by Annie O'Neil
“And did you?”
He shrugged. He’d been so emotionally absent he knew he hadn’t made a difference on any sort of personal level, but as a doctor...yes. Yes, he had.
“So why are you here?”
He gave her his best Gallic shrug.
He wasn’t ready to explain that it was Maggie he had sought. That she was the one person he believed would give him the most honest perspective on the type of man she thought he was. Mortal or monster.
He heard her muttering something under her breath.
“A quelque chose malheur est bon.”
She remembered. It was a saying equivalent to Every cloud has a silver lining. Or, the more French interpretation, Unhappiness is, at the very least, good for something.
He’d used to say it when, inevitably, it had rained on one of their outings and they were forced to seek refuge under a small awning or in a tiny alcove. He’d always wondered if she’d ever cottoned on to the underlying meaning... Though it had rained, it had meant he could be closer to her.
“So.” He clapped his hands together, the sound sharp against the white noise of the late-afternoon activity surrounding them. “I understand why you wouldn’t want to work with me anymore. If you need to transfer me out, please... I completely understand.”
“You have got to be absolutely joking me.” Maggie shook her head back and forth.
This was a lot of information to take on board, but it certainly answered the bulk of her questions.
Raphael had been through the wringer. He’d changed, all right. But he was truly trying to make himself a better man than he had been before this tragedy. He was living with an unanswerable question and it had obviously been hell.
Would the child have lived if he had made a different decision?
As little as she knew about surgery, she knew enough about the traumatic injuries Amalie had suffered to imagine the answer would be no. And he’d returned to medicine. That wasn’t something a man who doubted his skills would do. There had to be something more. Something he hadn’t yet come to terms with.
“It’s okay.” Raphael’s accent thickened. “I wouldn’t want to work with me either, after knowing the truth. I am sorry I wasn’t more honest before I came—”
“No.” Maggie stopped him with a hand gesture. “Are you mad? Now that I know what you’ve been through there isn’t a chance in the universe I’d let you work with someone else.”
He bridled and it pleased her to see there was still fire in his spirit. He wasn’t beaten. Just lost.
“Cool your jets.” She took a deep breath and put her hands up so she could take a moment to put her thoughts in order. “I’m not keeping you pinned to my side because I think you’re a bad doctor. Or a liar. Or a disappointment. Or whatever other words you attack yourself with. I want to work with you because what you need more than anything after what you’ve been through is a friend.”
A quizzical look passed across his features. “Why would you want to work with me after this? Trust me? You said at the beginning of this that people change. I am proof of this, Maggie. I have changed.”
“Raphael Bouchon.” She fixed him with a stern expression, hoping he was reading affection in her expression rather than someone passing judgment. “I know it’s been a long time seen we’ve seen each other, but a man can’t change that much. That young man I met in Paris was the most honest, honorable, kind person I had ever met. And, though an awful lot of water has passed under the bridge since then, I still believe that’s true. You’re still that young man. But with maybe just a bit more of a distinguished air.”
She pointed to her temples trying to indicate that she liked the salt and pepper look working its way through his rich chestnut hair.
“No, Maggie. You are kind, but...” Raphael opened his water bottle and took a long draught before continuing. “I thought when I saw you I would see the old me again. That I would find him somewhere buried in here.” He made a fist and thumped it on his chest as he shook his head. “Now that I’m here, I see that you’re just the same. But I don’t think that seventeen-year-old Raphael you met all those years ago exists anymore. I’m not fun to be with. I can’t see any point in looking forward to the future the way I once did. I don’t even see the point of dreaming about the future. I failed my friend. I have the blood of a child on my hands. My best friend’s child.”
She shook her head—no, no, no—as a powerful rush of energy charged through her bloodstream.
If Raphael believed in their friendship enough to tell her about his darkest moments, she would show him just how strong her love for him was. Unrequited or otherwise.
If he needed a friend, he had one. If he needed a shoulder to cry on, she had two. If he wanted to believe in the possibility of love again...
She swallowed. That might be pushing things.
Baby steps.
She sucked in a deep breath of air and parted her lips. It was time to be as brave as Raphael.
“That’s where you’re wrong.”
Wide blue eyes registered incredulity at her statement. “Maggie! I was there. I failed as a surgeon. I was the one who let Jean-Luc down. Let all the Couttards down.”
“First things first.”
She gave the picnic table a solid tap with her index finger, then wove her fingers together in front of her heart.
“I am very sorry for your loss. It must’ve been horrible for you. But you surely must see it was an impossible situation. And who’s to say another surgeon might have made a different call? However cruel and personal it must feel, these things are random. It wasn’t like you willed the fog to appear on that motorway or anything. And secondly—” she held up a hand so he would let her finish “—how exactly did you let Jean-Luc down? He asked you to do your best. To look after his little girl. I can’t imagine you did anything other than try and save her.”
Raphael looked at her, his features wreathed in disbelief. “Amalie died, Maggie.”
She sat back and eyed him silently for a moment before taking another drink of her water.
Her heart ached for him. He was seeing the world through a distorted lens. One that showed him branded as a failure for not being omniscient. In that respect, yes, he had been too close to the patient. But in terms of deciding he didn’t cut it as a surgeon...he’d just made it all up.
And then it hit her. All of the insecure dark thoughts she’d been having about Raphael not liking her, or thinking she was a loser, had also been a complete fiction. She’d seen what scared her most instead of stepping outside of herself and facing facts. It was something Raphael needed to do, too.
In that instant Maggie knew she would do everything in her power to help Raphael take off the blinkers that seemed unrelenting in their mission only to let him see the dark side.
The thought stopped her cold.
Had she worn the same blinkers with her father? Her brothers? Instead of being sexist, demanding, nineteen-fifties throwbacks, on a mission to keep her in a pinny, had they actually been as blindsided by her mum’s death as she had?
They hadn’t been in tears, or lost in faraway thoughts or anything. It had seemed on the surface that everything was business as usual. But men were good at disguising things. Raphael being a perfect case in point.
But there was something else that was torturing him. Something beyond the failed surgery that he had yet to set right.
There were things she needed to set right as well.
When she’d come home to find her mother had been ill the entire time she’d been away, only to die while Maggie was flying home, Maggie’s world had been turned upside down. At the time it had felt as though she’d been drowning in the past she had only just begun to escape. Blinded with grief and frustration, she’d blamed her brothers and her father for pushing her into the vacant role their mother had left behind. Carer. Cook.
Cleaner. The very roles her mother had made her promise she would never take on.
But could it be that instead of being pushed she had willingly stepped into the spot her mother had once filled in their lives? That she had naturally found herself filling that void because she was the girl and that was what girls—women—did? Instead of it being a weak decision, perhaps she had been the only one strong enough to make sure their lives somehow returned to normal in the wake of their collective grief.
A strengthening weave of resolve unfurled within her. Raphael needed to believe he had been the only one strong enough to step into an impossible situation. If he could see that—know it in his heart—he would finally be able to forgive himself. He would finally be able to believe that, no matter who had operated on that poor little girl, her fate had already been decided when their car had been struck by another.
And if she wanted Raphael to believe that about himself she would have to take the same risk—and see her own life from another perspective.
“Maggie, please.” Raphael raked his hands through his hair. “Put me out of my misery.”
She looked at him as if seeing him for the first time. She’d been miles away. About a twelve-hour drive, in fact.
Maggie tipped her head to the side and wove her fingers together under her chin. “After this shift is over we’ve got four days off, right?”
He nodded.
“How would you feel about making it a bit longer?”
Maggie held her breath, waiting for his answer. Taking him home to meet her family was akin to unzipping her chest and handing him her heart. And then throwing some warts on top of the whole mess for good measure.
Raphael didn’t look too pleased about the invitation.
“This isn’t about you wanting me to be transferred to a different paramedic station, is it?”
“No! Crikey! No, not all.”
“So we’re good on that front?”
“Yeah! Of course. Now that I understand why you’ve been such a downer—I mean...”
To her relief, Raphael gave a self-deprecating laugh and held up his hands. “I have been a downer. But...” again that Gallic shrug “...now you know I have my reasons.”
“I know. And it’s a pretty big reason.” She played with the edge of the aluminum wrapping on her sandwich and then, feeling a sudden hit of hunger, went ahead and unwrapped it. “Now that I know what’s been going on in that head of yours...” she pointed her finger between the pair of them “...you and me? We’re solid.”
Maggie took an enormous bite of her sandwich and then grinned at him, a daub of sauce teasing at the crest of her upper lip before she swiped it away with her tongue.
He didn’t deserve her. The open-hearted way in which Maggie had absorbed the worst thing he’d ever done in his life and simply...accepted it, forgiven him for the transgression and moved on.
It was humbling.
Maggie munched on a few crisps, then took a gulp of water. “So, back to me. Have you had your fill of being a tourist in Sydney?”
Raphael shrugged. The only reason he’d come to Australia was to see Maggie. So saying yes was an honest enough answer. And honesty was the only way forward. He saw that now.
“I think you and I need to go on a road trip. Get you out beyond the black stump.”
Her tone was decisive. As if hearing his story had given her a new course of action. More to the point, her entire demeanor had changed...as if they were actually friends again.
“Black stump?”
“City limits,” she explained, a soft flush coloring her cheeks. “If you say yes, there’s a whole lot more Aussie slang waiting for you outside of Sydney. If you’re feeling brave enough, that is.”
Something in him softened. She was trying. He’d been making this whole reunion thing tough. More than tough. And yet she was still trying.
“Are you sure this isn’t some attempt to take me out to the desert with a flint and a bottle of water to see if I make it out alive? A survival of the Aussie-est?”
She shrugged and smiled. “We-e-ell...” She drew out the word. “Nah. Of course not. Look. I have to go out there. Family.”
He lifted his eyebrows. She hadn’t mentioned her family. Not once.
“A reunion?”
She shook her head. “No. But let’s just say you’re going to see a whole side of me you never knew existed if you say yes.”
“Sounds intriguing.” Was she trying to ease his guilt? Prove he wasn’t alone?
Her features darkened.
“It’s not a reunion, but... You’ve been incredibly honest with me and I appreciate it.” She pressed her hands to the center of her chest. “From the very bottom of my heart. It proves to me our friendship meant as much to you as it did to me.”
Raphael locked eyes with her. “It did. It still does.”
He watched as she sucked in a tight breath, then made the decision to speak.
“I don’t think you are responsible for Amalie’s death.”
He scrubbed his hands along his legs. “Maggie, you weren’t there—”
“No. I know. But I know you. You made the best decision you could at the time. I’ve been watching you work and you have it. That ability to make a split-second decision about a patient that is going to be for their benefit. No matter what you think of yourself now, I know without a shadow of a doubt that you simply do not have it in you to let another human’s life pass through your hands if it doesn’t have to.”
The words struck so deep Raphael knew they would be embossed on his heart forever. But Maggie didn’t owe him this: an easy out. She didn’t owe him anything.
“Tu es trop gentile, Maggie. I am so grateful to you for not...for not thinking the absolute worst of me.”
“How could I?”
There were countless answers for that one. He began totting them up before answering, then stopped himself. Holding back from Maggie had only meant making himself his own worst enemy. Could this be the first step in forgiving himself? Finding a way to claw himself out of the black hole he’d all but swan-dived in to?
He met her clear green eyes and saw nothing but compassion in them. Empathy. Her unfiltered gaze was the oasis of peace he’d been seeking all these months.
“I’m glad I came.” He reached across and took her hand in his, stroking his thumb along the back of it.
“Me, too.” She gave him a shy smile, thought for a minute, then winced. “But I do think...perhaps...you need to decide if your heart is really in the paramedic world.”
“What?” He feigned affront. “You don’t think I’ve been doing a good job?”
She gave a melodramatic sigh. For his benefit entirely.
“Quite the opposite. And you know that.” She tugged her hand out of his and poked him in the arm. “But it’s not where your heart is. A blind man could suss that one out. And although running around the world and showing off your medical prowess is an amazing thing to do, I don’t think that’s what you’re doing. You’re more... It’s more like you’re living life on the run. Waiting for that one medical save that will put you back to the place you were before that night. From where I’m sitting, what you’re feeling is grief, not guilt. And you’re not letting yourself be good old-fashioned sad. Maybe you should do that, instead of all this globetrotting.”
She put on a dramatic television presenter’s voice. “‘Dr. Raphael Bouchon has been spotted in yet another country. Paraguay this time. Or was it Brazil? Will he keep interested parties guessing as to his whereabouts for years to come? Or will he suck it up, go back to France, and have a weep and a talk with Jean-Luc? Will he finally make peace with his dearest friend?’ Apart from me, of course.” She smirked.
Despite himself, he smiled.
“This isn’t—” He stopped himself. It was running. All of it. He hadn’t even fully un
packed his suitcase and he’d been in Australia over a month. Even “his” dog wasn’t his. Just a stray he’d called Monster who helped him eat his leftovers.
He shrugged, accepting her comments as fair, and finally picked up his sandwich. “Are you saying you don’t like the idea of me living as an outlaw in your fair city?”
She laughed and when their eyes met he knew she liked the idea of something, all right. But he was guessing it wasn’t the outlaw thing.
A sting of regret that he hadn’t kissed her all those years ago resurfaced.
An even bigger hit of remorse could so easily follow in its wake if he didn’t get his act together and start to actively live his life. With purpose. With passion. With love.
Maggie put her sandwich down and took a sip of water.
“So, if you can scrape the bottom of your soul and put your darkest moments on display, why don’t you take a break from beating yourself up about it and come out and see a bit of mine? The soul stuff I mean. The black parts.”
“Just because I’ve done something awful it doesn’t mean you—”
“Uh-uh!” She held up a hand. “I’m not done yet. I think this trip will be good for you. Maybe help you see life isn’t always the way you think it is.”
“You’re talking in riddles.”
“Yeah, well... I didn’t exactly think I’d ever be telling you any of this.”
“Any of what?”
She shook her head. “It’s a show and tell sort of thing. You have to be there to understand.”
Her eyes shifted up to the tree above them and glassed over. She shrugged her shoulder upward to swipe at the single tear snaking down her cheek and took another bite of sandwich. A poor disguise for an obvious rush of emotion.
When she’d finished chewing she swallowed, waved a hand as if erasing a whiteboard, and said, “Forget about all the ‘feelings’ stuff. It’s a road trip—plain and simple. You are under no pressure to say yes. But at the very least, after we get past the Blue Mountains, you’ll see first-hand that there is a whole lot of nothing in between the coasts of this fair isle. Besides, I need someone to keep me awake. It’s a long drive.”