‘What about a present?’
‘I don’t know … just think of something.’ And that annoyed her too. Veronica Carmichael was a difficult woman; she and Ava had never really got on. A widow, James was her only child, and she was never going to like the woman who, in her eyes, had taken him away and, worse, a woman who couldn’t give her grandchildren. Ava had organised a small family gathering for Veronica’s sixtieth, which was next weekend, and would on Saturday go out and buy her something lovely for her birthday, something really beautiful. And she’d wrap it too, and then Veronica would unwrap it and thank James, and would go on and on about what a thoughtful son she had when, had it been left to him, there would have been a card bought on the way to her house and no party.
So she and James chatted for another thirty seconds about his flight home on Monday and then she hung up and stared at the view she loved. SHH looked out over Sydney Harbour and the sexual dysfunction centre was on one of the higher floors—the floor was shared with Psychology and Family Counselling. Nobody would ever get out of the lift otherwise, James sometimes joked when he came up to visit her some lunchtimes, though again, that hadn’t happened in a while. Still, every morning that she came into work Ava pinched herself at the view from her window, and she gazed out at it now, to the opera house and the Harbour Bridge, the blue of the ocean and the white sails that dotted it, and she waited for the view to soothe her.
Unfailingly it worked.
It really was a wonderful perk of her job.
It was the same view she looked at the next morning after another tear-filled night when Ginny, her receptionist, came in carrying a huge bunch of flowers from James.
‘Ahh …’ Ginny beamed and handed her the bouquet. ‘He’s so romantic.’
Ava knew at that point that he was having an affair. Knew that she wasn’t simply being paranoid.
Not once in the seven years they had been married and not even when dating had James sent flowers, not one single time. It just wasn’t him. What do I need to send flowers for? He’d shrug. I’ve done nothing wrong.
She read the card.
Miss you.
See you on Monday
James x
And she remembered a time, took it out from the back of her memory and polished it till she could clearly see.
It had been two, maybe three years ago.
Yes, three years ago and it had been their wedding anniversary and they’d both decided they were ready to try for a baby. Ava’s career had been in a really good place and she’d felt confident she could juggle work and motherhood far better than her mother had. James had bought her a ring, the large amber ring that she was wearing now, because, he’d said, it matched her eyes. And he’d taken her out for dinner, the perfect night, and they’d had the same old good-natured joke as they’d got back to the apartment and she’d moaned about the lack of flowers.
It hurt to remember and she tried not to, but the memory was out there, all polished and gleaming and allowing for total recall.
Tumbling in bed together, making love as they once had.
His big body over hers, his chin all stubbly, those gorgeous green eyes looking down, and she saw in that image what she hadn’t seen in a very long time. James was smiling. ‘Men only send flowers when they’ve something to feel guilty about.’
‘In your own words, James,’ Ava said, and looked at the flowers and wanted to bin them. If her window had opened she would have tossed them out there and then, except her window was sealed closed, and then in came Ginny with a huge vase.
‘Put them out in the waiting room,’ Ava suggested. ‘Let the patients enjoy them.’
‘Don’t be daft,’ Ginny said, and plonked them right there on her desk. ‘He sent them for you.’
And there they sat, for appearances sake, their sweet, sickly fragrance filling her nostrils, the violent colours perpetually in her line of vision. She wished they’d just wilt and fade.
Like her marriage.
CHAPTER ONE
‘THEY’VE cancelled the surgery.’ Ava said nothing for a moment, just stood quietly as her colleague Evie Lockheart leant against the corridor wall, her eyes closed as she struggled to keep in the tears, utterly defeated by what had happened. Ava had seen her walking dazed along the hospital corridor. Even if she didn’t know Evie particularly well, she liked her—they had shared the odd conversation and everyone in the hospital knew that Finn Kennedy was having his surgery today.
Complicated surgery that was extremely risky. Ava already knew his operation had been called off—news spread fast around SHH and she couldn’t even hazard how Finn must be feeling to have been told an hour before such major surgery that it wasn’t going to go ahead.
‘It hasn’t been cancelled,’ Ava said, her voice practical. ‘It’s been postponed.’
‘Well, it might just as well have been cancelled,’ Evie said. ‘He just told them not to bother booking it again, then he told me to get the hell out.’ Evie shook her head. ‘I shouldn’t be troubling you with this.’ She was clearly in distress and not used to sharing her private life, and Ava was more than used to situations like that.
‘Come back to my office,’ Ava suggested. She could see a couple of nurses turning their heads as they walked past—Evie and Finn were hot topics indeed. Finn was the chief of surgery and a formidable man at best, well known for his filthy attitude and ability to upset the staff, but no one could question his brilliance. His voice could be as cutting as the scalpel he so skilfully wielded, except lately he hadn’t been operating and it had done nothing to improve his mood, and today poor Evie was wearing it. ‘We can get a coffee there. I’m sure you might like a bit of privacy now.’ She walked Evie back along the corridor and to the left and then up in the lifts they went without a word. She walked along the corridor, nodded good morning to Donald, one of the therapists, and then through to her own centre and shook her head when Ginny told her she had a message from the spinal unit.
‘I’ll call back later,’ Ava said. ‘I’m not to be disturbed.’
She and Evie entered her office—well, it was more a room. Yes, she had a desk, though it was terribly messy, but the room had a couple of couches and a coffee table, and a small kitchenette where Ava would make her clients a drink, or herself one, if they needed a moment to pause, and she gave Evie that moment now as she went over to make them a drink.
‘Finn would never forgive me, you know …’ Evie gave a pale smile as she sat down on one of the comfortable couches ‘If he knew I was stepping into a sex therapist’s office to talk about him.’
‘I’d be patronising you if I laughed.’ Ava turned around and smiled. ‘I hear the same thing I don’t know how many times a day. She put on a gruff male voice. ‘“Well, I never thought I’d find myself here. I really don’t need to be here …’” Ava rolled her eyes and poured coffee, taking a little longer than perhaps she needed to, to give Evie a chance to collect herself.
‘Well.’ Evie gave
