right. Okay.’
And she watched him walk away.
Perhaps hoping for friendship was hoping for too much?
* * *
Logan sat opposite his daughter, smiling as he listened to her tell him about blood. Specifically how many pints there were in the body and what constituents made it.
‘Plasma, red blood cells, white blood cells, platelets...’ She listed them off, holding her fingers out in front of her as she counted and explained their jobs.
It was a topic that anyone might talk about in a hospital and not have anyone stare, but here in a small coffee shop, just down the road from the hospital, his six-year-old daughter Rachel was drawing a few looks from some older members of the community, who appeared to be a little disturbed at her topic of conversation.
He was used to it, of course. This was one of Rachel’s favourite topics. The human body and how it worked—its components and what jobs they did. It was something she’d become fascinated by ever since she’d truly begun to understand that her mother had died, and her autism had sent her down a road of trying to understand why her mother’s body had failed.
He’d found it quite morbid to begin with. Disturbing and upsetting. So he got why strangers might find it odd. But he almost found comfort in it now, the same way Rachel did, as they settled in to a familiar, reassuring conversation in which there were no surprises and Rachel could control it, knowing the outcome.
First she would talk about blood. Then she would talk about the heart. And then she would talk about what stopped a heart and specifically what happened after the heart stopped beating.
He could see so much of her mother in her features. Rachel had Jo’s eyes. Blue, like the sky on a clear, hot summer’s day. And her hair was the colour of straw—not dark, like his. Sometimes when she talked, happily chatting away about her favourite subject, he would see Jo in her and would suddenly become aware of his loss—almost as if it was fresh once again—and he would have to take a moment just to breathe and remind himself that it had been years ago.
He felt guilty about Jo. He’d loved her—he was sure of that. But had it been the kind of love he’d felt for Ellie?
Ellie was from years ago and now she’d come back into his life. Jo would never come back, but Ellie had. He wondered what she would make of Rachel? Of him being a father?
She’d asked him why he did the job he did, but he’d not been able to tell her the whole truth. That in every child he tried to save he saw Rachel. That with every baby rushed to his department he recalled what it had felt like to be a lost parent, trailing in afterwards, hoping and praying that someone had the expertise to fix his child and make everything all right.
He’d have given his own life for Rachel, so he knew exactly what all those parents felt when they walked through into The Nest. Terrified and afraid...making bargains with God. He had an insight that the other doctors in Neonatal didn’t have, and that was why he did this job. That was why he chose to be a mentor and teach medical students—because they needed more doctors who could save these tiny babies. To give these brand-new baby humans a future. To give them time to enjoy life.
He’d never expected he would see Ellie again, even though he’d moved back to London. So much had happened in their time apart he’d figured she wouldn’t want him walking back into her life. They’d be moving in different circles. London was such a vast place and he’d just assumed she would have moved on.
Back then she’d talked about travelling the globe, seeing the world, and he’d hoped that by setting her free he would have helped her do that. Yet now she was training to become a doctor. What had provoked that?
Life hadn’t even touched her. Except, maybe, for her eyes. Those beautiful eyes of hers, a cloudy blue, seemed to look right into his soul. Her eyes told a story and he wondered if it was a story he wanted to hear? She looked a little sad. The brightness and optimism that had flowed from her, that he had once enjoyed, was gone, and in its place was a reserve he had never seen there before.
His own life had thrown trauma at him in the years they had been apart. What had happened to her? What had she lived through—if anything?
Ellie had seemed hesitant. Was it him? Was it meeting him again after all these years? Perhaps, it was just shock and surprise.
He’d wanted to reach out when he came back, but it had already been five long years then, and life had got in the way, and as his life had progressed with Jo he’d felt sure that it was better for both of them if he kept his distance. He’d told himself that she would have moved on too, and that getting in touch would simply be reopening old wounds. It would have seemed odd to get back in touch just to cause her more heartache...to stir up old feelings that she must have moved on from.
He’d not wanted to seem as if he was rubbing her face in it. Not that he’d suspected in any shape or form that she was single and still waiting for him, anyway. Ellie was beautiful. He’d hoped that she’d found someone, too.
He sipped at his tea and smiled at his beautiful daughter as she continued to detail the areas of the heart. Atria. Ventricles. Mitral valve. Tricuspid valve. He heard the way she always paused before saying sinus node and wondered, as he always did, if she would become a doctor one day.
‘And then...’ she paused, considering, looking up at him. It was a strange, unexpected break in her routine. ‘Daddy, how do you break someone’s heart?’
He almost choked on his lunch. He had to cough, wipe his mouth on a napkin. He leaned forward, wondering where the question had come from? ‘Why?’
‘This girl at Verity’s said that her dad had broken her mother’s heart.’ There was another pause as she frowned. ‘How do you do that? The heart isn’t made of glass, or china. It’s muscle. It’s meant to be strong, not weak.’
How did you break a heart?
I bet a lot of us could answer this one.
* * *
Ellie was putting on scrubs, preparing for surgery with Logan. She’d spent her lunch break reading up about gastroschisis as she’d tried to eat a sandwich, finding herself falling down rabbit holes of research as she often did, reading about one situation and sparking an interest in another.
The baby in question had a silo pouch currently covering her intestines, and she knew that after the surgery she would remain in NICU for several weeks. The intestines had been floating in amniotic fluid for months, so they would be swollen and not working very well. The baby would only be discharged once she was taking feeds well, putting on weight and excreting normally.
The surgery today was to insert the last remaining part of the intestines, remove the silo pouch and repair the defect that had caused the gastroschisis in the first place.
She was just putting her clothes into a locker when one of the nurses entered.
‘Hi, it’s Ellie, right? Clare. Very pleased to meet you.’ Clare shook her hand. ‘Is this your first surgery?’
‘My first on this placement.’
‘You’ve done some before? That’s good. So I don’t have to worry about you fainting, then?’
