The Doctor Claims His Bride
Page 14
His dishevelled look told her of the hell she’d put him through and her heart spasmed as her knees sagged beneath her. ‘You weren’t supposed to find me.’
‘Well, I did.’ His strong arms reached around her waist, supporting her. ‘Come on, you need to be lying down.’ The gruff words belied his tender touch as he guided her back to the bed.
Mia wanted to lean into him, wanted him to cradle her against his chest, but that would just make things worse. Make things harder than they already were.
The moment her bottom hit the mattress, Flynn stepped back and sat down in a chair a good metre away from her. ‘Do you want to tell me why you’re here?’
She drew in a long, deep breath. ‘I’m on a late flight.’
‘I gathered that. Can you tell me why?’
She closed her eyes for a moment, avoiding his penetrating gaze which threatened to undo her resolve. ‘Remember when I told you I live day to day? Well, today I decided that while Kirra has been fun, it’s time to go south.’
He crossed his arms across his broad chest and his cheeks sucked in as tension shot across his face. ‘I don’t believe you.’
Her heart started to hammer hard against her ribs. ‘That’s your prerogative.’
He leaned forward, his expression incisive. ‘The Mia I’ve come to love wouldn’t abandon her patients or Kirra on a whim.’
Her chest tightened. She’d been right. He really did love her. But she wouldn’t let him. She needed to make him want to walk away from her. The fire of pain burned in her chest, vaporising her breath, and she gasped for air. ‘Perhaps you don’t know me as well as you think you do.’
His expression softened, love and affection radiating from him. ‘I know you better than any woman I have ever loved. I know you better than you know yourself.’
‘You don’t.’ The words rushed out in a feeble defence.
‘I do.’ His hands fell to his knees palms facing up. ‘And I know you love me.’
The truth pummelled her like breakers over a reef but she had to make him leave. ‘You’ve got tickets on yourself. We were having a no-strings-attached affair, which you agreed to. Now it’s over.’
‘Look me in the eye and tell me you don’t love me.’
His deep voice vibrated around her and she tried not to lose herself in warm hazel eyes. She dredged up the words to form the biggest lie of her life, but the denial wouldn’t come. ‘I’m going somewhere a lot cooler.’
‘To die alone?’
Her heart stalled. He knew. How did he know? Panic surged in ever-increasing waves as words failed her completely.
‘I know, Mia. Or at least I think I’ve worked it out. You believe you have an inherited disease like Huntington’s.’
His words fell on her like an ice storm, jagged and sharp, giving her nowhere to hide. She swallowed and then looked straight at his empathetic face, and could no longer deny him the truth. ‘Frontotemporal dementia.’
‘Pick’s disease.’ He kept his gaze hooked with hers. ‘How do you know you have it?’
‘Because it killed my mother and my grandfather.’ The words jetted out like water from a fire hose, released by his question. ‘She started getting sick at forty. At first we thought she was bipolar with her impulsive shopping trips. But then she started doing things that are not associated with that disorder. She’d swear in social situations, using language I didn’t even know she knew. She had always been Miss Manners but she began telling people exactly what she thought, no matter how hurtful. But the night she danced topless at the church Christmas party we knew something terrible was happening.’
‘Did she have an MRI?’ Flynn spoke quietly, his voice gently prompting.
She nodded slowly, remembering the day of the scan. ‘Yes, and it showed atrophy of the brain that was consistent with her other symptoms.’ Her breath shuddered out of her lungs. ‘At that point a diagnosis of bipolar would have been a blessing.’
She hadn’t told anyone about her mother but now she needed to. She needed Flynn to understand the true horror of the disease. ‘Mum would listen to the same music over and over, hoard every newspaper that came into the house and have food jags. For weeks she would only eat carrots. She’d always been fastidious about her clothes and make-up but slowly she lost interest in herself and her personal hygiene slipped. That was when Michael and I decided she needed full-time care.’
‘And you gave up your job to care for her?’
The anguish on his face reinforced her decision to head south. No one deserved to watch someone they love die a living death as they gradually lost everything that made them who they were. She plucked at the sheet beneath her, her fingers making little triangular shapes.
‘Michael and I shared the care for a while but he…’ She took a steadying breath. ‘He couldn’t handle it and left for Melbourne.’ She dashed an errant tear off her face. ‘Now do you understand? I’ve lived through this disease, every step of the way, with my mother and I won’t let it destroy your life as well as mine.’
His eyes sparked with strength of purpose. ‘It won’t destroy my life. It would be an honour and privilege to care for you.’ He ran his hand through his hair. ‘Hasn’t your time on Kirra taught you that a community cares for each other no matter what? Hell, the Kirri people are no strangers to hardship and if you do get sick then together we’ll take care of you.’
‘If I get sick?’ His statement stunned her. ‘Two days ago I threw myself into the path of a crocodile. I think that counts as impulsive and the early signs of the disease, don’t you?’
He shook his head. ‘Wanting to rescue people is part of who you are. It’s why you’re a nurse, why you cared for your mother, why you tried to get me to consider meeting other women.’
She shook her head furiously. ‘No. No, it’s not. You once said to me that impulse is action without thought and that the brain processes instinct differently. Well, it’s obvious my brain can no longer tell the difference.’
He leaned forward. ‘If you believe you’re going to die sooner than later then it’s normal human behaviour to take more risks.’
‘If I believe I am going to die?’ Her voice rose. ‘This isn’t a fairy-tale, Flynn. I have an autosomal dominant inherited disease. My mother isn’t the only member of the family to die. Her father died of dementia and after her death Michael and I discovered she’d had a child three years before Michael was born and he died at four. My parents had never mentioned him.’
A frown wrinkled his high forehead. ‘And you know for sure he died of FTD?’
She threw her hands up. ‘Why would they never tell us about his existence if he’d died of something else? They must have been protecting us from the horrors ahead.’
‘How old was your grandfather when he developed the disease?’ He moved from his chair and sat down on the bed beside her, the mattress tilting her towards him.
She held herself stiffly, trying not to fall against him. ‘I’m not certain. He and mum weren’t that close but he died at seventy.’
He hesitated, as if he was forming a question in his mind. ‘Did you and Michael have genetic testing once your mother was diagnosed?’
Her mother’s doctor’s voice boomed in her head, bringing back difficult memories. ‘We were told that gene testing isn’t recommended for us because they didn’t consider we had a clear enough family history through generations.’
Flynn nodded his understanding. ‘Even with family history, only six per cent of people have the predictive test because there are so many ethical concerns that it makes your head spin.’
She moistened her lips, remembering all too well that very scenario. ‘Michael couldn’t cope with any of it. He decided he was going to have the test but he suicided the night before he was to meet the genetic counsellor.’
Flynn slid his palm underneath her hand, letting it rest passively against hers, and yet it held her hand in place with such an amazing pull of energy that she couldn’t lift her hand.
Her throat moved convulsively. ‘But the time for me to have the test has passed anyway. I don’t need a predictive test. I have the impulsive symptoms of the actual disease.’ She gave a derisive cry. ‘Did you know the only book I have read since mum died is Emma?’
‘Because you love Jane Austen and reading it is a panacea. It calms you and makes you feel good.’ His free hand came up to cradle her cheek. ‘You’ve had a hellish time and I think you’ve interpreted the normal signs of stress and grief—the note taking, rereading books—as symptoms. I don’t think you have early signs of FTD.’
She wanted to believe him and throw herself into his love and care, but that would only spin his world into a nightmare. She turned her head away from his touch and brought her free hand up to fiddle with the edge of her collar. ‘And I think that you want too much to believe that I’m not sick so we can have a future together.’
For the first time his voice held a plea. ‘Don’t you want that?’
She turned her head back to see a tiny crack in his controlled demeanour, and pain shredded her heart. ‘Of course I want that. I’d give anything to grow old with you and be surrounded by our grandchildren, but hope isn’t enough to get us over the line.’
‘“A woman who loves you stays with you.”’ Desperation clung to the words.
He was quoting her, using her own words against her. ‘That’s dirty pool, Flynn. I love you. I love you more than I have ever loved anyone, but I can’t give you the children or the life that you deserve.’ Her voice cracked as she made herself speak the words she most feared. ‘Which is why I’m getting on that plane and leaving you.’
Flynn felt the last vestiges of his composure start to unravel. He’d resisted the overwhelming urge to haul her into his arms and never let her go. He’d tried to be the rational one, tried to get her to see that belief wasn’t enough to make an irrefutable verdict.
He refused to lose her by letting her run away, but she was convinced she had FTD. He acknowledged there was a possibility but he was a scientist and he didn’t deal in speculation. The only way to find out was to get a real diagnosis. ‘I want you to have an MRI today.’
Her jaw tightened and she vehemently shook her head. ‘There’s no point having it today. I’ll organise it when I’m settled down south.’
Desperation forced him to bargain. ‘If you love me then you’ll come back to Royal Darwin with me right now and have it today.’
A flash of dread flared in her eyes as a tremor shook her body. ‘Only if you promise me that when they find frontal and temporal changes in my brain you’ll respect my wishes. Let me get on that plane and not follow me.’ She gripped his arm. ‘Promise me you’ll stop hiding and go out into the world and find the happiness you deserve.’
Every part of him rebelled at agreeing to her wishes. He wanted to keep her close to him, no matter the outcome. Life with Mia, even if they only had a few years together, was infinitely better than life without her.
But that wasn’t the choice she was offering.
He had no real choice.
He didn’t know the odds but for once he took a gamble and prayed the dice would fall in his favour.
*
Flynn had spent an hour on the phone and pulled in every favour he’d ever been owed. He’d managed to get both the consultant neurologist and radiologist as well as the radiographer all in the same place at the same time. And as much of a miracle as that was, even more so was that Mia hadn’t fled.
She’d sat pale and silent, with white earpieces in place, listening to music. She hadn’t spoken a word from the moment he’d triumphantly told her the scan would be at three p.m.
Now he paced back and forth in the small control room, watching through the glass as Mia, clutching the back of a standard hospital gown, was assisted up onto the ‘bed’ of the magnetic resonance imaging machine.
Callum Kelly, the radiographer, spoke gently in his soft Irish brogue. ‘We’re ready to start.’
‘You’ll need to wait outside, Flynn.’ Doug Sanderson, the neurologist, clapped his brawny hand onto Flynn’s shoulder, his smile tinged with the understanding of how difficult Flynn would find that request.
Right up to that moment Flynn had been confident that the MRI would bear out his strong feeling that Mia didn’t have FTD. But as the bed started to move Mia slowly into the chamber of the machine, gut-wrenching dread poured through him, chilling him to his marrow. The unknown was ten times worse than the known.
She’s here with you now but you’ll lose her if she has the disease.
Perhaps the known was worse.
He walked toward the door and then spun back, grabbing the microphone that connected the control room to the machine, enabling the radiographer to communicate with the patient. Not caring a damn who else was in the room with him, he gripped it hard and flicked it on, raising it to his lips. ‘Mia, I’m just outside, sweetheart. Remember, no matter what, I love you and I always will.’
*
Mia heard Flynn’s voice and swallowed a sob. This amazing man had come into her life at the wrong time for both of them. Not that there would ever have been a right time for her. Although perhaps if she’d met him a few years ago, when she’d been unaware of the impact FTD had on her family, they would have had more time.
But then she would have died, leaving children and the huge possibility of having passed on the faulty gene. She never wanted anyone to experience the ravages of the disease or suffer the impact of watching a loved one fade away.
Flynn was in denial, which was why she’d agreed to the scan. She’d didn’t need a scan to know the truth. She’d faced up to her future and accepted it. Now he needed to accept it as well, and the scan would be the proof he required.
‘Mia?’ The radiographer’s voice came out of the speaker behind her head. ‘How are you doing? How’s your arm?’
‘OK, thanks, Callum.’ She blew out long slow breaths and kept her eyes closed, not wanting to open them and feel the claustrophobic presence of the machine that surrounded her. She’d had an individual meeting with the two doctors and the radiologist before the procedure. Doug Sanderson had asked a lot of questions about her family and her symptoms and she’d been exhausted at the end of it. Callum had been very sweet, checking with her twice that she didn’t have a pacemaker or an aneurysm clip that would be damaged by exposure to the magnetic field.
‘We’ve got your favourite CD to put on and the nurse has given you the buzzer. Press it if you need us to stop at any time.’
She nodded, enjoying the soothing lilt of Callum’s voice but then realising he couldn’t see her and she had to reply. ‘Yes, I’m holding it in my good hand.’
‘Right, then, we’ll get started.’
The machine clicked as it changed positions every few minutes. Callum’s voice would tell her when to hold still and when she could move. Her arm throbbed, her head pounded and the examination seemed to go on for ever.
Why is it taking so long?
Surely the atrophy would be evident from the first scan. Was there so much degeneration that they needed to map more than she’d expected? She chewed her lip and tried to still her mind by concentrating on the music, but it didn’t work. Her mouth dried as her heart thumped hard, rushing adrenaline and agitation through her and making her feel all fluttery. Her fingers reached for the buzzer.
‘We’re nearly finished, Mia. Can you hang on just five minutes more?’ Callum’s voice sounded concerned.
Five minutes. She tried to moisten her mouth with her tongue. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Mia, honey, remember when we climbed up that steep sand dune and sat on the top, watching the sun r
ise?’ Flynn’s voice unexpectedly came through the speaker. ‘Picture that in your mind. We sat huddled together, the chill of the pre-dawn air unexpectedly cold, and then the sky changed from black to pink streaked with blue. As the light started to spread we saw a pod of dolphins diving in and out of the water, teasing us. We were stuck on land, while they had the freedom to explore the ocean far and wide.’
His velvet-smooth voice brought the image back clear and true. It was as if she was back on top of that dune with him. She could feel his arm around her, comforting and warm, as she cuddled into his shoulder. Her breathing slowed, her panic receded and she was able to follow Callum’s final instructions.
Three minutes later it was all over. ‘Well done to you, Mia. I’m sure that was a very long forty minutes. We’re moving you out now and the nurse will take you back to the change room.’ Callum paused for a moment. ‘Mr Sanderson will meet you in the interview room.’
The bed started to move and a moment later Mia was able to sit up. She turned to look into the control room, hoping to catch a glimpse of Flynn, but it was one-way glass and she could only see the reflection of herself. Disappointment pulled at her. She needed as many glimpses of him as she could get because in a few hours she would never see him again.
‘This way, Mia.’ The nurse guided her back to the change room and assisted her in putting on her dress and refitting the sling.
A few minutes later the nurse escorted her to the interview room, walking briskly at a typical nurse pace.
Mia wanted to walk slowly. Why walk quickly to bad news that she already knew and didn’t need to be told? Why walk quickly to Flynn when she would just have to turn around and walk away from him?
Mia stepped inside the small room and started with surprise. It was empty. Where was Flynn? She’d expected him to meet her there.
Doug Sanderson arrived a moment later with a large yellow X-ray envelope tucked under his arm and holding two cups of coffee. He passed one to her. ‘Flynn said you liked it strong.’
‘Thanks.’ She peeled the top back and breathed in the aroma. How much longer did she have before she wouldn’t be able to associate that amazing bouquet with coffee? She pushed the thought away. ‘Where’s Flynn?’