by Rachel Dove
‘All done,’ Annabel said, puffing out a sigh of relief as they headed out of the hospital. ‘Are you sure Abe will be okay with having Aidan for the whole night on a school night? I could have arranged a sleepover at one of his friend’s houses, I’m sure.’
‘Don’t be daft; they were thrilled. He’s probably going to grill the teachers on what science lessons they’re giving the kids on the morning drop-off.’ Harry stopped her in the foyer, turning her to face him and taking her into his arms. She looked around her to check for onlookers. ‘And stop doing that too. We’re official now, remember? HR certified to hold each other in the corridors. And other things out of work.’ His look was positively devilish, and she couldn’t help but giggle.
‘Down, boy.’
Harry seemed brighter today, the melancholy that settled over him sometimes seemingly gone. The phone calls had stopped too, but it worried her what that meant. Still, making things official was good.
What else can he possibly have to hide? Unless he is secretly James Bond, we’re good now. Nothing can break us apart.
‘Hey, it’s been a long time. We’ve waited enough. I’ve been back a long time now. We have the entire night to go out, drink, eat some fast congealing buffet food, and act like a couple. In public. With an empty house and a huge bed to get back to.’
The butterflies in her stomach were doing back flips off her ribcage now, and she had to shut her thoughts down. Till later anyway. She had changed her sheets and might just have had a wax. A girl had to prepare, after all.
‘I’m going to miss Purdie though; she’s been there from the beginning. It will be weird not seeing her on the wards.’
‘I know. She’s been a good friend to both of us. Especially since I got back.’ His smile faded a little, but he soon recovered. ‘The oncology department won’t be the same without her.’ He caught sight of the clock on the wall behind her, and steered them both in the direction of the car park.
‘Come on, let’s go. First tequila is on me.’
He was wearing a dark blue shirt, paired with a pair of jeans that made Annabel drag her feet just a little bit, so she could watch his gorgeous bum in action as they headed to the party for Purdie. She was retiring, and not just retiring to stay home and knit. Her daughters had returned to Barbados, and she was jetting off next week to be reunited with them. To enjoy her well-earned twilight years and sit in the sun, watching her grandchildren grow up. Annabel was nothing but happy for her. Family was everything in this life, which they all knew could be short, and cruel.
* * *
The bar was nothing fancy, Purdie’s colleagues opting for a private room in the back so that Purdie would be centre stage for her going away party. They pulled up in the black cab, Harry passing the driver some notes and taking Annabel’s hand as they stepped out into the London night. There was nothing like her home city when the sun went down. The atmosphere was always one of excitement, the bustle of people in suits heading for after dinner drinks, celebrating birthdays, promotions and big deals being done. She loved living here, even when the calls and the pressures of her job brought her to her exhausted knees. Now Harry was here, everything seemed that bit brighter.
The second they walked into the already lively events room, Harry’s hand gripped hers.
‘Are you ready for this?’ she asked him gently. ‘Our first night out of the medical supply closet?’
He chuckled, rubbing his thumb along her palm.
‘Let’s go get a drink,’ Harry replied in her ear, making her shiver slightly.
Purdie was already there, looking lovely in a pretty dark red velvet dress. She was standing a little way away, chatting to some of their colleagues. She looked over, and Annabel gave her a wave. She waved back, but she looked distracted, her eyes flicking from Harry to hers. Annabel shook off the uneasy feeling it gave her. Something wasn’t quite right; she could feel it. She let go of Harry’s hand and caught the barman’s attention. She needed a stiff drink to bolster her confidence.
‘Everything okay?’ Purdie walked over to them as they headed over to a vacant table. ‘I see the nurses are on form tonight.’ Some of the oncology nurses were sitting at a table, cackling loudly and thoroughly enjoying themselves.
‘Work hard, play hard.’ Harry laughed. Purdie laughed too, but it sounded forced in Annabel’s ears. She eyed Harry, and something in that look had Annabel’s Spidey sense tingling.
‘You okay, Harrison?’ Purdie asked him, her professional voice in full flow now.
‘I’m fine,’ Harry said shortly. ‘You should be enjoying your party.’
‘Oh, child, I intend to.’ She looked at Annabel, who was watching them both like a tennis spectator. ‘You two finally got your act together, didn’t you! I’m so glad! I was planning on locking you in one of the offices before I left. You’ve wasted enough time.’
‘Yes, you’re right there,’ Annabel said, laughing now. Harry spotted someone, frowning, and he made his apologies and left, leaving the two of them alone. She took advantage of the moment. ‘He’s Aidan’s dad too. His biological father.’
Purdie laughed then, a loud, joyous laugh. ‘Oh, I knew that! Come on, you think anything misses my attention around that hospital? Please.’ She pulled Annabel in for a perfume-soaked hug. ‘I’m so happy for you all. It makes my heart glad. You want a holiday, you come to Barbados. Aidan will play with my grandbabies, we can drink cocktails and watch them play.’
‘Now that sounds like a plan.’ Annabel laughed, noticing that Harry was speaking to the head of oncology. The way they were huddled together, serious expressions focused on each other, had everything in her switch to full panic mode. The phone calls, the way he’d been acting...
She strode over and caught the tail-end of the conversation before the two men realised that she was standing there.
Dr Geller was speaking. ‘With that type of chemo, I’m afraid the prognosis is not good at all. I’m sorry, Harry.’
Annabel felt as if her heart had fallen out of her heels. The room swayed. She knew what the consultant meant. She’d seen it enough times in her career, had had to watch her full-of-life mother fade away to nearly nothing. Everything fell into place. The secretive phone calls. Harry’s sombre moods. Delaying their intimacy this long. She looked at Harry, waiting for him to refute the jigsaw pieces that were slotting together in her mind, but he just looked at her, stricken.
‘It’s true, isn’t it? You’re sick again,’ she said. ‘Aren’t you? It makes sense now. The phone calls, the moods.’ Another thought slammed into her shocked thought pattern, scattering whatever control she had over her words. ‘That’s why you came back. Not for me at all. You came back because you got sick again.’ She laughed, a hollow sound from deep in her gut, shock and terror rippling through her. The tears were already escaping. She looked at her surroundings, aware that she was with her subordinates and friends. The pain of her old humiliation reared its ugly head.
I am such an idiot. He didn’t come back for me. He came back six months after my call. He came home to make amends before he died.
It seemed so surreal, but she’d heard Dr Geller’s words.
‘I can’t do this. Not again.’
‘You can’t do what? Annie, let’s go outside. I’ll explain.’ Dr Geller had melted into the crowd, obviously eager to avoid the scene that was about to happen. She was trying to calm down, but she just couldn’t stop her mind from going to the worst, darkest places. Aidan loved him; they were together. He’d lied about his cancer all over again.
Oh, dear God. I’m going to lose him. For ever this time.
Harry was trying to reach for her hands, but she felt her anger rise and she shoved him away from her, as hard as she could. His hands fell to his sides, defeated.
‘Just listen, Annie, please. Let’s go back to yours; we can talk.’
‘I can’t believ
e I fell for your lies again! I told Aidan about you! You let me love you again! Why would you do that? I watched my mother die! A horrible, painful death.’ She was sobbing now, smearing her make-up as she tried to wipe away the tears that were blurring her vision. ‘Aidan!’ Her broken-hearted humiliation turned to white-hot rage. ‘You want Aidan to go through that? You’re a selfish bastard, Harry, I hate you. Why would you keep this from me again? Why don’t you trust me?’
‘No, Annie, I’m—’
‘No, Harry, I’m done listening to you. Done. I never should have trusted you.’
He had tears in his eyes too now, his hands limp at his sides. ‘Stop, Annie, this is so stupid.’
‘Stupid, eh? Screw you, Harry.’
Before she was even aware of what she was doing, she was sitting in the back of a cab, heels in her shaking hand. Just as it pulled away, she saw Harry run out into the street after her, stopping traffic while Purdie stood in the doorway of the bar. Car horns honked, but Harry was oblivious.
‘Annie!’ she could hear him shout after her. ‘Annie, please! Stop! I love you!’
The driver turned to her, slowing down. ‘You Annie? You want me to stop?’
She reached for her bag, wanting to ring Abe, to warn him that she didn’t want Harry around Aidan. She didn’t want Abe to be left in the dark again either, but she knew if she turned up to collect Aidan like this, smelling of tequila and looking like a fan at an Alice Cooper concert, it would upset them both far more. She realised she’d left her bag behind, in her rush to escape. She heard Harry shout her name again, and she covered her ears.
She reeled off her address to the cab driver. She had cash at home to pay him at the other end.
‘No, please, just drive. Can you step on it, please?’
The cab driver looked as if he wanted to ask more, but he just nodded and discreetly closed the glass partition between them. The lights of the city streets flickered through the windows as they joined the evening flow of London traffic.
She processed everything from the evening, the last few weeks even, through fresh eyes. Filtering through the past few weeks with the new information applied as an overlay.
Harry is sick. Cancer sick. Possibly dying sick.
Her gut twisted and she felt as if her heart, newly whole, was fighting to keep the blood pumping around her body. She thought of her mother, the vibrant, strong single parent who had raised her to be the woman she was today. In her final days, her mother had been unrecognisable from the strong woman she’d been. The fire had still been there, but stifled by the cancer, and the treatment that had ultimately failed to save her.
Annabel cried fresh tears as the long-forgotten memory burned in her brain. She thought of growing up, just the two of them together. She’d had a great childhood, but a lonely one at times. Could she deprive Aidan of that chance, even after everything that had happened? Even if the reality could be short, and painful? She thought of how Aidan would feel if he knew that she had kept him from those final moments with the father he had just found, however hard they might be. She didn’t want him to miss another moment. And, truthfully, she didn’t want to waste any more time either. She loved Harry, and she’d been apart from him for far too long already. They all had.
What was more, she had just been horrible to him. In her shock and pain, she’d never even thought about how scared he must be feeling, about how he had made the same mistake again, not telling her to protect her. He loved her so much, he didn’t want to share the pain. She was the worst woman in the world. She’d left him there, humiliated him. Just like she had felt in that stupid airport. She was so disgusted with herself.
She pulled up to the house, which was in darkness apart from the light she’d left on in the hallway. It really was looking great now, everything she’d dreamed of for all these years. A family home.
She smiled at the driver. ‘I’m sorry, I won’t be a minute. I left my purse behind at the bar.’
The driver nodded, and she then realised that her keys were also in her bag. Thank God for the hidden key she’d kept for when she wasn’t there and Aidan needed to get in with her friend Teri. She picked her heels up from the cab floor and went around the side of the house, picking up the plant pot of flowers that she kept it under. She was just coming out of the house, money in hand, when her taxi pulled away.
‘Hey, wait! I have your money!’
‘I paid it,’ a voice said from the darkness of the street. She heard footsteps, and Harry stepped out from the shadows, lit by the nearby streetlight. ‘I came to talk.’
She saw her purse in his hands. ‘Oh, thank God, my whole life is in there.’
‘Not quite,’ he said, slowly walking up the path. She met him step for step. ‘You were in a hurry.’
‘I know. I am so sorry I did that. I feel awful. I was just going to call you, ask you to come over.’
He halted. ‘Really?’
She kept walking towards him till they were standing in front of each other. He had hope etched across his drained features now, and she wanted to just take him into her arms and hold him. Heal him.
Oh, the irony.
He held her purse out to her, and she took it from him and dropped it to the side on the wet grass.
‘Really, now let me get this out. I care that you lied, and that was the last time, Harry. If we’re going to do this, and I mean really do this, then you need to be honest with me. One more half-truth, however small you think it is, I’m out. And so is Aidan. So help me God, I could kick your ass, but I understand why you didn’t want to tell me.’
He went to speak, but she gently touched her palms to his chest. He felt warm to the touch, and she realised how cold she’d felt since leaving his side.
‘It’s my turn to speak. I love you, Harrison Abraham Carter. I love every hair on your stupid, stupid head. I love that we made our son together, and that you are the man in a storm at work, and at home. These last few months have been—’
‘Challenging?’ he offered. She nodded, a sliver of a smile passing across her features.
‘Challenging, annoying, terrifying. All of those too, but I was going to say amazing. I love you; I’ve loved you since I was a green as grass medical student, not knowing one end of an IV from the other, and I love you now. I’m glad you came home. I’ve felt more alive since you returned than I have in years. I guess I blocked a lot out because it was just too difficult to face. I never let you speak, but I am listening.’
‘Can I speak yet?’
‘No.’ She bent down on one knee, right there on the moonlit path, and looked up at him.
‘Harrison Abraham Carter, I don’t have a ring but take these words as my vow. Marry me. Be my husband, for however long we have. For ever, hopefully, but I’ll settle for any days the big man upstairs can give us. Make this fight our fight and be by my side. In sickness and in health.’
Harry brushed away a tear and knelt down with her.
‘Annie, I’m not sick. I got the all-clear a long time ago. I went for a check-up when I got back to London. After our talk, I went to get my fertility checked. Just so I had the full picture. It’s what I thought. That’s what Dr Geller was telling me. With my treatment, it was never likely, but I wanted to be sure before I told you. Truly, Annie, I’m going nowhere. Ever again.’
Annie’s breaths came thick and fast, her lungs gasping for air as she looked at the man before her.
‘Oh, my God, I’m such an idiot. I made such a scene. I don’t care about having more children. I meant that when I said it before. We have Aidan, and each other. We can adopt a whole house full of kids if you want. I don’t care, Harry. I just want to be a family. I always wanted that.’
He stood, taking her with him. ‘That’s all I want.’ He dipped down, getting down on one knee himself now and pulling a ring box out of his pocket. ‘I was planning to do this t
onight anyway but, as usual, I can’t get a word in.’ He opened the box, and there sat a beautiful ring. It was stunning, the jewels shining in the moonlight. ‘I bought this ring six months ago, in Dubai. When you called, and I was coming back to you, I saw this in a shop window and I knew that if I ever got the chance to be with you again I wouldn’t wait a moment. I wanted to be ready. Annabel Sanders, will you please be my wife? My Annie, for ever?’
Annabel was crying, her whole body shaking as she nodded and put out her hand. He put the ring on her finger and kissed it.
‘I love you, Annie.’
‘I love you too, Harry. I’m so sorry that we missed out on so much. You missed out on being a father for so long, but from today we can put all this right. Be together.’
Harry stood and, taking her into his strong arms, he kissed her with everything he had. She kissed him right back, not quite believing she was in his arms again. ‘Let’s get inside.’ He wrapped his arm around her and they headed to the light coming from the doorway. ‘We have a lot of time to make up for.’
He flashed her a devilish grin, and she laughed as he took her into his arms, heading towards the open door. They were finally where they wanted to be. They were home.
EPILOGUE
‘SO, LOVE OF my life, how do you like Dubai?’
Harry’s voice behind her only momentarily distracted her from the view. She couldn’t quite believe her eyes; the photos that her new husband had shown her hadn’t done the beauty of the land nearly enough justice. It felt worlds away from London and the home her little family all now lived in together. Standing out on the balcony of their hotel suite, Aidan asleep in the adjoining room, being watched over by Abe, she sighed happily.
‘I can’t quite believe we’re here. Together.’
‘I know.’ His arms wrapped around her waist and she felt the stubble on his cheek graze her neck, making her shiver, even in the heat of the night. ‘I’m so glad we got to come here. I thought about it a lot when I was here, away from you all.’
