Rescued by the Single Dad Doc

by Marion Lennox

  Or not quite. One of the scars was just above her breast. Until now he’d put her long sleeved tops and high necklines down to her general uptightness. Now...

  He’d seen scars like this. A long time ago. In paediatric ward during his training.

  Abuse.

  Cigarette burns.

  Hell.

  ‘Rachel...’

  ‘I was just going,’ she stammered, reaching down for her bag. ‘I came down for a swim after work, to get some peace. I imagine that’s what you want, too. I’ll leave you to it.’

  She was ready to bolt.

  Cigarette burns.

  He knew nothing about this woman apart from the fact that she had an impeccable medical record—and she’d won his grandfather’s scholarship. And there’d been foster homes.

  Her scars were completely covered now, and he couldn’t ask. Maybe she hoped he hadn’t seen them.

  He had to leave it like that, but he didn’t want her to bolt. There were ghosts behind this woman’s façade, and he was intrigued.

  ‘You know, once upon a time when I finished work on Friday nights I’d head to the pub beside the hospital,’ he told her, casually moving so he wasn’t blocking her way. So she knew she could leave if she wanted to. ‘Half the medics we worked with would be there. I can’t remember a single moment of peace but I wouldn’t have missed it for quids. Noise, laughter, a general debrief of the week’s traumas. Friends.’

  He looked down at the two stubbies he was carrying and made a decision, right there and then, that the supreme sacrifice was called for.

  ‘So the drinks menu here might be limited,’ he told her. ‘But, in memory of all those Friday nights, I’m very happy to share. Do you drink beer?’

  The fear and shock were subsiding. She had herself together. Almost. ‘I need to go home,’ she said.

  ‘No, I need to go home,’ he told her. ‘But not yet.’ Why did he get the feeling she wanted to run? He was sensing his way, the same way he’d approach a scared and wounded child. Or a startled kangaroo. ‘The roster says I’m on call tonight, not you,’ he said. ‘The boys are at home, but Rose is with them and they’re happy and settled. Kit’s safely in hospital. My phone’s in my pocket and I can be there in minutes if I’m called. I have a sliver of time to myself.’

  ‘Which is why you need peace.’

  ‘Which is why I need company,’ he said bluntly. ‘Of the adult variety. Of the colleague variety. Which is why I’m making the extraordinary gesture of offering you one of my precious stubbies.’

  She stared at him for a long moment, as if trying to read his mind. Then she looked down at his stubbies.

  ‘You brought two.’

  ‘And I’m offering you one. You can’t imagine how generous that makes me feel.’

  Her lips twitched, just a little.

  ‘Beer,’ she said.

  ‘I know, a piña colada with a sliver of lime and a wee umbrella would be more appropriate, but the ice would have melted while I walked down here. You want to slum it with me?’ And before she could answer he plonked himself down on the sand.

  She stood, looking down at him. Disconcerted? She was torn—he could sense it. Part of her wanted to leave, but it would have been a rebuff.

  He set the stubbies in the sand and waited. Stay or go? He was aware, suddenly, that he was holding his breath. Hoping?

  Why? She was simply a colleague, paying her dues for two years before she got on with her life.

  Or...what? Was that a tiny sliver of hope? A resurrection of something he’d once taken for granted?

  Like a love life.

  Heather’s words came back to him. Dumb. Ridiculous. He knew it.

  Still, he kind of hoped she’d stay.

  ‘I don’t mind a beer,’ she said tentatively, and he grimaced.

  ‘Lady, you’re going to have to do better than that. I carried two stubbies all the way down here. That’s a fair commitment on my part. So now I’m offering to share, but not with someone who “doesn’t mind a beer.” It has to be “I’d love a beer” or nothing.’

  And suddenly she smiled. He’d seen her smile before, greeting patients, being pleasant, but her smiles had been tight, smiles to put people at ease. This one, though, was something much more. It was a wide, white smile with a chuckle behind it.

  Cute.

  More than cute. Gorgeous.

  ‘My lukewarm response was simply because you pre-empted your kind invitation with a vision of piña colada and umbrella,’ she admitted and, splendidly, she sat herself down on the sand again. But where most women—most anybody—would set the towel down and sit on it, she kept it firmly wrapped around her arms, a cover for what lay beneath.

  ‘Where in Shallow Bay would I get a piña colada?’ she asked, and he had to stop thinking about scars on arms and focus on what was important. Piña coladas.

  ‘Dougal’s pub doesn’t run to them, that’s for sure,’ he said. ‘I had to twist his arm to stock low-alcohol beer. Apparently, it’s for sissies.’

  ‘Or doctors on call.’

  ‘As you say. So...beer or no beer?’

  And her smile flashed out again. ‘I really would love a beer.’

  That smile... He found himself grinning to match, though he wasn’t actually sure what he was grinning about. She disconcerted him and he didn’t understand that either.

  So back to basics. He twisted the ring-pull and handed her a bottle, then did the same for himself. ‘Here’s to the end of your first week,’ he told her, clinking bottles. ‘May your next week be not so exciting.’

  ‘Apart from the first couple of hours when your son tried to stab himself to death, it hasn’t been very exciting at all,’ she told him. She took a swig of her beer and seemed to enjoy it. ‘I suspect it’s been a lot more exciting for you, and I’m so glad it’s turned out well.’

  ‘You and me both. And I’m incredibly grateful. I wish it could have been piña colada.’

  ‘I told you, I’d love a beer.’ She held up her bottle and regarded it with affection. ‘The fact that I’ve been on the beach for two hours and forgot my water bottle—and there’s no piña colada in sight—has nothing to do with it. Beer’s great.’

  And there was the smile again. He liked it. A lot.

  ‘But wouldn’t you be more comfortable drinking your beer at home?’ she queried, and he thought, She’s made the decision to come down here—alone. It confirmed what he was learning of her. She was a woman who valued her own company, which made what she’d offered to do last weekend even more extraordinary.

  ‘The kids are at home,’ he said. ‘Added to that, they have a video game which requires at least three players. It involves bombs and flames and dragon babies turning into things I don’t want to think about.’

  ‘So...’ she said cautiously. ‘They play it a lot?’

  ‘Is that a judgement?’

  ‘Hey, I’m no judge. I’m just happy to have intact windows.’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said morosely. ‘You and me both. The game’s okay. Fun, even. But, right now, they can’t play because, stupidly, I bought a game that needs at least three players. I bought it so they’d be forced to include Henry, who often gets left out. Unfortunately, Kit’s now away. Rose holds up her knitting like armour whenever they approach, so I’m their only available third man. It’s a wonder they didn’t have you playing last weekend.’

  ‘They tried,’ she said. ‘I was busy.’

  ‘Is that what you said?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Then why doesn’t that statement work for me?’

  ‘You’re obviously a softie,’ she told him. ‘But if you don’t like playing with them...’

  He knew what she was asking. It was the question that he asked himself more than a dozen times a day. ‘You want to know why I took them o
n?’

  ‘It’s none of my business,’ she said hastily, and he sighed and took another swig of beer and wished he’d had the forethought to buy a dozen.

  ‘I do like playing with them,’ he admitted. ‘Mostly. But that’s what got me into trouble in the first place.’

  ‘I don’t get it.’

  ‘Their mother was my best friend,’ he said simply. ‘We were mates from pre-school, right through med. school and beyond. Never lovers, though. Claire had appalling taste in men, from the time she kissed Terry Hopkins behind the shelter sheds when she was ten. Hopkins used to squash snails down girls’ dresses. Why did she not see that could only end in tears?’

  ‘She married a snail-squasher?’

  ‘She escaped Terry Hopkins but she did worse. She married a serial cheat and a bully. Claire’s parents are loaded. Her father’s something huge in the financial world. My parents are wealthy enough, but they’re nothing compared to Claire’s. Steve took one look at only-child Claire’s inheritance prospects and moved right in. But as soon as they were married he reverted to the slimeball he was. He had affair after affair, treating Claire like dirt.’

  ‘Which left you as a friend.’

  ‘I’m godfather to each of them,’ he said, trying to eke out his beer to last through a bleak story. ‘And they’re great kids. Claire and I worked in the same hospital as interns. It was easy to help her out in emergencies. I didn’t mind taking them to soccer on Saturdays, doing the occasional childminding. It was even fun.’

  ‘Until...’

  ‘Until.’ He gave up on his stubby, planting it in the sand. It was still a quarter full but maybe he’d need it at the end.

  He usually hated telling this story, but he glanced at Rachel and saw only casual interest—the sort of interest a doctor might show a patient describing symptoms. She wasn’t emotionally involved. She was simply a colleague who was...asking.

  Strangely, it made it easier to keep talking. Every one of his friends had reacted to his story with dismay, horror, sympathy. Rachel was asking—because she’d like to know? Or because she thought she ought to ask. The differentiation was hard to make but somehow he appreciated it.

  Her detachment made the story easier to tell.

  ‘Claire was diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy when Henry was two,’ he told her. ‘She collapsed at work. Dramatic. Awful. If she hadn’t been in a hospital when it happened she would have died but she pulled through. Just. By this time Creepy Steve was almost a thing of the past and her illness was the last straw. He never had time for the kids and when Claire fell ill, when her parents made it clear there’d be no money for him, ever, he signed over rights to access to his kids and was heard of no more.’

  ‘Which left Claire alone.’

  ‘Yeah.’ He stared into the middle distance, remembering her terror. Remembering his own fear. ‘She had irreversible pulmonary hypertension, a contraindication for a heart transplant, but a transplant did end up buying her enough time to think about the boys’ future without her. While she was ill her parents took her and the boys back into their home. She had enough time to accept the boys could never be happy with her parents as sole carers.’

  ‘Why not?’ Weirdly, once again she seemed detached. The way she was, he wouldn’t be surprised if she produced a clipboard from her beach bag and started taking notes.

  But her detached manner helped. He found himself wanting to outline the events that had propelled him here.

  ‘Her parents are...overpowering,’ he told her. ‘Because we’d been friends for so long I already knew that. Claire had been pushed as a child, really pushed. Ballet, piano, violin, gym—polo, for heaven’s sake—and she was expected to be brilliant at everything. To be honest, I suspect that’s why she fell for Creepy Steve and the other creeps before him—it was a dumb attempt to rebel. I gather, after she fell ill, the relationship with her parents grew more strained. Anyway, even before she had the transplant she knew the odds—she knew she wasn’t going to be around long-term for the boys. In the end she was desperate for me to have some influence in the way they were raised—so she asked me to marry her and adopt them.’

  What followed was silence. Normally friends or colleagues jumped in at that point in the story. Not Rachel. She seemed to be taking her time to think it through.

  ‘That was some ask,’ she said at last. ‘I can’t imagine how it made you feel.’

  ‘We were good friends,’ he said diffidently. ‘And it wasn’t as if marrying and settling down was my style.’ He gave a rueful smile. ‘I worked, I surfed, I had fun. Family wasn’t on my radar. And we thought—Claire and I both thought—that it’d be simple enough. If by some miracle she survived long-term then we’d divorce. If she died, then her parents would do the hard yards of parenting—they saw the boys as their responsibility and had already made it clear that’s what they wanted. I’d just be around on the edges, giving them another long-term person for security, but with enough legal authority to step in if her parents pushed too hard.’

  ‘Still, it’s a big deal.’

  ‘You wouldn’t have done it?’

  ‘You said marrying wasn’t your style. It’s so far off my radar it’s another world. That kind of involvement—any kind of personal involvement—isn’t my scene.’

  ‘Really?’ He eyed her curiously and once again that sense of a clipboard between them came into his mind. ‘Yet last weekend you were there for me.’

  ‘There wasn’t a choice. Not that I minded. It was a finite commitment with the end in view. What you’re describing... Long-term involvement seems a given.’

  ‘There was no way I thought it’d interfere with my Friday nights though,’ he said with another rueful look down at his beer. ‘But look at me now.’

  ‘So what happened?’

  ‘She died,’ he said simply. ‘She tried for another transplant, which went horribly wrong—she was never going to be strong enough to deal with it and she knew it, but her parents were fighting with every means they had. When it was over the boys stayed living with them and I tried to take up where we’d left off, seeing them occasionally, taking them to soccer. Only it didn’t work. The kids got quiet. You know the rule in Emergency? Triage? A kid comes in screaming its lungs out and a kid comes in limp and silent. Which one needs attention? The limp one every time, and they were limp.’

  ‘So...a problem.’

  ‘Claire had given me custody in her will,’ he said. ‘She didn’t think I’d need it. All she’d asked is that I accept the power to override her parents if they did anything I knew she’d hate. So I kept hanging out with them, being a mate rather than a dad. But the months wore on and they kept getting quieter. I knew things weren’t right, but I couldn’t nail it.

  ‘And then one night I went around and they’d just brought their school reports home. School reports for kids. Henry was in infant class. You know the kind of report? Henry: A+ for finger painting, A+ for tying shoelaces. But Kit, who was two years older, had a slightly more precise report. Kit is struggling a little. B-for reading. The housekeeper let me in, and I could hear a row. I walked into the study and Claire’s dad had them lined up, waving reports in his hand and blasting Kit. Almost spitting into his face. “You let a five-year-old beat you. What are you? A pansy? You take after your no-good father. No grandchild of mine lets a five-year-old beat him, you good-for-nothing little...”’

  He fell silent, remembering the sick horror as he’d realised what had to be done. By him.

  Friday nights were the least of it.

  ‘They’d been authoritarian with Claire in her childhood,’ he said, speaking almost to himself rather than Rachel. ‘That’s why she worried, but she knew they loved her, and she thought they loved her boys. But when she died... I think their grief has left them a little unhinged. It doesn’t help that the boys all have Steve’s red hair—they look like him. I’
m no psychologist but it seems there’s a part of them that can’t bear the boys to be...not Claire? I looked at them that night and saw no softness, only determination that the boys fall into line. And the things the old man said when I tried to defend them... It was almost like he was blaming the boys for her death.’

  ‘So you stepped in.’

  ‘It couldn’t continue,’ he said heavily. ‘They were determined to keep control, but I had the authority and I had them out of the house almost before they realised what I was doing. That night we sat up and watched dumb movies and ate junk food and didn’t talk about report cards once. I had a one-bedroom hospital apartment. They slept on the floor and I didn’t hear a complaint. I was then hit by a battalion of lawyers, plus Charles and Marjorie practically hounding the boys. Losing control was unthinkable. They were at the school gates, demanding the boys come home with them. They were calling me everything under the sun...’

  He broke off. It was too much to recall—his struggle to explain that if they’d just back off, give the boys a bit of space, let them be kids, then things could work. His realisation that it wasn’t going to happen. The acceptance that his life had to change.

  ‘In the end I knew it’d never work,’ he said. ‘I started looking for another apartment, but when the old man hired a couple of thugs to collect the kids from school, thugs who were prepared to see me off with force, I just...’ He stopped, closed his eyes, then forced himself to go on. ‘I quit at the hospital. I knew this place was here. My grandparents built this house and it still belonged to me. I knew Shallow Bay could use any doctor they could get, so here we are.’

  ‘Safe,’ she said softly, almost a whisper.

  ‘Not quite safe,’ he told her. ‘Charles and Marjorie have applied for custody. Claire’s death might have left them a little unhinged, but as blood relatives they have a case and they’re powerful. They say their daughter was mentally unfit when she signed the adoption papers. I’m single, I work long hours, I need to use childminders. Regardless, my lawyers tell me they have little chance unless they can prove I’m an unfit parent. Which is why it’s important they don’t find out about Kit’s hand.’