Chapter 15

Monday was horrible. Once I told Mona, the gates were opened. When I called Maggie, you'd have thought I'd won a prize from the Royal Society. Maddy was ecstatic and would tell Charlie as soon as he got in from supervising something. I called Chaz and learned that Michiko had left Rachel with a neighbour and was already at the Royal Perth. He said that I should expect Weena to come home either tomorrow or Wednesday afternoon, as the doctors made their rounds in the morning and so patients were released around lunchtime or just after.

I had just gotten off when the phone rang. It was mum to tell me how wonderful the pictures were and that dad had printed one on A4 and put it in an envelope for Jimmy. I promised I'd let her know if Patrick needed anything.

I looked at my watch. After 11 and I'd done nothing. I put the "annual report" file in front of me and spent forty minutes reading and jotting notes. What an excruciating bore! Then I thought of something. I went next door. "Mona?"

"Yes?"

"Does anyone do monthly or even quarterly reports?"

"Not that I've heard of. Lots of businesses do."

"Right. CSIRO-Western Australia will receive quarterlies beginning 1 July. So the first is due from Floreat and from Scitech by 30 September. And you keep track of what we do. OK?"

"Sure."

"And prepare a memo for me to send out. Copy to Janice. I'm off to the hospital."

"OK, daddy." I mock-flinched.

Weena looked beautiful. She was sitting in a chair holding Patrick. I took yet another picture — he was just 36 hours old. I was getting tired of carrying the camera. "Hi."

"Hey. Not too loud. I don't want to wake him."

"Was Michiko here?"

"That's where the flowers came from."

"Has the doctor been by?"

"Yes. It looks like tomorrow. I'm hardly bleeding any more. He's still getting colostrum, but my milk should be coming down tomorrow."

"He looks good."

"He's hardly lost any weight."

"Lost?"

"Sweetie, when I get home, you're going to read my maternity nursing book. A normal neonate loses between five and ten percent of birthweight in the first few days. Then they gain anything from about 10 to 30 grammes a day for a while. Right now he wants a drink every three hours. In a few days, when he starts getting bigger, I'm going to try to get him to four as soon as I can. Just think, we'll be able to sleep over three hours at a time!"

"But Chaz said they barely got two!"

"Rachel was a preemie. And a caesarian. They're small. So their stomachs are small. So they need food more frequently. Patrick is both longer and heavier than average. So he can already eat more at a time. See! I'm well. You've got me in teaching mode." Patrick squeaked. "You go have lunch and go back to the office. I'll see you in the evening."

The afternoon began with calls from Janice and Kevin, but then I got back to reading the reports and became aware of the tedious padding as opposed to content.

"Mona! Can you come here?"

"I'm going to insist that you use the intercom facility on the phone, Gordy."

"OK. I'm just uncouth. Anyway, I've been reading these reports."

"Yes?"

"They're full of stuffing."

"I know."

"Is it required? It seems to me that the Scitech report should run about two pages plus a table and Floreat doesn't even need that much. I could front that with another page or two and then we add several appendices: budget, papers delivered and articles or books published, other staff activities, honours and awards, newspaper articles ... anything else?"

"Probably. But we'll know when we hit them. Oh ... community service."

"Right. Do you think you could put it together in some sort of form while I'm away tomorrow? Oh, Weena and Patrick will most likely be released for durance vile tomorrow. So I'll go to Scitech in the morning and from there to Royal Perth and then home."

"No problem. You know that this will really hit Kevin hard?"

"What?"

"'This is the sort of initiative we need from our leaders.' I can hear the bureaucratic guff already."

"Oh. Oh, God."

"Anyway, you'd best call Scitech so they don't schedule something special for you tomorrow afternoon."

"Right away." She left and I called. Then I went back to last year's "guff."

When I got to the hospital, Weena's room looked as though she was about to open some sort of a shop. There were flowers everywhere and the flat surfaces without vases or pots had unappealing plush animals and unidentifiable items of clothing on them. The telly was on low. Weena looked drawn.

"I think every nurse I know and every student I've taught has been here. We'll never get it home."