a bleak belief, Ollie, caused by your own grief. Have you ever thought about counselling?’
‘Counselling?’ In the quiet corridor it was almost a shout. He stood back and looked at her as if she was out of her mind.
‘Counselling,’ she said, serenely. ‘It’s available here. We have the best people …’
‘I don’t need counselling.’
‘I think you do. You have so much unresolved anger from your childhood.’
‘I’m over it.’
‘It destroyed our marriage,’ she said simply. ‘And you haven’t moved on. I expected you to have a wife and a couple of your own kids by now. You were scared of adoption—are you worried about your reaction to any child?’
‘This is nuts.’
‘Yeah, it is,’ she said amiably, tossing her stained robes into the waiting bins. ‘And it’s none of my business. It’s just … I’ve got on with my life, Oliver. You kissed me on Saturday and I found myself wondering how many women you’d kissed since our split. And part of me thinks … not many? Why not?’
Silence.
She was watching him like a pert sparrow, he thought, as the rest of his brain headed off on tangents he didn’t understand. She was interested. Clinically interested. She was a fine nurse, a midwife, a woman used to dealing with babies and new parents all the time. Maybe she had insights …
Maybe she didn’t have any insights. Maybe she was just Em, his ex-wife.
Maybe that kiss had been a huge mistake.
Step away, he told himself. He didn’t need her or anyone else’s analysis. But …
‘Em, I would like to see Gretta and Toby again.’
Where had that come from? His mouth? He hadn’t meant to say it, surely he hadn’t.
But … but …
On Saturday he’d sat on the beach and he’d held Gretta, a little girl who had very little life left to her. He should have felt … what? Professional detachment? No, never that, for once an obstetrician felt removed from the joy of children he might as well hand in his ticket and become an accountant. Grief, then, for a life so short?
Not that, either.
He’d felt peace. He acknowledged it now. He’d sat in the waves and he’d felt Gretta’s joy as the water had washed her feet. And he’d also felt Em’s love.
Em made Gretta smile. He was under no illusions—with Gretta’s myriad medical problems and her rejection by her birth mother, she’d faced spending her short life in institutions.
And watching Em now, as she looked at him in astonishment, he thought, what a gift she’s given her children.
It was his cowardice that had made that possible. He’d walked away from Em, so Em had turned to fostering.
If he’d stayed with her maybe they could have adopted a newborn, a child with no medical baggage, a child Em could love with all her heart. Only he’d thought it wasn’t possible, to love a child who wasn’t his own. He’d walked away because such a love wasn’t possible, and yet here was Em, loving with all her heart when Gretta’s life would be so short …
Had he been mistaken? Suddenly, fiercely, he wanted that to be true. For he wanted to be part of this—part of Em’s loving?
Part of her hotchpotch family.
‘Oliver, there’s no need—’
‘I’d love to spend more time with Gretta.’ He was wise enough to know that pushing things further at this stage would drive her away. The way he felt about Em … it was so complicated. So fraught. He’d hurt her so much … Make it about her children, he thought, and even that thought hurt.
Her children.
‘What time do you finish tonight?’ he asked.
‘Six.’
‘I’m still reasonably quiet and I started early.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘I should be finished by five. What say I head over there and give Adrianna a break for an hour?’
‘Mum’d love that.’ She hesitated. ‘You could … stay for tea?’
‘I won’t do that.’ And it was too much. He couldn’t stop his finger coming up and tracing the fine lines of her cheek. She looked exhausted. She looked like she wasn’t eating enough. He wanted to pick her up, take her somewhere great, Hawaii maybe, put her in a resort, make her eat, make her sleep …
Take her to his bed …
Right. In his dreams. She was looking at him now, confused, and there was no way he was pushing that confusion.
‘I have a meeting back here at the hospital at seven,’ he lied. ‘So I’ll be leaving as you get home.’
‘You’re sure you want to?’
‘I want to. And if I can … for what time Gretta has left, if you’ll allow me, it would be my privilege to share.’
‘I don’t—’
‘This is nothing to do with you and me,’ he said, urgently now. ‘It’s simply that I have time on my hands—and I’ve fallen for your daughter.’
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