The Shadow Wife - Diane Chamberlain [56]
As of today, she was twelve weeks pregnant, and she was finally going to say those words out loud to someone other than herself. She found it difficult to concentrate on the patients she saw in the maternity unit that morning, because she was on the lookout for Rebecca Reed, who never seemed to be in the corridor or at the nurses’ station the same time she was. In the afternoon, Rebecca would be seeing patients in her office, and although that office was in the maternity unit, she would be too busy to take time out for Joelle.
Her pregnancy was still quite easy to hide. She definitely had a rounded belly, and she’d bought a few loose-fitting dresses and tops to wear, so that when she truly had to wear baggier clothing, the change in style wouldn’t be so obvious to her co-workers. She no longer needed to use the bathroom every few minutes, but she was beginning to get a strange achy feeling in her groin that made her glad she was finally going to see a doctor. She had to know her baby was all right.
She didn’t spot Rebecca until nearly noon. The doctor was talking with Serena Marquez at the nurses’ station, a stack of patient charts in her arms. Joelle greeted the two women briefly, not wanting to interrupt their conversation. Taking a seat at the counter, she hoped Serena would leave the station before Rebecca did, and she was in luck. One of the nurses asked Serena to check on a patient, leaving Rebecca and Joelle alone at the counter.
Rebecca sat down, opened one of the charts she’d been carrying and began to write. Almost immediately, Joelle moved to the seat next to her, and Rebecca looked over at her with a quick smile before returning to her notes.
“Sorry to interrupt, Rebecca,” Joelle said, “but would you have some time today to talk with me? Maybe after you’re done seeing your patients this afternoon?”
“Do you have a problem patient?” Rebecca asked without taking her eyes or her hand from the chart.
“Yes,” Joelle said. “Me.”
Rebecca stopped writing. She looked at Joelle, her eyebrows raised and frank curiosity in her face. “Sure,” she said. “I’ll be done around five. Can you come to my office then?”
“Thanks,” Joelle said. “I’ll be there.” She stood up and started walking toward the cafeteria, thinking she would go to Rebecca’s office a bit after five in the hope that the doctor’s staff would have left by then. The fewer people who saw her there, the better.
She spotted Liam sitting alone at their usual table near the cafeteria window and took a seat across from him, glad he had not skipped lunch in an effort to avoid her.
“Where’s Paul?” she asked as she opened her napkin and rested it on her lap.
“He’s swamped,” Liam said. “He’ll be late.”
He’d sounded so miserable on the phone the night before, so distressed at the thought of Sam being hurt. He had to have been in a deep, dark crater to have called her. Awkward though it had been, she’d been thrilled he’d turned to her the way he used to.
“How are you?” she asked him as she raised her glass of milk to her lips.
“I’m all right.” He looked directly at her. “Sorry I bothered you last night,” he said.
“It was no bother,” she said. “Did you decide how you’re going to handle the situation with Sheila?”
“I’ve got it covered, thanks.” He tore open a packet of sugar and poured it into his coffee, a barely perceptible tremor in his hand. Like hell he had it covered, she thought.
“Oh.” She leaned toward him, wishing she could touch that trembling hand. “Let me help you. You don’t need to—”
“Hi, Paul,” Liam interrupted her, looking above her head, and she turned to see Paul about to set his tray on the table.
“Will this day never end?” Paul said as he lowered himself into the chair.
“What’s going on?” Liam asked with sudden enthusiasm, as though he wanted nothing more than to talk with Paul about his cases.
“Three new AIDS admissions, one of them a fourteen-year-old girl,” Paul said. “Two child abuse