by Kate Hardy
He needed help.
Ironically, he thought the best person to help him would be the same person who’d caused him a problem in the first place: Beatrice herself. Maybe if he told her about his past, explained about what had happened with Jenny when Iain was tiny, then she’d help him to be sensible and keep things platonic between them.
They were both rostered on Minors that day, so he was pretty sure they’d be able to take their lunch break together.
‘Can we have a chat over lunch?’ he asked when he saw her in the staff kitchen during their break.
She looked slightly wary. ‘A chat?’
‘Somewhere quiet. Maybe a sandwich in the park, as it’s a nice day?’ he suggested.
She still looked wary. ‘A chat.’
‘To clear the air,’ he said.
‘All right,’ she said eventually.
‘Meet you at twelve-thirty, here?’ he asked.
‘OK. Twelve-thirty,’ she said, ‘depending on our patients’ needs.’
‘Of course,’ he said.
He made it through the morning; and then he headed for the staff kitchen to meet Beatrice. She was already there. ‘Still OK for a sandwich and some fresh air?’ he asked.
‘Sure,’ she said.
They bought sandwiches from the hospital canteen, then went out to the park in a slightly uneasy silence.
‘I owe you an explanation,’ he said when they found a quiet bench and sat down.
She shook her head. ‘You don’t owe me anything.’
‘I think I do. And the best way I can do that is to explain about my situation,’ he said. ‘About Iain.’
* * *
Did that mean he wanted her to explain her situation, too? Beatrice wondered. Because she wasn’t prepared for that. She didn’t want to talk about losing her baby, or the way her marriage had collapsed, and she definitely didn’t want to talk about what she’d done. But she’d listen to what he had to say.
‘Obviously I’ll keep anything you say in confidence,’ she said.
‘I’ve worked at Muswell Hill Memorial Hospital for long enough that pretty much everyone knows what happened,’ Daniel said dryly. ‘But thank you.’
Not quite knowing what to say next, she waited.
‘Jenny—my ex-wife—had serious postnatal depression after Iain was born,’ he said. ‘I let her down. I should’ve picked up on it a lot sooner than I did.’
‘You’re not being fair to yourself. You work in emergency medicine, not obstetrics or general practice,’ she reminded him.
He shrugged. ‘Even so, I should’ve noticed that it was more than just the baby blues that you hear people talking about. That she wasn’t sleeping well and she was really tired, and it wasn’t just because she was getting up at night to feed the baby. That she was feeling low, and it was more than just the usual worries a new parent has about whether you’re going to be good enough. That she worried and worried about whether Iain was all right. That she checked him in his cot a bit too often, to make sure he was still breathing.’
Would she have been like that if Taylor had lived? Beatrice wondered. Worrying constantly, checking on the baby?
She forced the thoughts away and tried to concentrate on what Daniel was telling her.
He blew out a breath. ‘I was busy at work, so I didn’t pay Jenny enough attention. I didn’t notice that she was gradually withdrawing from everyone. I didn’t ask her enough about her day or notice that she made excuses not to meet up with the other mums from our antenatal group. I didn’t see that she wasn’t coping.’
‘You can’t put all the blame on yourself,’ she said. ‘As you said, you were working, so you weren’t with her all the time. Even if you weren’t getting up to do any of the night feeds, when Iain woke and screamed it probably woke you, so you weren’t getting enough sleep either. You were tired and trying to do your best. Plus you weren’t the only one to see Jenny. What about her family, her friends, her health visitor? Didn’t they say anything?’
‘Her best friend did,’ Daniel said. ‘She noticed Jenny didn’t wash her hair as much as she used to, and she didn’t dress the way she used to before Iain arrived. I’d noticed, too, but I assumed it was just because she was adjusting to a new routine with the baby and I wasn’t going to pressure her to look super-glamorous every second of the day.’
Beatrice liked the fact Daniel was so sensitive. After Taylor’s funeral, Oliver had expected her to dress up and keep going to his office functions. She’d forced herself to do it, not wanting to let him down any further than she already had. Inside, she’d been falling apart; outside, she’d kept the stiff upper lip expected from her by everyone. In the end, it hadn’t made a difference. Going along with the same routine, smiling at people and pretending that everything was all right simply hadn’t made everything all right. It had just made her bottle everything up until she finally broke down.
‘She’d lost her sense of humour,’ Daniel continued, ‘and I just put it down to the stresses of being a new mum. I didn’t pay enough attention.’
‘It’s harder to spot when you see someone every day and when it’s a gradual change,’ Beatrice pointed out.
‘I still should have noticed,’ Daniel insisted. And she could see the guilt racking him, reflected in his dark eyes. ‘And then one day, when Iain was about two months old, I got home from work and she wasn’t there. Iain was lying in his cot, screaming his head off. I changed his nappy and fed him—thankfully we’d got a bottle and some cartons of baby milk in case of emergency—and I called her, but her phone was switched off. I tried her mum, her sister, her friends from work, just about everyone in our phone book, but nobody had heard from her or seen her that day.’
Beatrice sucked in a breath. She’d done the same thing, two months after the accident. Waited until she had a day when she thought she wouldn’t be disturbed. Except her intentions had been a lot more final. If Victoria, her sister-in-law, hadn’t knocked on her door and refused to take silence for an answer...
She pulled herself together, this wasn’t about her. It was about Daniel and Iain and Jenny. ‘That must’ve been really hard for you,’ she said.
He nodded. ‘If she’d taken Iain with her, I wouldn’t have been quite so worried. I would’ve thought maybe she was having coffee with a friend and had forgotten the time. But the fact that she’d left Iain on his own—I didn’t think she’d just popped out to get a pint of milk or something while he was asleep. She would’ve taken him with her. I thought she might have...’ He tailed off, his expression full of pain.
He didn’t have to finish the sentence. Beatrice knew exactly what he meant. He’d thought that Jenny might have done exactly what Beatrice herself had done.
‘I reported her to the police as missing, and I put stuff all over social media in case someone saw her, begging them to let me know—I just needed to know she was safe. Obviously I called work and said I needed emergency parental leave until Jenny was home. And my mum flew down from Glasgow the next morning to help out with Iain while I pestered everyone I knew and tried to find Jenny.’
His family had rallied round, Beatrice thought. Hers—even her sisters-in-law—had panicked and refused to talk about what she’d done. Pretending it hadn’t happened meant they didn’t have to face the fear that she might do it again.
‘What happened?’ she asked.
‘I was tearing my hair out. But three days later someone at a hotel recognised her from a photograph I’d put on social media and called the police, who brought her home. I was just so relieved she hadn’t...’
‘Yes,’ Beatrice said softly. She’d put her family through just as much worry as Jenny had, and it still made her feel guilty.
‘Anyway, I got her an appointment with our family doctor and Mum looked after Iain while I went with her to support her.’ He grimaced. ‘I asked her why sh
e’d left him—I wasn’t going to judge her, because I knew it was so out of character. I just wanted to understand, so I could help her. And I was so shocked when she said she’d thought she was going to do something to hurt him because he wouldn’t stop crying and she didn’t know what to do—she left to keep him safe.’
‘I can understand that,’ Beatrice said. ‘If you’re already low with postnatal depression and you’re panicking that everything’s going wrong, a crying baby would send you over the edge.’ In her case, though, it had been the opposite. She would’ve given anything to hear her baby cry. It was the lack of crying, the lack of anything, the sheer emptiness that had tipped her over the edge. ‘And I’m guessing she knew you’d be back relatively soon and would be there for him.’
He nodded. ‘She thought he’d probably cry himself to sleep. Maybe he did; and maybe he woke up again just before I got back. I don’t know.’
‘And the doctor helped?’
‘He gave her antidepressants as well as referring her for CBT. Jenny’s parents live miles away in the Cotswolds, so Mum moved down from Glasgow permanently to help support us.’ He blew out a breath. ‘She got better over the next few months, but things between us were terrible. I felt guilty for not supporting her better; I felt angry with her for leaving him alone when he couldn’t look after himself and something could’ve happened to him; and I felt guilty for being angry because I knew it wasn’t her fault that she was ill and her judgement wasn’t what it normally was. But no matter how much I tried I couldn’t get past it; it was like a vicious circle that spiralled tighter and tighter. We couldn’t seem to find our way back to how things were before Iain was born. It was as if all the love we’d shared just drained away and there was nothing left.’
Beatrice knew exactly how that felt.
‘In the end we split up and she agreed I could have custody of Iain.’
‘Does she see him at all?’
‘Yes, he stays with her every other weekend. He stayed with her this weekend. But that’s why I don’t want to get involved with anyone—Iain’s already had a rough start, and it’s up to me to give him stability.’
‘Is Jenny involved with anyone?’
He nodded. ‘She remarried a year ago. We talked about the custody situation with Iain and, even though he’s older now and it’s fine between them, she doesn’t trust herself not to let him down again. I’m never going to withhold access or anything spiteful like that, because she’s his mum and I want him to know her and love her as much as she loves him—but I’m the one who looks after him, with support from my mum, and that’s the way it’s going to stay.’
Beatrice had been in that same dark place—except she’d never see Taylor grow up, the way Jenny would see Iain change from a child to a young man. She and Oliver had been in the same vicious circle as Daniel and Jenny except, unlike Daniel, Oliver hadn’t tried to understand why his wife had tried to get out of the situation. And, instead of talking about it, or getting her to talk, he’d taken the stiff upper lip approach; in his view, if they didn’t discuss it, it hadn’t happened.
The cracks had grown wider and wider; and finally Beatrice had had the strength to leave him and let him find happiness with someone else.
Maybe she should tell Daniel. Given his own experiences, she was pretty sure he would understand. But she also thought he’d see her differently, once he knew what she’d done. She didn’t want him to pity her or avoid her—not now, when they were starting to gel as a team at work.
‘I’m sorry you’ve all been through so much,’ she said.
‘We’re good now,’ Daniel said, ‘but I don’t want to risk ever being in that position again.’
Which made her the last person he’d ever want to get involved with. Her own depression wasn’t quite the same as Jenny’s, but it had similar roots. She’d been on Jenny’s side of the illness. And what if they did get together and her depression returned? She’d be letting him down—and she’d be letting his son down, too. Daniel hadn’t been able to forgive Jenny, so it was pretty clear that he wouldn’t be able to forgive Beatrice, either.
It was better to stick to being colleagues. ‘Thank you for telling me. As I said, I won’t be gossiping about you.’
‘I appreciate that.’
A little voice inside her head said, Tell him.
But she just couldn’t.
Instead, she said brightly, ‘I guess we’d better be getting back to the department. The waiting room’s probably filled while we’ve been at lunch.’
‘Agreed,’ Daniel said.
And if she kept reminding herself that this thing between her and Daniel couldn’t even start, she’d come to believe it.
CHAPTER FIVE
FOR THE REST of the week, Daniel managed to keep everything between himself and Beatrice completely professional.
But then, on Friday lunchtime, he was just grabbing a coffee from the staff kitchen when his phone beeped.
The message was from his childminder.
Daniel, please ring me urgently.
He frowned. Diane rarely texted him. Something was obviously wrong.
His heart skipped a beat. Iain.
No, it couldn’t be. Iain was at school. They would’ve called Daniel straight away, not Diane—wouldn’t they?
He called her immediately. ‘Diane, it’s Daniel. What’s happened?’
‘It’s my mum,’ Diane said.
And how horrible was he that relief flooded through him? Not Iain. His precious son was all right.
‘She collapsed and she’s being taken to hospital.’
‘Here? I’ll keep an eye out for her and ask to make sure she sees me.’
‘No, she lives in Essex.’ Her voice shook. ‘They don’t know what’s wrong. It might be a stroke. I need to be with her, so I won’t be able to pick Iain up from school today.’
Which left him with a huge problem. But Diane had enough to worry about, with her mum’s health, so he wasn’t going to make things worse for her. ‘Of course you need to be with your mum. Don’t worry. I’ll sort something out for Iain. Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help or if you want the medics there to talk to me.’
‘Oh, Daniel.’ She sounded close to tears. ‘Thank you for being so nice about it.’
‘No problem,’ he fibbed. There wasn’t exactly anything else he could be other than nice. ‘Take care, and I hope your mum is okay. Let me know how she’s getting on.’
He frowned as he ended the call. What was he going to do now? Normally he would have called on his mother, but Susan was away in Birmingham, running a three-day course, and she wouldn’t be back until tomorrow. Jenny was leaving work early because she was going away for the weekend, so he couldn’t ask her to help, either. And if he asked for unpaid leave it would mean the department was short-staffed, which wasn’t fair on the team.
There had to be someone he could ask. Someone who knew Iain. Maybe he could ask the mum of one of Iain’s friends to take him home for a few hours, until he’d finished his shift?
At that moment, the kitchen door opened and Beatrice walked in.
‘Are you all right?’ she asked.
‘Yes—well, no,’ he admitted. There wasn’t any point in lying. ‘My childminder’s mother just collapsed so she can’t pick Iain up from school. Mum’s running a course in Birmingham and Jenny’s away.’ He raked a hand through his hair. ‘I’m just going to have to call round the mums of Iain’s friends and see if any of them can help me out.’
* * *
Beatrice knew that this was her cue to wish Daniel luck, make herself a coffee and let him get on with it. But he looked worried sick. How could she just turn her back on him, when he clearly needed help?
There was an obvious solution. Part of her thought it was a bad idea, tantamount to getting involved with him. And having a four-year-o
ld child in her flat—a child the age her daughter would’ve been—was that really a good idea? Wouldn’t it just rip the top of her scars?
Then again, what was the difference between George, her four-year-old nephew, and Iain? Plus she’d met Iain and they’d got on just fine.
It would be the best solution for both Iain and Daniel. And, as Daniel’s senior, she needed to support him. Right?
Before she could talk herself out of it, she said, ‘I’m off duty at three. I could pick him up for you.’
He blinked. ‘You? But...’
‘I’d do the same for any colleague who was a bit stuck and needed help,’ she said. ‘Iain knows me. I don’t think he’ll mind me looking after him for the afternoon. And I can take him back to my place—I’ve got a box of toys and books for my niece and nephews, so I’m sure we can find something he’ll enjoy in there.’
‘That’s very kind of you, but I’m on a late. I can’t swap shifts.’
‘It’s not a problem. Iain can have dinner with me,’ she said. ‘Any allergies I need to know about?’
Daniel raked a hand through his hair again, and the dishevelment made him look absolutely scrumptious. Colleagues, she reminded herself sharply. They were colleagues. With her past, she was the very last woman that he needed to get involved with.
‘No allergies,’ he said. ‘Are you quite sure it’s not going to cause you any hassle? You might already have plans for tonight.’
‘I don’t have any plans,’ she said. Not because she wanted him to know that her social life was pared down—or why—but because she didn’t want him feeling guilty. ‘It’s fine. I guess you’ll need to contact his school to let them know I’m picking Iain up with your permission. If you want to send them a photo of my work ID card, that’s fine. And I’ll need the school’s address and your mobile number, and you’ll obviously need my details.’
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘I owe you.’
She shook her head. ‘From what I’ve seen so far of the department here, it’s like my old one at the Hampstead Free. Everyone mucks in and helps each other. It all evens out in the end.’