A few glimpses of sick days in the Turner household. I do not own the characters.
1960.
The death of Mae Hammond's baby was excruciating.
The perfect little girl had breathed, barely, a choking, gasping breath that had stolen the joy from the room and left them all made of porcelain.
Sister Winifred had sobbed then, her cries soon matched by Mae's, and the little girl had slipped away amidst the weeping, her own eyes never knowing tears.
Patrick couldn't get the sound of the women weeping out of his ears as he drove home. He couldn't forget the beautiful blue eyes of the baby, or the blue tinge to her lips as she gave up the fight to live. So as he crawled into bed only an hour before dawn, he pulled Shelagh into his arms and held on to his lifeline. Her quiet breathing drowned out the memory of the other women crying, and her solid weight kept him anchored to Earth, but just barely.
Just barely.
When he awoke, before he even opened his eyes, the first thing that he heard was Shelagh's breathing.
The first thought that poked through his groggy state was that her nose sounded congested. He hadn't heard it the night before, though, and maybe, if he caught the cold soon enough and coerced her into resting, he could stop it before it became full-fledged flu. He pushed his head closer to hers, intending on nuzzling her awake, but froze when an un-Shelagh-like scent met his nose. In fact, if he wasn't mistaken-
He opened his eyes to find large, dark eyes staring back at him. Baby-fine hair swept across his pillow where his daughter lay propped up, and as he blinked her into focus, she reached for his nose.
"Good morning, Angel," he whispered, pressing a kiss to her fingers.
Her response was a mighty sneeze that covered his face in her mucus.
"I'm afraid that somebody is in need of a doctor," said Shelagh, coming into the room in her nursing uniform, her hands occupied in twisting up her hair. "Her throat is quite swollen."
Patrick blinked at her, and she dropped her hands from her hair and laughed.
"Well, I suppose you've just seen it first hand," she said, grabbing a handkerchief from the dresser drawer and wiping first her daughter's nose, then her husband's face.
"She just has a cold, but bring her round to the surgery after my morning rounds, anyway, and I'll listen to her lungs more closely."
"Actually, Patrick," began Shelagh in a tone that put Patrick on guard, "I thought that you could take care of Angela this morning. I can come after lunch, but I really should check on the mothers that delivered at the maternity home yesterday, since I was the midwife present at their deliveries. And we really can't ask Mrs. Penney to stay with Angela while she is ill."
"But Shelagh, I have patients to see to, as well," replied Patrick, trying and failing to keep the annoyance out of his voice.
"Not anymore," answered Shelagh brightly, standing up and smiling at her husband. "The benefit of having your wife as your part-time receptionist – I've arranged for your morning calls to be covered, and morning surgery appointments have just been pushed to the afternoon."
Patrick frowned, and Shelagh bent to press a kiss to Angela's head and her husband's cheek.
"I've got to hurry now, but I'll see you at lunch!"
She was gone before Patrick could protest further, and Patrick blew out his breath sharply.
"Well, Angela, I suppose it's a Daddy and daughter kind of day," he said.
Angela didn't reply; she just blinked up at him and yawned, and he smiled and rubbed her belly.
"And our first order of business seems to be going back to bed!"
When Patrick awoke again, he was in a foul mood. Mae Hammond and her baby had crowded his dreams, and Mae's face had mixed with Shelagh's until he couldn't remember whether it was he who had lost a daughter, or whether he was the faceless doctor who stood helplessly in the corner throughout the dream. His dream left him completely disoriented, and he woke up thinking it 1958 again, before he had a wife or daughter of his own.
He opened his eyes to find his daughter still sleeping next to him, and he picked her up carefully and carried her into her nursery. She didn't wake, not even when he placed her in her cot, and it was then he realised just how ill she must be.
Rain dripped on the windowpane, and Patrick found himself transfixed by it as he waited for the kettle to boil. The raindrops raced much like his thoughts, and he became more and more tangled by them until the kettle whistled and tore him out of his confusion. His hand opened and clenched in time with the ticking of the clock on the wall, and he sat abruptly in a kitchen chair and held his head in his hands.
Perhaps Shelagh had been right to trick him into staying home this morning.
The tea at his elbow had gone cold by the time Patrick pulled himself out of his thoughts enough to hear the noise from upstairs. It began quietly at first, then escalated until the cry held such a plaintive note that Patrick found himself taking the stairs two by two. He burst into Angela's nursery to find her standing up, clutching the bars of the cot, and howling.
"It's okay, Angel, I'm here," Patrick reassured her.
The moment she saw her father, Angela stopped crying and held her hand out to him. He lifted her out of the crib and held her to his chest, and Angela tucked her head under his chin and sniffled.
"Don't worry," Patrick assured her, using his pyjama top to wipe away her tears, "Daddy didn't leave you. I'm here."
She frowned at him, and Patrick felt guilt tumble into his gut. How could he not have heard his own daughter cry? Better yet, why was it so easy for one unfortunate case to derail him entirely? He thought that he had recovered after his burn out in the summer, but apparently, that was not the case. He thought desperately of a holiday in Lyme Regis, or even just a weekend away in someplace that wasn't Poplar. It would be heaven to sleep without hearing traffic, to smell the damp wet of woods on a rainy morning.
Angela tugged the front of Patrick's pyjamas, a demand for his attention, and he blinked into her wide eyes.
"Yes, Angel, I know," he sighed. "I should be grateful for what I have right here. It's not Lyme Regis, but I've still got the rest of a morning with you. That will have to be enough for now, won't it?"
She reached for his nose, a sign he was beginning to understand as affection, and he caught her hand and kissed her fingers.
"Dada," she said, reaching for his nose again the second he released her hand.
"Yes, Dada," he agreed.
She smiled at him then, a wide beaming smile that showed her tiny new teeth, and patted his nose repeatedly.
"Dada," she sang. "Dada!"
It was then that Patrick realised what she was saying, and he grasped her hand.
"Angela! You're saying Daddy, aren't you? You're saying Daddy! Your first word is Daddy!"
"Dada!" she agreed.
"Daddy!" whooped Patrick, spinning Angela around the room. "That's right, my clever girl, I'm your Daddy!"
"Dadadadadada," chattered Angela in excitement.
"Just wait until I tell your Mother!" Patrick crowed.