“Well, that’s a relief.”
“Yes, I’m sure it is.” The anger was coming into her voice now, despite her attempts to hold it back. “When were you going to tell me that you had a biopsy done?”
“Just now,” he said. “I came here to tell you about it.”
“Oh, well, that’s very convenient. Because the results were faxed over from St. Victoria a few seconds ago. So that’s interesting that you were just about to tell me, just now.”
Her head felt very strange, and she realized a headache was beginning. The kind that started when she was trying not to cry.
“Congratulations,” she said, trying muster her emotions. “You’re healthy.” She was trying so hard to feel the relief she should feel. This was good news. She should be happy. They both should be. Except why hadn’t Theo told her about it in the first place? Why had she found out about this by accident? Had he ever been planning to tell her about it?
“Oh,” he said, his smile small and forced. “That’s good news, isn’t it?”
The tears welled in her eyes, and she blinked furiously to hold them back. “How long have you been waiting for these results?”
“A little over a month.”
“A little...” She couldn’t finish; she was too overwhelmed by disbelief. “And you never thought to tell me about it?”
“I hoped I wouldn’t have to. I know you’re a worrier. And I didn’t want you to have to worry about this.”
“This is why you’ve been running back and forth between the clinic and the hospital so much, isn’t it? You told me that you were just adjusting to your new job and your new schedule. But it’s also because you’re probably getting your medical care there. It makes sense. You’ve only just gone into remission. It stands to reason you’d have to attend plenty of follow-up appointments. But what does not make sense, Theo, is why you would ever try to hide that from me. Why you wouldn’t just be open about where you were going and what you were doing.”
“Because I wanted to spare you from all that! It’s bad enough that I have to deal with all the stress of it. I didn’t want to put that on your shoulders, too. Especially because I hoped that the biopsy would be clear. I thought, what was the point of worrying you if it would all turn out to be nothing?”
“The point, Theo, is that you promised me that you’d let me know of any changes with your health.”
“But does it matter, now that we know the results are clear? Nothing’s changed. I was in remission a few weeks ago, and I’m in remission now.”
“Yes—after weeks of worrying about the biopsy, without ever giving me a hint of what you were going through. I’m glad you’re healthy, Theo, but I’m very, very concerned you didn’t tell me. I could have been there for you, instead of you having to wait for these results alone. Didn’t you want me to be there for you?”
Asking the question almost broke her heart. She’d thought she meant something to Theo. But if he couldn’t be transparent with her about something like this, then maybe she wasn’t important to him at all.
He rushed forward and grabbed both of her hands. “I wanted to protect you.”
“By shutting me out? That doesn’t make me feel protected, Theo. It makes me feel like I don’t matter.”
“That’s not true,” he said. “There is nothing that matters to me more than you.”
“Really?” she said. “Is this how you treat the people who matter to you? By being secretive? Withholding crucial information? That’s not how you deal with a relationship, Theo—if this even is a relationship.”
“I just wanted to spare you any stress. I had to hide everything, because I didn’t want you to be upset.”
She’d heard it before. It was Jamie all over again. Theo wasn’t telling her the whole story because he didn’t want to hurt her, when she was hurt far more by not knowing the truth. All this time, she’d thought they were growing closer, when in fact he hadn’t even been able to tell her that he was waiting to hear whether he’d have to suffer the return of a life-threatening illness. How could he have kept such an enormous secret from her? Worse, how could he have acted for weeks as though nothing was bothering him? That was what upset her the most. She didn’t want to be in a relationship with someone who kept her at arm’s length and put up a facade.
Her dream of a family had always involved having a group of people who supported each other through tough times. But if Theo had thought it best to go through this alone—to put up a front, and shut her out from everything he was really feeling—then being with him put her further away from that goal than ever. It was that simple: if he couldn’t be open with her, then he wasn’t the right person for her.
Tears fell from her eyes despite her attempts to blink them back. This was exactly why she had sworn off relationships in the first place. She’d wasted so much of her life waiting for Jamie to be ready. She’d waited for an engagement, for marriage and for the family she’d believed they both wanted. But she couldn’t wait any more. She had a life to live, and a daughter to take care of. Theo was never supposed to have been part of any of it. He’d simply arrived, without warning, and stirred feelings that she’d thought were long dormant. She was furious with him, but she was even more furious with herself for not realizing straightaway that those feelings would only lead to heartbreak.
“I think I understand,” she said. “When you made that promise, you were telling me what you thought I wanted to hear.”
“What I thought would be the least painful.”
She shook her head. “I can’t believe you’re still trying to justify it.”
He tried to put a hand on her shoulder, and she twisted away. “No,” she said. “You promised you wouldn’t do this. You know how important honesty is to me. I thought it was important to you, too. But instead, you hid things and kept secrets. You let me know only the information you thought would make me feel better, rather than the whole truth.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, and she could see that he meant it. He was beginning to blink back tears, too. “I’d do anything to change this. Anything to go back to a month from now and make a different decision. If I could do it over again, I’d tell you about the biopsy, I swear. My God, Willow, there’s so much in my life I’d do differently if I had the chance.”
She wished she could believe him. But over and over again, he’d shown her who he was.
“I don’t know if that’s true, Theo. Isn’t this kind of what you do?”
He looked as though she’d slapped him.
“Think about it. You stayed away from Maisie, missed the first three years of your daughter’s life, because you wanted to protect her from grief. You kept the extent of your cancer a secret from your family because you didn’t want them to feel sad. You can’t even let a dog into your house because you’re worried about it getting attached to you. If you can’t do that, then how do you expect to let a child into your life? You can’t be a parent unless you’re willing to put your whole heart into it. But your heart, Theo, is a secret. You claim to be protecting the people you care about, when all you’re actually doing is hiding the truth from everyone, and keeping yourself emotionally cut off!”
She was shaking with emotion. Theo’s face looked absolutely heartbroken, and it broke her heart to think that she was hurting him. But he’d hurt her first. And if he could hurt her that way, then she couldn’t see any future with him. No matter how painful it might be to see her dreams fade away, she had to let them go. Because she couldn’t be with someone who wasn’t transparent with her.
“It’s time to ask yourself who you’re really protecting,” she continued. “Because I sure as hell don’t feel protected. I just feel lied to. Maybe this has nothing to do with protecting other people, and everything to do with protecting yourself.”
“From what?” he whispered.
“I don’t know. Maybe from getting
close. Maybe from getting some of the things you want, only to have to be afraid of losing them again. But those are questions for you to ask yourself, Theo. I can’t get hurt again while I’m waiting for you to figure them out.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that this isn’t working. It can’t work. We’re not...” She swallowed, trying to force the words out. “We’re not right for each other. We’d just keep going around in circles. You’d keep hiding things from me, and I’d keep feeling betrayed.”
“And what about Maisie?”
“This is exactly what I didn’t want for her. I didn’t want her getting attached, and then getting hurt.”
“I never wanted that, either. But does it have to be that way?”
“I’m sorry, but it does. I think it’s for the best if we don’t tell her you’re her father.” The look on his face was absolutely devastating. It tore her heart into pieces to think that she was hurting him this much.
But she did not want her daughter to have an emotionally distant father. She had to protect her child.
“Please,” he said. “Don’t do this. I can change. I’ll do anything to prove it to you.”
She couldn’t stop the tears that streamed down her cheeks. “It’s too late.”
* * *
Willow knew that one of the most important parts of getting through work in any medical setting was finding a good place to cry. Even when one wasn’t going through personal heartbreak, her profession offered plenty of opportunities for tears. Losing a patient, an altercation with a colleague or just the simple stress of balancing home with work necessitated a thorough knowledge of all the quiet, private spaces that might be available if one ever needed a good cry.
Most of the nurses at the clinic shared their space, so she didn’t have an office of her own. But she knew of a quiet nook in the clinic’s courtyard that would afford some privacy. She often went there when she needed a quiet moment. The nook held a simple concrete bench, and was shielded by walls on two sides and by the tall flowers of a butterfly garden on the other. She went there now, hoping for some peace, and hoping to simply let her tears fall without having to worry about holding them back.
She had trusted Theo. Even in the face of all the signs not to, she had believed him when he’d said he would be honest with her. She’d felt that he deserved a second chance, after all he’d been through. And then she’d developed feelings for him, allowing herself to hope that maybe, just this once, growing close to someone wouldn’t lead to heartbreak.
But here she was, in the same situation all over again. Only this time, it was worse, because Maisie was involved.
Maisie was clearly very attached to Theo. She loved visiting his house, loved playing with Bixby. And she loved playing games with Theo. This was exactly the situation Willow had wanted to avoid: Maisie getting attached to someone who would then leave her life.
But was keeping Theo from Maisie the best option? A moment ago, she had been certain. By keeping his biopsy a secret, and acting as though everything was normal for several weeks—she shook her head, still unable to believe it—Theo had shown her that he couldn’t be emotionally available. But she thought about Theo’s extended family. If she didn’t tell Maisie that Theo was her father, would she essentially be denying her daughter the chance to be someone’s cousin, someone’s niece? Someone’s granddaughter? Willow’s own gran couldn’t be here for Maisie, but she still had a chance to have a grandmother. Reluctantly, she wondered if she might rethink her decision regarding Maisie’s relationship with Theo. She didn’t want her daughter to have an emotionally distant father, but nor did she want to keep her child from the opportunity to have close family relationships. She’d have to figure out what that would look like later. For now, she was still reeling from Theo’s decision to lie to her.
He’d treated her just as Jamie had. He’d told her the things he thought she wanted to hear, rather than the truth. And then he’d tried to justify it by explaining that he’d held his silence because she would have been upset, a justification that only made everything much worse. As though she’d ever be upset by knowing the truth. Lies had caused her much greater pain than the truth ever could.
What was wrong with her? Was she simply drawn to manipulative men?
As much as she hated what Theo had done, it wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was that she was so relieved that his biopsy had been clear. She wanted to celebrate that with him. But she couldn’t. Theo had taken that chance for joy away from her because he’d shut her out.
She rubbed her temples, her head aching, as she again thought of what he’d said about protecting her. It made her so sad, to think of Theo carrying that lonely burden all by himself. He must have been so scared while he was waiting for the test results. It scared her, too, to think of losing him. But how much scarier to go through that alone. If she and Theo stayed together, she might not be able to trust him to keep her informed about everything. What if she lost him unexpectedly, without time to prepare, because he’d withheld important information in a misguided attempt to “protect” her? Some people might prefer it that way, but it wasn’t what Willow wanted. She thought she’d been clear about that. She had been clear about that. Theo just hadn’t listened.
As much as she feared the thought of losing Theo, the thought of being kept in the dark was even more frightening. She was a critical care nurse. She knew that there were many things in life that were scary. She didn’t want to hide from them; she wanted to find someone she could trust, so they could be together through all the scary things. It broke her heart that that person wasn’t Theo.
CHAPTER NINE
THEO DIDN’T KNOW how he was able to get himself to work over the next few days, but he managed somehow. He might have felt as though his heart had been ripped from his chest were it not for the occasional pangs that shot through it, letting him know that his heart was indeed still there, still beating and still broken.
He hadn’t seen Willow for several days. He knew nothing of the details of her absence, only that she’d taken a few days off. He hoped that she wasn’t alone, in pain, because of him. When he’d first gotten to know Willow, he’d been struck by how independent she was, and also how alone. He, at least, had Becca to talk to, and if he’d wanted to, he had more family anytime he needed them. Who did Willow talk to about her heartbreak? Was she feeling heartbreak? He didn’t know what would feel worse, the thought of her getting over their relationship quickly, or the thought of her grieving by herself, with no one to give her comfort or support.
He should be that person, giving her support. Instead, he was the person who’d caused her pain. Something he promised himself he’d never do. But then, it seemed he was in the habit of breaking promises these days. Even to himself.
Even though it was hard to focus at work, he was grateful for the distraction that his patients and his research provided. Shifting his attention to his clinical work helped to ease his heartbreak a bit, although of course it was always there, waiting, when he was finished for the day.
He found himself lingering at the clinic after his shifts were over, reluctant to go home with just Bixby for company and face the emptiness there. He spent extra time checking in with his patients, who seemed grateful for his concern, albeit a little surprised by the late hours he was keeping.
One patient was especially blunt.
“Shouldn’t you be home by now?” asked Roni. Theo had been taking his time in wrapping up his rounds for the day, and had checked in on Roni more than once.
“I’m staying late tonight to get through some paperwork and thought I’d check in,” he responded. “Didn’t mean to bother you.”
“It’s no bother. I just thought that all doctors hit the golf course after four p.m. Glad to be proven wrong.”
“I hear you’ll be leaving us soon,” he said. Roni had her final dose of chemotherapy
scheduled within the week, and all signs indicated that her tumor was shrinking. “You’ll need to be closely monitored to make sure things continue to go well. But if the cancer cells continue to recede for at least a month, we’ll be able to officially say that you’re in remission.”
“Well, that’s good news. I won’t miss being sick, but I will miss this place.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to stay here, where we can keep an eye on you?”
She sighed. “As nice as that sounds, it’s time for me to get back to the real world. This has been a very nice pretend vacation. And I do think pretending to be on vacation was just what I needed to get through chemo. But I’m ready to get back to my life, and my work. What about you, Doc? Are you ready to face reality yet?”
“What do you mean?”
“No offense, Doc, but your expression says a little more than ‘I’m bummed to be at work late.’ You look positively mopey. If I didn’t know better, I might wonder if you’re here late because you’re hiding from something.”
He forced a smile. “It’s nothing.”
“Nothing you want to talk about with me, anyway. That’s fine. You know who’s a good person to talk things over with? My favorite nurse. Who I’m pretty sure was your favorite nurse, up until a few days ago.”
He winced. “How much do you know?”
“She hasn’t told me anything. But I know a lovers’ quarrel when I see one. Did you do something stupid?”
“Yes, I think maybe I did.”
She sighed. “That’s very unfortunate. I haven’t seen her for a few days, and I miss having her around.”
“Me, too.”
“What happened?”
“I really screwed up,” he said, and then found he simply couldn’t continue. His voice caught in his throat. He’d made the same mistake so many times. He’d done it with Maisie, keeping himself out of her life so that she wouldn’t be hurt by the loss of a parent. He’d meant to protect her, but instead he simply hadn’t been there for her. And then with Willow, by doing the same thing that her ex had done to her. And now he might have lost Willow forever.
Caribbean Paradise, Miracle Family Page 14