Free Frantic by Katherine Howell Page A

do with their marriage? She had the sudden image of herself coming home from work one day to an empty house. Lachlan, Chris, everything gone.
    As if picking up on her feelings, Lachlan started to cry upstairs. Chris went up to him and Sophie sat at the table with her lasagne.
    I should ask him if that’s what he’s planning.
    But what if he says yes? And what if he asks me a question in return? Challenges me to tell the truth?
    She put her face in her hands.
    She looked up when Lachlan’s crying subsided. In the silence her pulse beat in her ears. She felt surrounded by trouble, most of which she could do nothing about.
    She pushed her plate away and got up to grab the phonebook.
    Her friend Danielle Dawes was on duty in Royal Prince Alfred’s Emergency Department. Sophie asked if she could find out the cause of death of Julie Sawyer and her baby.
    ‘I’ll have to put you on hold while I phone upstairs,’ Danielle said.
    Sophie sat listening to what sounded like a doorbell version of ‘Greensleeves’. Damn Sawyer and his drunken accusations. Being scared that she’d stuffed up was like being new to the job all over again, when patients were a complete mystery and she was constantly terrified that each one had some life-threatening condition she was failing to recognise. Had she missed something here?
    ‘You there?’ Danielle said.
    Sophie started. ‘What did you find out?’
    ‘Looks like the mother died from an amniotic fluid embolism.’
    ‘Oh.’ Some of the weight lifted from Sophie’s shoulders. On the rare occasions that amniotic fluid crossed into the mother’s circulation during the birth it changed her blood so that it wouldn’t clot. It could happen in a hospital just as easily as at home, and couldn’t be foreseen.
    ‘Yeah,’ Danielle said. ‘A mate of mine in theatre said they were pumping blood into her as fast as they could but she slipped away.’
    ‘And the baby?’
    ‘She was on a ventilator and just arrested. They couldn’t get her back. They’re not sure why. PM’s planned for the morning.’
    It was an ugly thought, the tiny body being autopsied. ‘That poor father.’ No wonder he’d gotten drunk and tracked them down. ‘Thanks, Dani.’
    Sophie hung up, glad now that she hadn’t made a statement against Sawyer. Impulsive death threats from drunks were nothing new anyway.
    Chris came downstairs and poured himself a glass of milk in silence. He glanced at her as he took the carton back to the fridge and she thought she saw wariness in his eyes.
    I should make a better effort. He might not leave if things improve.
    ‘So this Roth guy,’ she said brightly. ‘Is he really a cop? Do you know him?’
    ‘We did a course together once, I think.’
    Sophie nibbled at the edge of her lasagne. ‘At that car accident, I couldn’t believe it when I recognised Dudley-Pearson.’
    ‘Can we not talk about this?’
    ‘What’s the matter?’
    ‘I’m sick of hearing about the bad stuff in the job. I have to listen to it all day at work, then when I open a paper or turn on the TV it’s there as well.’ He drained his glass. ‘I don’t need it from you too.’
    Like I never have a stressful day . She scraped the lasagne into the bin. ‘So you can talk to Dean but you can’t talk to me.’
    ‘It’s not like that,’ he said.
    ‘What’s it like then?’
    ‘I can’t say.’
    ‘You mean you won’t.’
    He came close to her, anger in his eyes. ‘I mean I can’t.’
    She felt the blood surging in her face. ‘What’s so important that you can’t even tell your wife?’
    ‘Like you never have things you don’t tell me?’
    By force of will she kept her eyes locked on his, but mentally she backed right off.
    Chris stared at her. His dark eyes were flat, unreadable.
    If it’s going to happen, it’ll surely happen now. She held her breath and braced herself.
    But Chris only turned to the fridge, poured himself another glass of milk, then went upstairs.
    Sophie sagged