style="font-size:15px;"> ‘Cordial. Our separation is probably the first thing we’ve ever agreed on. It’s all in the hands of the lawyers. Sit down.’ Josh shifted a pile of medical journals from the chair to the floor but Tasha didn’t feel like sitting down. She was filled with restless energy. The stability of her brother’s life contrasted heavily with the instability of her own. She’d been sailing along nicely through life and now she’d capsized her boat and she had no idea where the tide was going to take her.
The lump in her throat came from nowhere and she swallowed hard.
Damn.
Not now.
As the only girl in a family of four older brothers, she’d learned that if you cried, you never heard the last of it.
Fighting the emotion, she walked to the window and opened it. ‘I love Cornwall.’ She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. ‘I’ve lived in so many places since I became a doctor and yet this is still home. I can smell the sea. I can’t wait to pick up my surfboard. I’ve been trapped in a city for too long.’ The plaintive shriek of a seagull made her open her eyes and for a moment the memories threatened to choke her.
Home.
‘So, what brings you banging on my door at this unearthly hour—what have you done?’ Josh sounded distracted. ‘Please tell me you haven’t killed a patient.’
‘No!’ Outrage was sharp and hot, slicing through the last of her composure. ‘Far from it. I saved a patient. Two patients, actually.’ Tasha clenched her fists, horrified to realise just how badly she needed someone else to tell her she’d done the right thing. That she hadn’t blown her career on a childish whim. ‘I had an incident—sort of. You know when you just have a feeling about a patient? Perhaps you haven’t actually had test results back from the lab, but sometimes you don’t need tests to tell you what you already know. Well, I had one of my feelings—a really strong feeling. I know it wasn’t exactly the way to go about things, but—’
‘Tasha, I’m too tired to wade through hours of female waffle. Just tell me what you’ve done. Facts.’
‘I’m not waffling. Medicine isn’t always black and white. You should know that.’ Tasha’s voice was fierce as she told him about the twins, the decisions she’d made and the drug she’d used.
Josh listened and questioned her. ‘You didn’t wait for the results of the blood cultures? And if it wasn’t on the hospital-approved formulary—’
‘They had it in stock for a different indication. You remember I went to the conference of the American Academy of Pediatrics last year? I told you about it when we met for supper that night. The data is so strong, Josh. We should be using it in Britain, but it’s all money, money, money—’
‘Welcome to the reality of health-care provision.’
‘The drug is at least fifty per cent more effective than the one I was supposed to use.’
‘And three hundred per cent more expensive.’
‘Because it’s good,’ Tasha snapped, ‘and research of that quality comes at a price.’
‘Don’t lecture me on the economics of drug development.’
‘Then don’t lecture me on wanting to do the best for my patients. Those babies would have died, Josh! If I’d waited for the results or used a different drug, they would have died.’ In her head she saw their tiny bodies as they lay with the life draining out of them. She heard their mother’s heartbreaking sobs and saw the father, white faced and stoical, trying to be a rock while his world fell apart. And she saw herself, facing the most difficult decision of her professional life. ‘They lived.’ She felt wrung out. Exhausted. But telling her brother had somehow made everything clearer. Whatever happened to her, whatever the future held, it had been worth the price. She didn’t need anyone else to tell her that.
‘The drug worked?’
‘Like magic.’ The scientist in her woke up and excitement fizzed through her veins. ‘It could transform the management of neonatal sepsis.’
‘Have you written it up for one of the journals?’
‘I’m going to. I just need to find the time.’ And now she had time, she thought gloomily. Oodles of it.
‘But the hospital authorities didn’t approve and now you’re in trouble?’
‘I didn’t exactly follow protocol, that’s true, but I’d do the same thing again in the same circumstances. Unfortunately, my boss didn’t agree.’ Tasha turned her head and stared out of the window. ‘Which is why I resigned.’ Saying the word made her heart plummet. It sounded so—final.
‘You did what?’ Josh sounded appalled. ‘Please tell me you’re kidding.’
‘No. I resigned on principle.’ The anger rose, as fresh and raw as it had been on that morning when she’d faced her boss after two nights without sleep. ‘I said to him, What sort of department are you running when your budget comes before a baby’s life?’
‘And no doubt you went on to tell him what sort of department he was running. Tactful, Tasha.’ Josh rubbed his hand over his jaw. ‘So you questioned his professional judgement and dented his ego.’
‘A man of his position shouldn’t need to have his ego protected. He shouldn’t be that pathetic.’
‘Did you tell him that as well?’
‘I told him the truth.’
Josh winced. ‘So...I’m assuming, given that he was the sort of guy to protect his ego, that he didn’t take it well?’
‘He’s the sort of person who would stand and watch someone drown if health and safety hadn’t approved a procedure for saving them. He said the manufacturer did not present a sufficiently robust economic analysis.’ Tasha felt the emotion rush down on her and forced herself to breathe. ‘So then I asked him if he was going to be the one who told the parents they’d lost both their babies because some idiot in a suit sitting behind his desk had crunched the numbers and didn’t think their children’s lives were worth the money.’
Josh closed his eyes briefly. ‘Tasha—’
‘Sorry.’ The lump in her throat was back and this time it wasn’t going anywhere. ‘I know I should have been unemotional about the whole thing but I just can’t be. Honestly, I’m steaming mad.’
‘You don’t say? Are you about to cry on me?’
‘No, absolutely not.’
‘The only time I’ve ever seen you cry was when Cheapskate died.’
They shared a look. Cheapskate had been the dog their mother had bought after their father had walked out. Tasha remembered hugging his warm body and feeling his tail thumping against her leg. She remembered thinking, Don’t ever leave me, and then being devastated when he’d done just that.
‘He was a great dog.’
‘He was a lunatic.’ But Josh’s eyes were gentle. ‘Tell me about those babies you
