A Doctor's Christmas Family

by Meredith Webber

  Gwyneth walked away, her stiffly upright posture showing exactly what she thought of that invitation, but there was no further argument. Bill lifted Esther’s suitcase and pushed open the door.

  The delighted cry of ‘Dada’ coincided with Esther’s first sight of the child, and this time, she was sure, her heart stopped beating altogether. A coldness, colder even than the frost in Gwyneth’s voice, stole through Esther’s body as she stared at the chubby little form, standing on unsteady legs, clutching at a coffee-table with one hand for support while the other hand waved a greeting to her father.

  A normal person, Esther realised later, when some synapsing had started happening again in her brain, would have looked around for the child’s mother, thinking how awkward the situation was going to be. A normal person would have understood Gwyneth’s panic that Esther should be billeted on them.

  But Esther couldn’t take her eyes off the child, who now held up both dimpled arms to her father and, without the table’s support, promptly collapsed back onto the soft padding provided by a thick towelling diaper.

  Bill’s child.

  Bill had a child.

  A girl child—as the one he’d lost had been.

  The one she, Esther, had lost.

  Heart, mind and body filled with pain, she stood staring transfixed at this living embodiment of the ghost that haunted her dreams.

  Bill said something—moved past her—but he had never been insensitive, so when he lifted the little girl into his arms and turned, showing her off to Esther, introducing her, ‘This is Chloe. Chloe, this is Esther, who’s an old friend of mine,’ Esther put it down to tiredness, not a desire to deepen the pain she was feeling.

  ‘No!’ The word slipped out—an anguished cry of denial—before Esther could stop it.

  She looked around the room, desperate to escape, but it was her childhood all over again. Inside the strangers’ house now, seeing in the couple’s eyes that they didn’t want a skinny, tangle-haired, dark-eyed waif of a child, yet knowing she’d have to stay because there was nowhere else to go.

  ‘There’s nowhere else, is there?’ she said bleakly, and collapsed into a boneless heap on the couch, childhood habits sufficiently strong for her to keep her feet and knees tidily together so she took up as little space as possible.

  She thought past the child. In fact, she shut the child away in a very distant brain cell. In her past, it had always been the woman who’d decided, and the woman, in this case, was not Bill’s mother—who was obviously here visiting her grandchild—but Bill’s wife.

  Even thinking the words—thinking of him belonging to someone else now—hurt her heart, but it was her mind that was more bothersome. She couldn’t get it to work, couldn’t get it giving orders, though somewhere in her subconscious she knew she had to move—to get out of this apartment.

  Go somewhere!

  Anywhere!

  Then Bill was there, the child gone, his arm around her shoulders.

  ‘I’m sorry—totally insensitive—blame tiredness—blame anything! I wouldn’t have hurt you for worlds, you know that, Esther. It was my joy in her—she’s my link to normality—I didn’t consider…’

  The panicky urgency in his voice as he rushed through his explanation and apology told her more than the words themselves did. He meant what he was saying, while his arm around her shoulders offered more comfort. It was warm, slightly heavy—nice heavy.

  She couldn’t leave it there.

  Not even for another comforting second.

  Neither could she be weakened by his sympathy—or let him think it was the baby who’d upset her…

  She spun away, and turned to face him.

  ‘I can’t stay here, you moron,’ she raged. ‘And you should have realised that before bringing me inside,’ she told him, the words blunt and uncaring though her fingers ached to touch his face, to smooth the lines of weariness away from his cheeks. ‘No matter how civilised we all try to act, it’s not something your wife—’ her tongue tied itself around that word but she managed it in the end ‘—should have to go through.’

  She was silently congratulating herself on her coolness when he blew away her argument.

  ‘I don’t have a wife,’ he said. ‘At least, I don’t think I do.’

  The words didn’t make a lot of sense, but even the vague gist of them made Esther frown at him.

  ‘But you’ve got a baby,’ she reminded him. ‘And you can’t not know if you have a wife or not. Wives aren’t things you just misplace, or accidentally lose track of.’

  ‘I lost track of one,’ he said quietly.

  The weary smile that accompanied this statement, and the effect even a weary smile had on her long-dormant hormones, reminded Esther there were extreme personal reasons for not staying which should take preference over a misplaced possible wife.

  And there was the baby…

  She stood up and lengthened the handle on her suitcase again so she could tow it.

  ‘I’ll go. Yours can’t be the last vacant bed in Jamestown.’

  ‘Only half my bed’s vacant,’ Bill said, the smile less weary now, generating the faint glimmer of a twinkle in his bloodshot eyes as he made the feeble joke. ‘But we do have what must be the last spare, habitable bedroom in the city. Ma’s sister—remember Mallory?—has been here, originally for a fortnight but unable to leave because of transport difficulties after Hugo. Not knowing anyone else in Australia, she didn’t want to go with the evacuees, so she stayed on. She flew out this morning when the airport reopened to light traffic.’

  He’d stood up as he’d explained this and bent to take the suitcase away from Esther, saying, ‘At least stay tonight. If for no other reason than I’m too darned tired to even think about what else to do with you. We’ll sort something out in the morning.’

  He was making sense.

  One night wouldn’t hurt her.

  She’d go to her room and stay there. There’d be no need to see the child…

  Bill’s child.

  She almost gasped at the pain even thinking the words caused. It was like a giant vice, grasping her heart and squeezing as if to extract the very last drop of blood.

  ‘This way!’

  Bill had carried her case across the living room and was standing at the entrance to a short hallway.

  Reluctantly, Esther moved towards him. This wasn’t the worst thing that had happened in her life, she reminded herself. Losing her parents when she’d been four—that had been bad, though she could barely remember it. Being moved from her favourite foster-family less than a year later. Losing the baby—no, she wouldn’t think about that.

  Losing Bill?

  She wouldn’t think of that one either, but right now, even with the worst of the worst happenings in her past flashing like instant nightmares through her mind, she couldn’t pick out anything much worse than this.

  ‘Own shower and toilet through that door on the left. The doors open onto the balcony, but I’d ask you to keep them closed when you’re not in the room. I know Chloe can’t climb yet, and she certainly couldn’t fit through the railings, but my knees go watery thinking of her out there on the balcony, and though she’s still only crawling, she can get away faster than a speeding bullet if whoever’s minding her turns away.’

  He spoke in a very matter-of-fact way but Esther understood his fear for the baby was very real. He would never have mentioned her otherwise.

  But he could hardly keep her hidden if Esther remained in his home, and while Bill might be sensitive to her feelings, Gwyneth certainly wouldn’t be.

  ‘Don’t think past tonight!’ she told herself, when Bill had departed, muttering something about calling her when dinner was ready.

  Not thinking of the future was another lesson learnt in childhood. One night was good—if the people in the house let you stay one night and you didn’t do anything wrong, maybe you could stay another night.

  Not that you want to stay another night in this household,
Esther reminded her grown-up self as she sifted through the suitcase for something clean and cool to put on.

  She showered, washing the tangles of travel out of her hair, then wrapped herself in a towel while she combed out any knots. The tap on the door startled her, but it was what Bill had to say that really threw her.

  ‘I’m going back to the hospital—we’ve had another admission. I don’t suppose you’d like to come.’

  ‘Surely there’s someone else who can go,’ she raged at him, pulling open the door and staring in disbelief at his exhausted face.

  ‘You don’t have to,’ he said quietly, and it took a moment for the words to make sense.

  ‘I don’t mean me, I mean you. Of course I’ll go, but you should be in bed. Look at you, I doubt you’ve slept for days. Fat lot of use you’ll be to patients if you run yourself into the ground.’

  She paused, but as her protest awoke no immediate reaction—in fact, he seemed to have gone into a trance—she rushed on.

  ‘Anyway, I can do whatever has to be done for the patient. I’m a doctor first and foremost. Go to bed, Bill, I’ll go to the hospital.’

  Bill heard the conversation but couldn’t work out how to reply. He’d been too mesmerised by the way the whiteness of the towel made the smooth tanned skin above it seem darker by comparison, to make sense of the words.

  Too dazed by this sudden reappearance of Esther in his life and, in spite of sheer exhaustion, too jolted by the effect just seeing her again was having on him.

  The same effect seeing her the first time had…

  The image was vivid in his mind, etched there as if with acid. A slight, slim, waif of a girl-woman, with huge dark eyes that had looked fearfully at him, as if fearing he might turn her away. Yet there’d been something in her stance, a doggedness, and enough determination in her soft set mouth to tell him she’d not only stand up to whatever it was she feared but take it on, fight it, vanquish it.

  And he’d wanted to fight it with her, to stand by her side, or, better still, fight her dragons for her—protect her, nurture her, keep her safe from her fears for ever.

  It had been a bizarre reaction and he’d waited for it to pass, but it hadn’t…

  ‘Go, I have to dress.’

  She put her hand on his chest and gave a little push and, obedient to instinct more than anything else, he stepped backward and she closed the door.

  He was tired. Probably too tired to function properly, but he had to see this patient. Cyclone Hugo had already killed too many people, Bill was damned if he’d let the aftermath kill even more.

  ‘She can’t stay here. You know that. If Marcie hears she’s here, she might take Chloe from you. You know how vindictive Marcie can be. I can’t believe Esther turning up like this. She’ll ruin everything again!’

  His mother’s voice, shrill with a panicky kind of fear, was probably loud enough for Esther to hear, so Bill interrupted the laments.

  ‘Marcie didn’t want Chloe,’ he reminded her. ‘And how could Marcie possibly hear Esther was here?’

  His mother didn’t answer, though a defiant tilt of her chin told him all he needed to know.

  ‘You’ve been in touch with her? You’ve kept in touch?’

  He couldn’t believe it, but the chin tilted a little higher and his mother finally replied.

  ‘She’s Chloe’s mother. She’s entitled to know how her daughter’s getting on. She phones occasionally—I have to talk to her, don’t I?’

  Bill sighed. He could argue that Marcie wasn’t entitled to anything, having left Chloe the day she’d been born, but he knew his mother had always loved Marcie, and though she was disappointed at her behaviour in abandoning Chloe, the fondness lingered. To Ma, Marcie was still redeemable.

  He tried another tack.

  ‘Esther’s a top doctor and we need her here,’ he said bluntly, but hopefully politely. Inside he was feeling anything but polite. Was Ma right? Could Marcie be vindictive enough to take Chloe from him, simply because Esther had reappeared in his life? Through no fault of his, mind you—no plotting, no devious plans—nothing more than one almighty, cyclonic coincidence!

  Surely not. Not even Marcie could be so vicious.

  ‘Need her here in Jamestown maybe,’ his mother conceded, her words dragging him out of his spiralling dread, ‘but not in this apartment. It’s no good for Esther either. You saw how she reacted to Chloe. It must have brought back all her own guilt in losing your first child.’

  ‘Esther had an accident,’ Bill said, carefully controlling the hot acid of anger burning in his stomach. His mother would have to be the most insensitive woman ever born! ‘A terrible, tragic accident. There is no guilt in accidents, Ma, and you know it.’

  ‘Tell that to my conscience,’ a quiet voice said, and he looked away from his mother to see Esther standing there. She was wearing jeans, cut off at calf-length, and a plain white shirt. Her dark silky hair hung loose around her shoulders, curling softly in places as it dried. While he watched, she raised her arms and swept it back into a loose ponytail at the back of her head. Slight, slim and upright, head tilted in defiance against a world that had seemed against her since childhood, she met his eyes unwaveringly.

  She had never looked more beautiful.

  ‘Only you can tell your conscience that,’ he said, but his words were drowned out by hers.

  ‘Gwyneth’s right, Bill. I can’t stay here. But right now let’s get our priorities straight. Right now we need to see the new patient, and as I’ll be at the hospital, I’d like to see the others as well.’

  She walked towards the door, turning back, at the last moment, towards Gwyneth.

  ‘But I promise I won’t stay,’ she said, ‘so there’s no need to make an Esther doll and start sticking pins in it. I won’t be much use up at the hospital if I’m limping around the place or suffering some mysterious stomach ailment.’

  CHAPTER TWO

  ‘WAS that really necessary?’ Bill demanded once the door was closed and they were waiting for the elevator.

  Esther grinned at him.

  ‘I suppose not, but it did make me feel better, and, to be fair, she’d got a good number of digs into me earlier.’

  She didn’t admit she’d heard Gwyneth mention Marcie. But the fact that Bill’s mother had finally got her choice of daughter-in-law had hurt Esther so much that lashing out had been an automatic reaction.

  Bill’s long-suffering sigh followed her into the elevator.

  ‘I know she’s difficult—even rude—but is there any point in me asking you not to goad Ma?’

  ‘None at all!’ Esther told him, acting casual and nonchalant to hide the cocktail of emotions she was experiencing in the close confines of the metal cabin—with Bill in the same close confines. Three years since she’d seen him and the overwhelming rush of hormonal activity she’d always felt when near him hadn’t diminished by a single molecule. Though the fact that he’d remarried—whether the wife was currently lost or not—and married the woman Gwyneth had chosen for him should have been enough to damp down the attraction.

  But it wasn’t. All that information did was cause a deep ache in another part of her, separated from the physical manifestations of attraction by a wall she’d erected long ago.

  ‘Not that it matters,’ she said, hoping she sounded cheerily nonchalant, not overwhelmed with pain and confusion. ‘Once I find somewhere else to stay I won’t be there to argue with her, will I?’

  ‘There’s nowhere else,’ he growled, then he added the one word bound to cool her hormones. ‘Women!’

  No one but Bill could inject so much scorn, disgust and denigration into that single word. But, then, no one but Bill could use his voice as a weapon to such good effect.

  That damn voice—it had caused nearly as many problems as the hormonal rush. Even now, it had her thinking things she shouldn’t.

  Had her thinking of other intonations he’d put on the singular version of the word he’d just uttered. Intonat
ions he’d put on it when he’d wanted her…

  When the wanting had been satisfied…

  ‘Come on, Esther, move it. The patient will be dead before we get there.’

  This was OK, she told herself, trotting to keep up in a gloomy basement car park. As long as he stayed tetchy and upset, nagging her to hurry, bracketing her with his mother, she could handle being in his presence.

  They could work together.

  Which reminded her!

  ‘What on earth are you doing in Jamestown anyway?’ she asked, as he opened the passenger side door of a large SUV. ‘How long have you been here? Why did you leave Atlanta? And why Jamestown?’

  She ducked under his arm and settled in the seat as she asked the questions, but he didn’t reply until he was strapped in beside her and they were driving out.

  ‘I’m working here, I’ve been here two months—both here and in Australia—and why Jamestown? The Center for Disease Control wanted to run a joint programme with the university here on the encroachment of arboviral diseases.’

  Not really surprising they’d chosen Bill to undertake the work, Esther thought. She’d first met him when she’d arrived at the world-famous CDC in Atlanta to study just that subject—viruses carried by arthropods—in Bill’s specific specialty, mosquitoes.

  And the timing? Esther had been in Africa until a fortnight ago, which probably explained why the news of an eminent new arrival in the north hadn’t reached her through the scientific grapevine.

  ‘The medical superintendent of the hospital here,’ Bill continued, ‘had been doing some research on the subject, so we did a swap for six months. I’ve taken his place at the hospital, and he’s taken mine at CDC.’

  That made sense, Esther realised. All doctors working at the CDC did regular hospital work to keep up their skills as they could be called, at a moment’s notice, to handle an epidemic anywhere in the world.

  ‘Up until a fortnight ago,’ Bill continued, ‘my hospital job was mainly administration, then we had the cyclone, the evacuation of three quarters of the city, including most of the patients from the hospital. Because we didn’t have staff to run a full service, we transferred patients who couldn’t be discharged to travel with family members in the evacuation to hospitals close to where their family members had found temporary accommodation.’