moment stretched her arms over her head, enjoying the coolness. She’d been up all night and she was tired. But, then, she was always tired.

It shot through her unexpectedly, as sharp as a scalpel. And for her it was the rarest of things. She was homesick. Instead of the brightness of Africa, she wanted the muted colours of home. She wanted a duller sun, a more gentle rain. She wanted the company of her own kind. She wanted to see her father and her two sisters. She wanted to practise medicine again in a full-sized hospital where there were doctors and consultants – people she could refer to who would take responsibility. She didn’t like taking so many decisions. She grimaced. She had to take decisions.

Often there was no one else to do it.

Behind her she heard excited whispers and a gasp from Nupala. The birth would be soon. She slipped back inside the hut and deliberately stood well back. Eunice must do this by herself.

The two old ladies moved forward and Eunice smartly waved them back. She would handle this birth. She spoke to the panting mother in the local tongue. Emily had learned enough to make herself understood, but could not talk with any speed. There was a quick rapped command. Emily hid a grin. ‘Push,’ must sound the same in any language.

Approvingly she noticed how Eunice had positioned herself to receive the baby.

There was a sound, half sob, half moan, from Nupala. Her legs spread wide. After fifteen minutes the head was showing. Deftly Eunice placed her hand on the head to guide it. The mother was told to pant as Eunice gently eased the head out, sweeping the perineum. She checked the cord wasn’t round the baby’s neck. The rest of the procedure was followed correctly, and soon the little body was born. It was a boy. That would please the family as boys were more use than girls. Eunice wrapped him in the cloth she’d put handy, then placed him on his mother’s breast.

Next she clipped and then cut the umbilical cord. Emily heard the hiss of dismay from the two ladies, the local custom was to leave the baby attached until the placenta was delivered.

Methodically Eunice went about her tasks, as she had been taught. The placenta was delivered and checked. One of the ladies took possession of it at once. Emily knew what would happen to it. It would be buried secretly, as would be all the blood that Nupala had lost. A witch-doctor could do great harm with a placenta.

Emily loved being a midwife – in England or in Africa. Even after so many births, the moment a new, healthy baby was placed on the mother’s breast was still magic for her. It was a joy she’d never had. For a second she was tormented by the thought of what might have been. What was it like to give birth to a new life? But she thrust the thought aside. She was tired, that was all.

Now was the time for the family to come to congratulate Nupala. Emily took Eunice to one side and gave her report. Eunice had done well and Emily congratulated her. The only fault she had found was that Eunice hadn’t made sufficient use of the two old ladies.

‘They probably could have managed quite well without us,’ Emily said. ‘After all, they’ve been doing it for years.’

‘Not the hospital way,’ Eunice said proudly.

Nupala was now in the care of her family. She would be wrapped in a blanket so that only her eyes could be seen. She would stay in her hut for the next two months, the baby never leaving her side. Her mother would feed her maize-meal and millet porridge, trying to ensure that Nupala put on weight.

Emily guessed that there were worse ways of starting life with a baby. She went to find her own breakfast.

After breakfast there was a clinic. She’d trained as a nurse before she became a midwife, and although she was technically with the mission as a midwife, no one paid much attention to demarcation. A hut had been put at her disposal, with a long line of patiently queuing clients outside. She sighed.

Some of the decisions she was about to make should really be taken by a doctor. But the nearest doctor was in the mission hospital over a hundred miles away. And he was busy. If necessary, her patients could make their way to the mission, but they’d prefer to stay where they were. And if they thought they were cured – if the symptoms ceased – then so would taking the medicine cease. She sighed again. All you could do was your best.

Her boxes of medicine had been put ready, as well as a bucket of water, should she need it. There was sulphur ointment for scabies, vitamin tablets and syrup for the undernourished children and pregnant women and penicillin injections for those with venereal disease or acute infections. She also kept a good supply of dressings for children with burns. At night the younger children tended to roll into the fire in the centre of the hut.

She had already injected as many as she could find with the BCG vaccine against tuberculosis. Tuberculosis was one of the biggest killers in the crowded, often unsanitary conditions of the villages.

The morning clinic was quickly over. Emily knew she had to be ruthless with her time. Everyone had thoroughly enjoyed themselves – a visit to the doctor was fun. After prescriptions had been issued there was always a keen comparison of who had been given what medicine. There was even a selection of placebos for those who had nothing wrong with them but wanted to have medicine anyway. She could have stayed there indefinitely, but that was always the problem. There was never enough time.

There were two more babies due later on in the week, and one a month or so later. With Eunice, Emily examined the first two mums. Everything seemed to be fine. The third one she wasn’t so sure about. It was a primigravida and the lie seemed to be oblique and the foetal head remained unengaged.

‘Tell Serwalo that she must come into hospital in two weeks’ time,’ Emily said to Eunice. ‘We wish her to have her baby there.’

Eunice spoke quickly to the recumbent woman, who looked anxious. ‘She says she will be happy to come to hospital. Her husband will bring her in the ox cart,’ Eunice translated. ‘This is her first baby and she and her husband have been trying for too long. She says if she does not give him a baby he will leave her because she is barren.’

Emily’s first reaction was anger, though not surprise. If a woman didn’t have babies it was always considered her fault, never the husband’s. Then she reminded herself that this was Africa, not England, and things were different here. Her job was to help, not to judge.

‘Tell her we’ll do all we can,’ she said. ‘And she must keep taking the supplements we’ve left her.’ She would have liked to take Serwalo back to the hospital with her but pregnant women were still expected to work in the village. She would refuse to come.

It was time to leave. She looked at Eunice’s supplies, spoke to the headman of the village and loaded her few personal possessions into the Land Rover. There was so much more she could do if she stayed here. But this was only one village, and there were many others.

‘I have confidence in you, Eunice,’ she said. ‘You will do well with these two births. In a fortnight a Land Rover will come to fetch you and I will see the two fine babies you have helped into the world. You must have confidence in yourself.’

‘I will do as you tell me Mis’ Grey,’ said Eunice stoutly. ‘These babies will be born well.’

‘I’m sure they will. You’re going to be a good mid-wife, Eunice.’ Emily hauled herself into the vehicle. One last wave and she bumped slowly away. Naked little boys chased after her, cheering, and for the first few yards she drove slowly. Then they fell behind and she increased speed.

The Land Rover was old and battered, the name of the mission on the side almost hidden by caked dust. When she’d first arrived at the hospital Sister O’Reilly had given her a crash course in elementary mechanics. If you broke down in the bush you had to mend things yourself. Emily had got quite attached to her old machine. She now knew nearly as much about what happened under its bonnet as she did about delivering babies. And the mission was having a new one delivered next week.  

The track she followed was deeply rutted, and for the first fifteen miles the vehicle bounced and swayed. She was jerked and thrown against her seat – driving in these conditions could be as tiring as cross-country running. Then she turned onto a road that was more regularly used so it was smoother. Still not the Ml, she thought.

Emily was hot and she was exhausted, with the bone-weary exhaustion that came with months of too much work. Her arms were thin but sinewy, and her legs were the same. She looked like a greyhound, she thought.

Greyhound? Her name was Grey – there was a joke there. She found herself laughing, then thought she was laughing too much. It wasn’t that funny. She was being hysterical. Exerting her usual iron self-control, she stopped laughing and concentrated on the route ahead.

She dropped out of the bush and was now following the road across a hot dry plain. Behind her a plume of yellow dust hung in the air. There was some coolness in the wind she was creating, but she could feel the dust, collecting in her nostrils and the corners of her eyes and rubbing at her skin. No matter. This was normal. She’d shower when she got back to the mission.

Ahead of her was a great ridge of mountains. After an hour her route swung up and over it, to drop down into the valley on the far side. As she climbed the temperature dropped. It wasn’t exactly cool but it was certainly cooler. There was less vegetation now, more red-black rocks. This was an old volcanic range.

She thought of holidays in her youth, of travelling by car through the Welsh mountains to get to the sea- side resorts of Caernarvon or Conway. She’d bathed there with her father and sisters. It was that memory that made her think of the pool.

She was making good time. At the top of the pass that crossed the mountains she pulled in to look at the vast plain below her. On each side of the road dark crags loomed, but to her left there was the roughest of paths, leading higher. She’d driven up it before. On impulse she wrench. . .