In Sheets Of Rain - Nicola Claire Page 0,23

said.

I couldn’t catch my breath.

“And when you get pregnant, we’ll just get my mother to come and stay. Take the pressure off you.”

“Why would I need your mother to come and stay?”

“Kylee,” he said, voice full of compassion. “You’re a mess, sweetheart. If this is the way you are now, imagine how depressed you’ll be postpartum? You just have to face facts, Ky, your mind is susceptible to melancholy. There’s no way you’ll be able to manage on your own with a newborn child.”

I let him hold me when I felt nothing steal into my soul.

I let him hold me when I felt nothing cleave my heart in two.

I let him hold me when nothing rose like waves above my head and drowned me.

15

And Breathed

“They’re short in the call centre this morning,” Ted said when I walked into the station office. “No one experienced enough to handle North Comm. You up for it?”

“Will you be OK working on your own?” I asked, checking my cubbyhole for messages.

“I’ll jump in a jeep and work as a Delta. They’ll bring a truck across from the Shore to cover us.”

“Yeah, all right, then,” I said, picking up my bag and heading out to my car.

Mount Wellington was thrumming when I arrived. Head Office staff cars filling up the carpark. I noticed the medical director’s Galant parked next to the CEO’s Lexus. Gregg Harmon’s Ducati was parked outside the main door to Comms.

I smiled when I punched in the code and opened the door.

“There she is!” Gerry exclaimed from the North Comm desk. “And not a moment too soon. I’m stuffed.”

“Hard night, Ger?” I asked, stowing my bag under the desk and taking in the triple screens and all the ambulances listed out on a job.

“Piece of cake,” he muttered around a mouthful of muffin.

“Thanks for coming in, Kylee,” Gregg said from the supervisor’s desk.

“Anything for Blue Watch,” I advised, receiving a grunt from Gerry.

“Well, this Red Watch bunny is off to bed,” he said, standing and stretching his big body. “A 5-6 and LSU 3-3 are nightshift; everyone else has made it back to station for change over.”

“Great,” I replied, plugging my headset in. “Get some sleep.”

“On it,” Gerry replied and strolled out of the room, seeking his freedom.

“Gonna thank me?” Gregg asked.

“For what? Vacuuming up Gerry’s crumbs before I got here?”

He chuckled. “For saving you from a whole dayshift with Ted.”

“Edward’s not that bad.”

He shrugged. “But I’m better, right?”

“Depends. Where’s my coffee?”

“On it, Oh Wonderful One.” He jumped up and left the room.

“Kylee,” Cathy called out in greeting, slipping her headset down around her neck. Cathy didn’t care that ambos shouldn’t cross over to Comms. “Was that you who attended the gunshot in the Domain?”

“Yeah,” I replied, picturing laugh lines and sparkling eyes and a tiny hole in the centre of a chest. “A 5-6,” I said into the headset before Cathy could ask. “Head home. Goodnight.”

“Night, Comms,” the ambulance crew replied, their relief palpable.

At some stage, the medical director had entered the room, but I was too busy moving trucks around on my screen for their lunch.

“LSU 4-2,” I called out on the radio. “Priority One, Greenlane Road. R4.”

Some trucks didn’t get their lunch, though.

Groaning came over the air from the vehicle in question.

“A 1-8 said they’ve eaten,” the truck in question advised.

“Copy that,” I offered cheerfully. “A 1-8, Priority Two to Karangahape Road. R6.”

A chorus of moans came over the air as the crews brought their handsets down on their thighs and rubbed them back and forth, making static.

“Can’t please them all,” Dr Jones said.

I smiled at the medical director and said, “But we can make their lives a living hell.”

He laughed, then pulled up a chair and sat down beside me. He watched in silence for a while as I shifted chess pieces around on my electronic chessboard. During a lull in the manic movements, he leant forward, resting his elbows on his knees and announced, “I’ve been meaning to catch up with you.”

“Me?” I asked astounded. What had I done to garner the attention of the medical director?

“You went to that decapitation on Shore Road.”

A lift. Maintenance overalls. Little pieces of brain tissue stuck in the tracks of the sliding doors.

“Yeah,” I said, busying myself with updating a job on one of the screens.

“How are you doing?” he asked quietly.

I glanced up at the room, but no one was listening. Too busy on a Sunday morning dealing with triple one calls.

“I’m fine,” I said.

“And Carl? Your partner? How’s