CHAPTER 1

Television would have you believe that every day in a hospital is fast-paced and exciting. Unfortunately, that isn’t always true. Some days go more slowly than a shift working a cash register, and just about as much happens.

This is shaping up to be one of those days. I have been working since three in the afternoon, and in ten hours I’ve seen three very uninteresting patients. My favourite was the seventeen-year-old with the sniffles who thought she had bird flu. Just a rhinovirus, a common cold. Nothing I can even really prescribe for that.

Minor illnesses are the bane of our existence as after-hours emergency staff. The few GPs open this late charge more than most people care to pay, so hospital emergency rooms get most of their patients. Things like head colds, minor cuts, heartburn.

Tonight, however, we aren’t even seeing many of those. The exam rooms are empty, the halls quiet. Everyone is either catching up on paperwork or just loafing.

“Doing anything good this weekend?” I ask Kelly, the triage nurse on duty, while I restock a box of suture kits from the supply cupboard.

“Weekend?” she replies, quirking an eyebrow. “I have an infection control workshop Saturday, and I’m on call Sunday.”

“Yuck. At least I have this Saturday off,” I say. “Not that I have much planned for it. I think I’ll be catching up on some sleep.”

Kelly smirks and nods. We’re all in need of more sleep at any given time, especially nurses and junior doctors – we’re basically everyone’s bitch.

The glass front doors swing open and two paramedics wheel in a wheezing, slightly panicky teenaged girl.

I can’t believe it. It’s my bird flu patient again. I turn to roll my eyes at Kelly, but she has already gone, probably to fetch the patient’s recently-filed paperwork.

The patient – Anya something, I recall – doesn’t look much worse than when I sent her home less than an hour ago, but she is making a lot more noise.

It’s Dr Sterling’s turn to see her this time; I’m about to go on break. “Enjoy, Dave,” I tell him as I pass. He runs a hand through his dark hair and grins wryly.

Dave Sterling is a good doctor. He’ll know what to say to placate our common cold victim and stop her from coming back to waste our time again. I smile to myself as I walk to the lunch room. He probably will even be able to talk her out of asking for antibiotics.

I eat my sandwich quietly, thinking about the train ride home that’s ahead of me later this morning. I’ve been using public transport for a couple of weeks, since I wrecked my car. The transit system in Brisbane is horrible, but at least the trains are a bit more reliable than buses. Still, I am regularly spooked by the assorted creepy guys on the train, especially at night. Once my shift finishes, it’s at least a mercifully short ride from the hospital to my place in the city.

As I am tying back my long hair in the mirror, Kelly enters the lunch room with a couple of styrofoam cups of coffee.

“You look like you could use one of these, Luce,” she says, setting the coffees down on a table. “The finest coffee money can buy… at this hour, anyway.”

I gratefully take the cup and have a sip. “I’m pretty sure I’ve had worse from that machine,” I tell her, enjoying the hot drink.

I have a few more minutes before I’m back on duty. I make the most of the time, lingering over my coffee and stretching my back while chatting with Kelly.

Heading back to the floor after my break, I decide I will go and see Dave if he has finished sending Anya home. As I come to the emergency room, I break into a jog.

The dividing curtain around exam room one is open, and I can see Dave is starting to intubate the patient, who is unconscious and pale.

“What happened?” I yell. “She was fine!”

“She’s not fine, she’s in respiratory arrest,” Dave grunts. “And I’m having trouble here, even with a small gauge trach tube.”

This isn’t right – Dave is easily better at intubating than I am. And then I realise.

“We need to do a tracheotomy!” I say to Dave and the young nurse who has appeared.

“No, I can get this,” says Dave, obviously annoyed.

“It’s not you,” I tell him shortly, grabbing a ten blade from the nurse. Dave
sensibly gets out of the way as I make a careful incision and insert the endotracheal tube. “It’s epiglottitis. Her throat is totally blocked.”

If the girl had been conscious, that would have hurt like a bastard. Now she is breathing close to normally again, through the tube.

“Good call,” says Dave, patting me on the shoulder. “I’ll get her admitted and start her on corticosteroids and amoxicillin.”

Kelly, back from her break, runs over with Anya’s chart. “Christ, Sterling, she doesn’t actually have bird flu, does she?”

---

The train home is almost empty at four in the morning. I walk briskly from the station to my building. It’s already getting hot outside and the sun isn’t even up yet. My hands are in my pockets, keys in the right and tiny hundred-decibel panic alarm in the left.

Once in my apartment I slouch into the living room, grab a breakfast drink from the fridge, and play back my answering machine messages.

Apparently, I have overdue DVDs again, and have sadly missed a call from a flustered-sounding telemarketer. The third message is from Josephine.

“Hey Lucy, it’s Jo. Mum and Dad are driving me freaking crazy. You know, again. Can I come and stay with you for a couple of days soon if you’re off work? Gotta go. Love you.”

Poor Jo, I think to myself, finishing my chocolate breakfast drink. It wasn’t too long ago that I lived with our parents, before leaving to go to university. That was back when they lived out in the sticks, and university was too far away for me to stay with them. Now at least they live near the city, so Jo isn’t as isolated as I was at her age. Still, Mum and Dad can be very difficult to live with.

I look at my watch: it’s still too early to call her back. I can probably get out of my shift this Sunday if Josie wants to come and spend the weekend with me.

I worry about my little sister. My parents aren’t monsters… but they aren’t terribly good at raising kids either. Although I managed to turn out okay, I think as I pour a glass of juice. I swallow my vitamin tablet and pop an antidepressant pill from its blister packaging, smiling ironically to myself.

But Jo’s a good kid. She finished school in November, with decent grades, and is waiting to find out which university she got into. She keeps herself out of trouble, and she does a better job than I did at coping with our parents.

I pick up my mobile phone and send Dave a text message to see if he can cover for me on Sunday.

---

Josephine is wearing jeans and a short-sleeved black button-down shirt, with a pair of red Doc Martens. She is curled up on my sofa, which is made up with pillows and my spare blanket, with a big cup of coffee in her hands.

“Dad found a box of No Doz in my bag and went completely mental,” she tells me. “Demanded to know where I got them. I told him the truth… from the supermarket!”

I laugh. “What, he thought it was a prescription drug?”

She shakes her head, dark curls bouncing. “I’m not completely sure what he thought. Anyway, he took them off me. I don’t know where the hell I can keep things that they won’t rummage through.”

“I have something for you that might be useful,” I say. “Hang on.”

I go to my room and bring back a small cardboard box, handing it to Jo. “Check this out,” I smile.

She opens the box and looks inside. “A dictionary?”

“Open it,” I say to her.

She takes out the book and opens the front cover, revealing the locked panel underneath. I toss her the keys.

“Just keep it on your bookshelf and hide the keys somewhere else,” I suggest. “It’s not quite the end of all your problems, but it might help with a few things.”

“Oh, this is so cool,” she says, opening and closing the hidden compartment. “Thanks, Lucy!”

“No problemo, little sister,” I tell her. I smile and put the kettle on for another coffee.

I have my own fake dictionary on a shelf in my bedroom, between my Scrabble dictionary and a photo album. It used to occasionally conceal small quantities of pot, but these days I wouldn’t even know where to buy any. At the moment I think I have a couple of pieces of jewellery in it instead.

“You were so lucky that you got to move out for uni,” she muses. “All the campuses in Brisbane are close enough for me to commute now.”

I recall Jo’s plan to apply for university courses that were only offered in other states. Not a bad idea, but the few courses not available here didn’t hold much interest for her.

“Well,” I say slowly, “You are old enough to just move out if you want to. I was your age when I moved to uni. You could always find yourself somewhere to live.”

She scoffs. “Mum and Dad would kill me. When I was talking about going to uni in Melbourne, Mum was furious that I would consider leaving after they moved closer to the city for me to go to university.”

“I know,” I tell her. “But they do know you’ll eventually move out on your own?”

“I guess so,” she says, draining her coffee. “They just think it should be after I finish uni. Can you talk to them again?”

“I can try,” I reply, furrowing my brow a bit. “You know how much they listen to me.”

“I could afford a little apartment in West End,” says Jo, after a pause. “If I end up going to uni at St Lucia, I mean. Between my student payments and working at the restaurant, I could afford the rent, and it would be just across the river.”

I give her a little smile. “So you have thought about it. You know you could stay with me if I had another room, but I couldn’t let you just live on my sofa.”

“Yeah,” she says, “I appreciate it. Even if you did, though, I think I’d prefer my own space. Anyway, it’s not going to happen. I just wish I could keep Mum and Dad off my back a bit.”

“I’ll talk to them again,” I promise.

---

I make a quick call while Josie is in the shower, to let Mum know she got here all right.

“I gave Josephine twenty dollars to spend while she’s there,” says Mum. “And it’s not for alcohol.”

“Okay, thanks Mum.” I hesitate for a moment. “You know, even though I had to move out for uni when I was her age, I really think it helped me to develop personally and learn some responsibility -”

“Not this again,” she snaps down the phone. “Jo couldn’t look after herself, Lucinda. She doesn’t eat properly; look at her weight.”

Through clenched teeth I say, “Jo is a normal and healthy weight for her age and height. She is not overweight.”

Mum clucks her tongue. “How would you know?”

I groan inwardly. “I’m a doctor, Mum, that’s how I know. Anyway, I have to go and finish making dinner. Love you.”

Dinner is a big pot of homemade spinach tortellini. Well, not strictly homemade, but reheated at home after purchase, which I figure almost counts.

Jo emerges from the bathroom, wearing red flannelette pajamas and barefoot, hair dripping a little. “Hey, big sister,” she smiles, grabbing a bowl. “Do you have some low fat cheese for this?”

I open the fridge and pass her the cheese. She doesn’t need to lose any weight, really.

“Did I ever tell you about the time Mum made me stop taking the contraceptive pill?” I ask her.

Jo raises her eyebrows. “No, why’d she do that?”

“It was when I was in year twelve. She stopped paying for my prescriptions, and she said I could go back on the pill when I decided to start dating boys again.”

Josephine drops her fork and laughs uproariously. “You’re shitting me!”

“I shit you not,” I tell her, deadpan. “That was when I was seeing Lisa, and that was Mum’s brilliant solution to my little phase.”

“And it really worked, too,” she smirks sarcastically.

“It actually wreaked a lot of havoc with my hormones,” I add. “I’m lucky I didn’t get knocked up that week.”

She winces and shakes her head. “Ack, too much information!”

We eat our tortellini, talking and joking. Later, we sit on the balcony, drinking what’s left of a bottle of chardonnay and watching the lights of the city until it’s time for bed.

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