Their Double Baby Gift

by Louisa Heaton

  CHAPTER TWO

  ‘DO YOU BELIEVE in broken hearts, Doc?’

  Major Matt Galloway peered at his patient. She was seventy-nine, with fluffy white hair, and sat huddled in her wheelchair, as if life had beaten her down gradually, day after day. Pale, with dark circles under her eyes, she looked as if she needed a damned long sleep.

  Yes, he did believe you could have a broken heart. Physically, there were lots of ways a heart could fail. But literally...? He saw people give up on life after the death of a loved one—die within days, hours or even minutes of a husband, wife or child. He’d thought it might happen to him once, but his body had stubbornly refused to give up. His logical mind had overpowered his heart and told it to suck it up, because he had a job to do. He had to be a father. And his principles had refused to let him leave someone behind who needed him.

  ‘I do,’ he said, but he was not keen to discuss his personal feelings with this patient. At work, he liked to remain professional. ‘It says here on your chart that you have non-specific chest pain. Your ECG was normal, as was your BP. Why don’t you tell me what you’re feeling and when it started?’

  His patient rubbed at her chest. ‘I lost my Alfred three weeks ago. Cancer. After the funeral my chest began to hurt—up here.’ She rubbed at a spot just above her sternum. ‘It won’t go away.’

  ‘And if you had to rate the pain between zero and ten, ten being the worst pain you’ve ever felt, what would you score it at?’

  ‘A good seven.’

  ‘Does it hurt more when you breathe in? When you take deep breaths?’

  ‘Sometimes. And when I twist in my chair, reach for something, sometimes it can be like someone is stabbing me with a hot pick.’

  It sounded skeletal or muscular to Matt. But they’d taken bloods and he wanted to see what they said before he made a diagnosis. ‘I’d like to examine you, if I may?’

  She smiled at him good-naturedly. ‘Normally I wouldn’t mind if a good-looking man wanted to see more of me, but would you mind if you got a lady doctor to do it?’

  He smiled back, not offended at all. ‘I’ll just get someone. Give me two minutes.’

  He closed the curtain of the cubicle behind him and went looking for a spare doctor. They all looked incredibly busy, hurrying here and there. The only person he could see who was apparently doing nothing, standing by the triage board, checking her mobile phone, was Dr Bailey.

  He’d known today was the day. That she would be returning after maternity leave. He’d known that today they would finally get to meet and his stomach had been a jumbled mess in anticipation. He’d heard so much about her—and not just from Jen. Apparently Dr Bailey was a wonderfully warm doctor—kind, caring, well-liked and respected in the department. But Jen had also said that Bailey was the loneliest person she had ever met. It was why she had befriended her. She’d said that this doctor gave so much of herself to others, including her patients, but always seemed somehow to be so alone. Afraid to reach out and depend on others.

  He’d not known how to interpret that. Matt had never been alone. Raised in a large family of brothers, he had left them to study medicine, then enlisted. He’d had an army family. A whole platoon! And he’d had Jen, and then the news that there would be a little one coming along.

  He’d never been alone until now. Oh, his brothers were always on the phone, and he sometimes heard from old comrades-in-arms, but Jen’s death had isolated him. It was as if her death had quarantined him from others. As if he was contagious. There’d been plenty of visitors to bring him food, and to offer to help with Lily, but something was different. He felt tainted. As if people were afraid to get too close to him in case something happened to them too. Or maybe it was a vibe that he was giving off, making people feel that they couldn’t get too close?

  Jen had adored Dr Bailey. Loved her. He’d lost count of the amount of times his wife had laughed down the phone saying, ‘Oh, you’ll never guess what Brooke said today...’

  He’d not expected the leaking, poo-stained, crying woman he’d met this morning to be the Dr Brooke Bailey. Nor for her to have awoken in him a protective streak when he’d heard her crying at the crèche. He’d empathised with her pain. Remembered how it had felt for him to leave Lily with a relative stranger.

  The sound of her heartbroken sobs had tugged at his heartstrings and made his gut lurch. And that had been before he’d even known who she actually was! And that brief moment when she’d leaned against him, into him, enveloping him in her perfume as he’d guided her out through the crèche door, had made him yearn to wrap his arms around her.

  And then he’d remembered she was a stranger. Someone he didn’t even know. Whom he’d probably never meet again.

  Until he’d found out who she was.

  Now he would have to work with her, keeping her at a safe distance while knowing that the two of them shared a bond—their love for a woman now gone.

  He knew Brooke Bailey had been the most important person in his wife’s life—after him and Lily—and he’d been keen to meet this woman whom he’d felt sure would be intelligent, warm and sociable, just like his wife. A together person. Someone with whom he could also build a bond. No, he’d definitely not expected the woman he’d met this morning. Emotionally wrought and no doubt sleep-deprived too, if Lily’s current behaviour was anything to go by.

  ‘Dr Bailey?’

  He saw her guiltily drop her mobile phone back into her scrubs pocket and look up, her cheeks colouring with a most beautiful shade of rose.

  ‘Major! Sorry, I was just checking everything was okay at the crèche.’

  He could understand that. The first few days he had left his daughter there he had done the same thing. Lily was the most precious thing in the world to him, and to hand her over to strangers had been difficult. It was easier for him now. He’d been doing it for over a month. Not so Dr Bailey. He had to make allowances.

  ‘And is it?’

  She nodded, seeming surprised that he had even asked.

  ‘A patient has requested a female doctor for an examination. Are you free?’

  ‘Yes. I was just looking for you, actually. You wanted me to report in before I discharged my patients.’

  He could hear the reluctant tone in her voice but he dismissed it. It wasn’t a personal thing he’d done, just because she’d been away from work for a while. He’d asked it of all his staff. He needed to know how the people who were on his team worked.

  ‘Okay. I’ll take a look at your findings once we’ve dealt with Mrs Merchant.’

  He led her over to his patient’s cubicle and, once inside, explained her symptoms and the results of her tests so far. Then he stepped back. ‘I’ll step outside.’ And closed the curtain behind him, listening as Dr Bailey conducted her examination. He heard her ask to listen to the patient’s chest, heard her check the range of movement and finally warning Mrs Merchant that she was about to press on the front of her chest...

  ‘Ow! That hurts!’ His patient cried out.

  ‘Here?’

  ‘Yes! Dear Lordy—what do you think is causing that?’

  Dr Bailey let Mrs Merchant fasten her clothing again and invited Matt back in.

  Matt nodded to let her know he’d heard what had happened and to deliver the diagnosis. ‘I think you may have costochondritis.’

  ‘What’s that when it’s at home?’

  ‘It’s an inflammation of the cartilage that joins your ribs to your breastbone. It’s a very painful condition.’

  ‘I know it is. I can feel it!’

  ‘We’ll just check your bloods first, but I think we can safely say we need to get you on some anti-inflammatories. I’ll be back in a moment.’

  They left Mrs Merchant and headed over to the doctors’ station. Dr Bailey handed him her notes from the guy with
carpal tunnel syndrome. He’d also got a non-displaced break in his scaphoid, the small bone at the base of his thumb, and she’d given him a splint to wear and prescribed painkillers in case it got worse. Simple enough. Direct, effective, and she hadn’t wasted resources on tests that he hadn’t needed. Exactly what he’d wanted to see.

  ‘That’s excellent. You can discharge him.’ He handed back the file, expecting her to walk away from him and get on with her work, but she lingered, as if wanting to ask him something. ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Yes...’ She looked around her, lowering her voice. ‘Jen’s locker.’

  He straightened, felt his chin lifting. He was defensive because he hadn’t got around to sorting it out yet. He’d felt that by doing so he would finally be wiping away the existence of his wife here. Seeing it still there each morning was reassuring. He could almost pretend that she was about to walk in through the door at any moment.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘If you need someone to help sort it...when you feel ready... I’d like to offer to help.’

  Jen’s locker.

  It was one last tiny island of his wife. Coming back home to the house from Costa Rica had been bad enough. There had been a whole houseful of her possessions to sort through. At first he’d not wanted to get rid of anything, thinking that Lily would want to know all about her mother when she got older. But seeing his wife’s clothes draped over radiators and the shower rail in the bathroom had got too much, and he’d conducted a vast cleaning frenzy, taking bags of her stuff to local charity shops but keeping small things like jewellery, the odd knick-knack that Jen had loved, just in case Lily wanted them when she grew up.

  Items that were precious—her wedding ring, her engagement ring, a clay pot she’d once tried to make at a pottery class. The pot had gone drastically wrong, and looked as if a four-year-old had tried to make it, but it didn’t matter that it was ugly and misshapen. His wife’s hands had made it—her fingers had deftly tried to mould the clay—and he’d been unable to throw it out. He knew that one day Lily would hold it in her hands and imagine her mother’s fingers in the same places.

  There were still photos of Jen at the house. He’d not made a clean sweep and erased her completely. She was still there. Her paint choices on the walls. Her silly magnets on the fridge. Her perfume in the bathroom.

  Getting rid of her things had been painful, and when he’d come to work at the London Grace he’d forgotten that she would have a locker here. That was going to be very difficult. Touching the things she’d used and worn every day. Things that were as familiar to her as they would be new to him.

  He knew he had to do it. At some point. It had been there too long already and everyone else had been too polite to mention it. Not that Dr Bailey was being impolite. Just concerned. And he understood that. She was right. It was maudlin to think that keeping a dead woman’s locker undisturbed somehow kept her alive.

  ‘Yes. I’ll...get round to it later today.’

  Her mouth dropped open. ‘Oh! I didn’t mean to force you to do it straight away. I—’

  ‘It’s fine. I should have done it a long time ago.’

  ‘I’ll help, if you need it.’

  ‘I should be fine doing it myself. Thank you, Dr Bailey.’

  He hadn’t meant to be so dismissive of her. She was only offering to help him do a task he’d been shirking for too long now. But the tone in his voice had risen because she’d reminded him that he was afraid to tackle it on his own. Worried about what he might find in there. Something uniquely personal, perhaps. Some keepsake that would strike another blow to his heart when it was already so weakened.

  She nodded, blushing at his tone, and though he liked the way the soft rosy colour in her cheeks somehow made her eyes sparkle that little bit more, he felt guilty as she walked away with that look of hurt in her eyes.

  Had he meant to be so acerbic? Could he not have reined that in? After all, he’d become a master at doing that lately. Putting a tight leash on his emotions. It was easier, after all, to pretend that things didn’t hurt. When you were on your own it was easier, anyway.

  He briefly wondered who was there for Dr Bailey. Surely she wasn’t as alone as his wife had made out? For a start, there had to be a father to her baby. Where was he? Jen had mentioned he was some low-life who had adhered to the adage Treat them mean, keep them keen. Though, thank the Lord, Dr Bailey had had enough self-respect to walk away from someone like that!

  Matt sucked in a breath. Was he ready to do this? Was he prepared? There could be anything in that locker. Jen had been like a magpie at home, storing away anything that caught her eye, that she thought was cute. He might open the door and have tons of things fall out. She’d never been one for neatly folding stuff and putting it away properly.

  Hopefully it wouldn’t take too long.

  * * *

  He didn’t know how long he’d been standing there, staring at the locker. It was just a bit of metal. Adorned with all the Hollywood heartthrobs that she’d liked to swoon over and gently tease him about. But it was her name on the door that seemed to be stopping him—Dr Jennifer Galloway.

  It was like the entry to a forbidden land. A doorway to a world he wasn’t ready to face. He kept trying to tell himself that he was being stupid. It was just a locker—it probably just held some clothes, or a pair of shoes and a hairbrush or something, but for some reason his brain and his heart were telling him that this was something he wasn’t ready for—getting rid of the last vestiges of his wife at work.

  ‘Can I help?’

  He almost jumped at her voice. Turned to see Brooke standing in the doorway, watching him. And, though he’d been abrupt with her the last time they’d spoken, she appeared to be speaking to him with all the gentle patience of a mother to a child. No retribution. No blame. No hurt. Just a genuine desire to help him out.

  Matt nodded and beckoned her in. ‘I don’t know what’s stopping me.’

  ‘What stops any of us but the fear of getting hurt?’

  He gazed back at the locker. ‘I’m a soldier.’

  ‘You’re a husband.’ She leaned against the lockers and he glanced over at her. ‘Being a soldier doesn’t stop you from being human. From feeling.’

  ‘I guess both of us have been confronted by things we didn’t want to do today.’

  She nodded. ‘Have you a key?’

  He pulled it from his pocket. So small. So insignificant. All he had to do was insert it into the lock.

  A heavy sigh escaped him and he closed his eyes, trying to build up the courage to do what had to be done. But he just couldn’t bring himself to do it. What if he opened her locker and it held her scent? Flowers and a summer’s day? It would hit him like an avalanche, burying him and smothering him, away from all that was light. He wasn’t ready. But he wanted to do it. Wanted to get it over with. Maybe if he just...

  Fingers enveloped his and he opened his eyes to see Dr Bailey taking the key and inserting it into the lock. She turned it, and they both heard the clank of the metal lever.

  Blue eyes peered into his soul. ‘Open it.’

  He didn’t want to think about what he’d felt when her hand had wrapped around his. Didn’t want to analyse the fact that his heart had begun to gallop, his pulse had soared and his mouth had gone as dry as centuries-old dust.

  Instead, he stared at the locker. Hoping. Praying. And with an unsteady hand he reached forward to pull it open.

  A pair of wind-up false teeth was the first thing that caught his eye and it made him laugh. Relief! He picked it up, turning it in his hands, looking at Dr Bailey in question.

  ‘She used it sometimes with children.’

  She smiled as she took it from him and he could see plainly on her face that she was reliving a memory. A memory of his wife that he didn’t have.

 
He reached into the locker and pulled out a change of clothes—a tie-dye tee shirt and a pair of jeans. Beyond them were a couple of books that were extremely late going back to the library, a couple of pens, some soft-soled flat shoes and a notebook that said Trust Me, I’m A Doctor. And there, at the back, where only she would see it when she opened her locker for each shift to get ready, a picture of them both on their wedding day.

  Gently, he released it from the tape holding it in place and looked at it.

  ‘Your wedding day. How long ago did you get married?’

  He glanced at Dr Bailey. ‘Five short years ago.’

  ‘You both look very happy.’

  ‘We were.’ It hurt to look at the picture, but not as much as it once had. He’d learned to accept it. Absorb it. Grief wasn’t something you got over. Like an obstacle. It was something that you accepted, knowing it would stay with you for the rest of your days.

  ‘I wish I’d known her for longer. You’re lucky that way.’

  He gazed intently at her and nodded, before putting the picture with the rest of the things. ‘It’s no use either of us living in the past. We’ve both got difficult futures ahead.’

  ‘Being single parents, you mean? I think it’s easier now than it was twenty years ago. At least it’s accepted.’

  He nodded. ‘Who do you have helping you?’

  She shook her head. ‘No one. Not really.’

  ‘There must be someone. Family?’

  ‘I’m an only child. My mother died when I was very little and my dad... Well, he’s never been the reliable sort. We talk on the phone. When he remembers.’

  He could tell there was something she wasn’t saying. Whatever it was, it was obviously hurtful.

  ‘Any friends?’

  ‘Jen was my friend. The only person who got close. So it’s pretty much me and Morgan right now.’

  ‘It’s difficult, isn’t it? Being alone.’

  And then he realised he’d let his guard drop and he stiffened slightly, busying himself with Jen’s things, laying them in the box he’d brought from his office, neatly and in order.