To Dr Cartwright, A Daughter

by Meredith Webber

  'I'd been sick on and off for weeks. It must have affected the barrier effect of the pill I was taking.'

  Her body was stiff with tension. She didn't want to handle this alone, to remember her despair and fear, and the dragging debility of an undiagnosed condition. She looked at Jake but he'd turned back towards the window, heedless of her silent calls for him to hold her in his arms.

  'You should have told me!' he said harshly. 'You must have known it would have changed things.'

  'Made you love me again when you'd said it was all over, Jake? I didn't think so!'

  Why was she hesitating? Why hold back because the truth might hurt?

  Because she loved him!

  'It was my right to know!' he objected, and she knew she'd have to tell him, however much it hurt.

  'I did write,' she said bluntly. 'Twice! You sent the letters back!'

  She saw his head bend to touch the window and his shoulders slump forward.

  'Oh, Katy!' he said, the words a groan dredged up from the depths of his being. 'Oh, Katy, what did I do to you? To Julia—my own child?'

  She crossed the room, needing to touch him, to offer the physical support she'd wanted earlier, but the phone rang and she remembered they were both at work, and a ten-minute lull—though it had seemed like an hour—was a rare occurrence in their work-day lives.

  'You're needed in Theatre,' she told him, her heart contracting at the ravaged look of grief on his face.

  'Can you forgive me? Is it possible we can start again?' he asked.

  'Let's talk about it later, Jake,' she said quietly, still conscious of the hurt his doubt had dealt her.

  She turned back to her desk and went on with her work, but even the excitement of knowing they could begin to put her plans for the Asian patients into action failed to stop the nagging uneasiness after their unresolved conversation.

  She didn't want Jake feeling guilty about the past. She wanted him making positive moves towards the future—helping her think through the implications for Julia, discussing how best they should handle it.

  Her heart told her the future would include Jake, that they would be a family, but there was one last fence to jump and she couldn't do that on her own.

  She didn't see him again that morning, but he phoned at two to say he would be finishing early and could he walk them home.

  'Of course,' she said, because the messages of pain had diminished in his tone and the sound of love was softening every consonant.

  'If I don't get back to the office I'll meet you at the crèche—five-thirty at the latest.'

  He paused, and she wondered where he was and who was listening, for his I love you, Katy seemed to echo through the silence—unsaid, but deeply felt.

  'I love you, too,' she murmured, pleased to have the words said at last.

  She thought she heard him smile before the click told her they'd been disconnected, and the afternoon flew by as she anticipated seeing him again.

  'Let's sit a while and talk about the swans,' he said, when they'd walked beside the lake in a silence broken only by Julia's demands and chatter.

  They reached a bench overlooking the lake and Jake took Katy's hand and held it, even after they were seated. Julia climbed confidently up and settled on the other side of Jake.

  'You holding Mum's hand?' she asked suspiciously.

  'I am,' Jake told her. 'That's what I want to talk to you about.'

  'Is it love stuff?' Julia asked, and Katy blushed at the precocious tone.

  'Very much so,' Jake replied, his voice edged with laughter. 'What do you know about "love stuff'?'

  There was silence while Julia considered the question.

  'Nan's kids talk about it all the time,' she confided in the end.

  'They're teenagers!' Katy added, by way of explanation.

  'And I know about the swans,' Julia told him. 'They love each other.'

  'They do,' Jake agreed, in a husky voice. 'What I want to tell you, Julia, is that I knew your Mum a long time ago and we were very much in love.'

  'Did you live at Lake Shore then?' Julia asked, as if she needed to get the setting for this story straight.

  'I did,' he told her, slipping an arm around her shoulders so her head rested against his chest. 'I came here to work at the General Hospital and your mum was the very first person I met! Oh, we had some fun!'

  Katy found it hard to breathe. Jake was doing very well, so far, but how would he introduce himself as her father?

  'We were going to get married, only then I did something very, very stupid and I hurt myself—'

  Julia pushed away from him and turned towards the sound of his voice.

  'You had an accident!' Julia shouted, anticipating the next part of the story. 'You're my father?' she cried. 'My really, truly father? Oh, Dr Cartwright, can I feel what you look like?'

  Katy swallowed the lump of tears and watched through watery eyes as Julia scrambled onto Jake's knee and ran her tiny fingers over the planes and angles of his face. She could see the tears in his eyes, too, and feel his tension in the fingers biting into the flesh of her hand.

  Then Julia sighed and relaxed against Jake's body, and his arm drew her against his chest and held her close. He turned to Katy, a thousand questions in his eyes, but she answered only one.

  'I think she's got your IQ as well,' she said, and tried to smile.

  A long time later, she stood with Jake beside Julia's bed and watched their daughter sleep.

  'I have to thank you, Katy,' he said gruffly as they left the room and walked back down the stairs.

  'Why?' she asked, heading for the couch where they could sit together. She felt drained by all the emotion of the last twenty-four hours, wanting just to relax and let the tumult in her world die down.

  'For not turning her against me,' he said, sitting down beside her and kissing her gently on the cheek. 'What had you told her that she made the leap from accident to father?'

  His hand found hers and he held it, lifting it to his lips and kissing her fingers one by one.

  'I said you'd been so badly hurt you'd had to go away and learn to walk again.'

  She looked at Jake and saw he understood now the depths of the pain she'd endured—understood she hadn't had the courage to cut him out of her life completely, and, most important of all, knew she'd never hated him!

  He leant forward and kissed her on the lips.

  'I didn't deserve your unselfish kind of love,' he muttered. 'I was too young and full of myself to realise how rare and beautiful it was!' He kissed her again, a silent pledge, then straightened up.

  'So, she always thought I might come back?' he asked, and Katy frowned.

  'I didn't want her thinking that,' she told him. 'In fact, I tried to make it sound as if you would have if you'd been able but it was impossible.'

  'But you didn't let her hate me, Katy!' he said, his voice full of wonder and relief.

  'How could I, Jake?' she asked, and this time she turned and kissed him, on the, cheek. 'I couldn't have my daughter hating the only man I'd ever loved—ever would love, could love, will love!'

  'Are you sure of that, my darling?' he murmured, taking her in his arms and looking down into her eyes. 'Quite, quite sure, my one and only best, best girl?'

  She smiled and kissed him again, this time on the lips, then drew back for long enough to say, 'I'm certain!' before she let her lips find his and felt the blood flow swiftly through her veins, carrying sweet messages of love throughout her body.

 

 

 
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