The Other Child

by Lucy Atkins

  He grabs one, but doesn’t follow her to the door. She has to force herself not to try to hug him or kiss his freckled face. He won’t let her do that yet. He can’t be rushed or chivvied after school – he needs to decompress.

  ‘How about some milk to go with that?’ She goes inside leaving the door open for him to follow.

  She puts her bag on the dining-room table, shoving a stack of Greg’s files to make room for the cookie plate, but they topple and slide off the edge, scattering across the parquet, knocking over a small recycling bin.

  She puts the plate down and gets onto her knees, scraping the papers up, stretching under the table to scoop the recycling back into the bin. Greg is normally meticulous about his paperwork, but he is working ridiculous hours – no wonder he has let things slip. She reaches for a stray sheet of paper and smooths it out, not sure if it was meant for the recycling.

  There are just three short sentences, in tight, looping handwriting, unsigned.

  *

  I saw your picture.

  Years have passed, but I’d recognize your face anywhere.

  I STILL SEE YOU IN MY NIGHTMARES.

  Chapter Four

  The next morning when she goes downstairs, Greg is at the kitchen sink, rinsing out a bowl. He hears her and turns – his face is drawn but alert, as if he’s been waiting for her. Through the window behind him she sees a gust of wind fling small orange leaves at the mottled sky.

  She goes over and kisses him. ‘When did you get home last night? I waited and waited but I must have fallen asleep; I didn’t even hear you come in.’ She rubs her eyes and glances at the kitchen clock. ‘Wait – it’s 7.30; why are you’re still here?”

  Usually, by this time, he’d have had his run, his shower, and been at the hospital for an hour, preparing for the weekly conference, going through the procedures he has scheduled for that day, catching up on paperwork. But he is still in pyjama bottoms and a grey T-shirt.

  ‘I’m going in a little later today.’ His eyes look sunken, his face is rumpled, his olive skin unusually pallid. She wonders if he has slept at all.

  ‘Are you OK?’ she says.

  ‘What?’ He places the bowl carefully on the draining board. ‘No, no, I’m fine.’

  She remembers the note then, goes to get it from the wire tray by the toaster. She unfolds it and slides it across the countertop. ‘Look. This is why I was waiting up for you – didn’t you get my voicemail yesterday? I found this with your recycling. What on earth is it?’

  He turns, drying his hands on a tea towel, and looks down at the paper.

  ‘I almost threw it out.’ She waits for him to pick the note up but he carries on rubbing his hands. She can sense the thoughts travelling fast behind his calm face.

  ‘I still see you in my nightmares? What does that mean, Greg? Who sent this to you?’

  He tosses the towel onto the counter, takes the paper and crunches it in his fist. ‘I wish you wouldn’t touch my papers; they’re all in order.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous. What is this, Greg?’

  ‘It’s nothing, really, just some crazy who’s seen the announcement of my appointment, or maybe the prize.

  ‘Some crazy? What’s that supposed to mean?’

  He throws the ball of paper into the bin. ‘It means that the world is full of unstable individuals. Especially the medical world.’

  ‘Have you had this sort of letter before and not told me?’

  ‘Of course I haven’t.’

  ‘But you were throwing it away – weren’t you even going to tell me?’

  ‘It’s nothing.’

  ‘It’s not nothing. Who would recognize your face? Who sees you in their nightmares? Greg?’

  He turns back to the sink, ‘I have no idea, Tess. My guess is that it’s a mentally ill person who has seen my picture on the hospital website. The news about my appointment and the surgical prize is all over it. The prize has been reported in other places too. I really don’t know who wrote it and right now I have far more pressing things to worry about.’

  He opens a packet of coffee beans, tips them into his grinder and turns it on, cutting off further conversation.

  She waits until he switches it off. ‘Aren’t you going for your run today?’

  ‘Not today, no. I have a bit of a hamstring strain; I thought I’d take it easy for a few days.’

  She reaches past him for the muesli. ‘Your new running mate’s going to be disappointed then.’

  ‘My what?’

  ‘Our neighbour?’

  ‘What neighbour?’ He scrapes the coffee into the cup of the espresso machine and, with a jerk of his wrist, slots it back in.

  ‘The woman next door – Helena. Haven’t you two been running together?’

  ‘What? I already told you we haven’t. Why would I want a running mate?’ He switches the machine on and the kitchen fills with a whirring sound as it forces thick coffee into the cup.

  Sandra must have seen him talking to Helena in the street and made assumptions. She realizes how paranoid she sounds. The espresso machine cuts out.

  ‘Did you get back really late then, last night?’ she says.

  ‘Yeah,’ he nods and pours milk into a mug, slotting it under the steamer. Once again, the noise makes talking impossible. When the steamer stops he says, ‘Gone midnight. You were sleeping and I had a whole load of paperwork, so I worked down here for a bit, then grabbed a couple of hours in the spare room. I didn’t want to wake you.’

  ‘You look totally exhausted.’

  ‘I’m fine, really.’

  ‘You don’t seem fine.’

  ‘I just have a lot on my mind right now.’ He takes the mug to the breakfast bar and sits on a stool, stirring it.

  ‘What’s on your mind?’

  ‘Oh, lots of stuff. This case … a four-year-old … some complications …’

  She can’t remember Greg ever admitting that he is worried about a patient. She wonders if he has been waiting for her because he needs to talk about this.

  ‘Is that what you were working on last night?’

  He nods.

  ‘What sort of complications?’

  ‘You wouldn’t … It’s extremely technical.’ He hands her the mug he’s been stirring. ‘Anyway, here, look, I made you a latte.’

  She takes it. Now would not be the time to remind him she’s trying to avoid caffeine.

  ‘But I want to know. Can’t you try to explain it to me?’

  ‘It would be a bit like trying to introduce you to the rules of baseball, in Mandarin.’

  She feels a prickle of irritation. ‘You should have married a cardiologist.’

  ‘I did date an interventional cardiologist once. It lasted about three weeks. Two type-A egomaniacs who are always right about everything. It was a bloodbath.’ He grins at her, looking more like himself.

  ‘Still, if I was a doctor, at least I’d be able to help with your complicated four-year-old. You’d be able to run things by me and I’d be able help you come up with a brilliant solution.’ The image of Greg and Helena jogging side by side through the woods, sharing medical opinions, enters her head. She shuts it down.

  ‘You wouldn’t,’ he says.

  ‘Why? Because nobody could possibly match your genius?’

  ‘No. Because the boy is dead.’

  She puts the coffee down. ‘Oh no – God, that’s awful.’

  He shrugs, but his jaw is tense.

  ‘What – how? In the OR? With you?’

  He nods.

  ‘Oh, shit. I’m so sorry, love. So that’s why you’re …’

  ‘Yeah, well, listen, you know, it happens.’ He straightens his shoulders. ‘There was nothing I or anyone else could have done about it. There’s actually no one better in the States – if not the world – right now for the particular condition this child had. If I couldn’t save him, no one could.’ He looks bigger, suddenly, more confident and healthy, as if reaffirming his expertise, even in
the context of this poor dead child, has boosted his blood flow. ‘The parents are angry, but the truth is they should be grateful it was me, not someone else.’

  ‘Grateful?’

  He gives his head an irritable shake. ‘You know what I mean. At some point they’re going to realize that their son had the best shot possible with me – that there’s no one better at this – and ultimately that will help them.’

  He may well be the leading specialist when it comes to this particular defect of a child’s heart, but sometimes he seems to forget that he is also dealing with raw, parental grief. She understands why he has to protect himself, but sometimes his ability to cut off feels chilling.

  As she sips the strong, milky coffee she remembers the first time she saw this protection mechanism kick in. It was soon after they met – only their third date – and they were walking through central London on the way to the theatre when he took a call from a junior colleague. They talked for a few minutes, something about a patient, a young girl who was in a bad way. ‘Listen, I’ve told the ICU guys she’s not an operative candidate,’ he growled. Then she heard him say something about ‘withdrawal of care’. And then he grew even more irritable. ‘Listen, if I’m not operating, I don’t see why I need to come in and talk to the damned family. I really haven’t got time for a weeping mother right now.’ He glanced at Tess, as if realizing what he must sound like, and then he slowed, turned away, lowered his voice. ‘The ICU needs to handle the withdrawal of support and sort out the family. Yeah. Right. OK. Sure …’

  As they pushed through the revolving doors into the lobby of the theatre, she wanted to get away from him – jump on the train, go home, hold onto Joe. The space between them was suddenly fraught. Greg paid for the programme in silence, but then as they took their seats he reached for her hand and looked into her eyes. ‘If we didn’t detach from the emotions sometimes,’ he said, ‘we’d go insane. It’s a protection mechanism, Tess, that’s all. I know it sounds tasteless, but it’s just a way to cope. If I didn’t cut myself off sometimes, then I’d have to ask why – why are gorgeous children born with holes in the heart, arteries switched, obstructed valves? Why do babies’ hearts fail before they can even take a breath?’ He closed his eyes, briefly. ‘It might seem disrespectful to talk this way about a dying child but if I didn’t, sometimes, then all the unanswerable questions would close in on me. I wouldn’t be able to do my job.’ He squeezed her hand, then smiled. ‘If it’s any consolation for you, the suicide rate among surgeons is five times the general population.’ Before she could answer, the theatre lights dimmed, the audience fell silent and the curtain rose to reveal the actors standing on the bright stage.

  She takes another sip of the latte. It tastes harsh and slightly gritty. Greg is staring out of the kitchen window now, no doubt thinking about the small boy whose heart he could not mend.

  ‘I wish you’d talk to me more. You’ve had all this going on and you haven’t even mentioned it.’

  ‘It only happened last week.’

  ‘A week is ages, Greg. This is terrible. I feel like since we got here we hardly ever talk,’ she says. ‘I miss you.’

  ‘I know, I miss you too. This is intense – we knew it would be, but I feel bad that you’re so alone right now. I should be here for you, and Joe. I feel like I’m letting you down all the time. Are you OK? Are you feeling OK, physically?’

  ‘I’m fine, a bit bloated, sore boobs, and my ankles are starting to swell rather attractively.’ She glances down at her bare feet. ‘It’s the anomaly scan on Friday.’

  He nods. ‘OK. Actually, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about. The parents of this boy … there’s a meeting about it Friday and I can’t miss it. I can’t get it changed, because there are so many people involved. The whole hospital machine has to kick in when this happens. I’m so sorry, Tess.’

  ‘You can’t come to the scan?’

  ‘If I could, I would, but these parents, they’re … they’ve kind of lost it and there are a lot of people involved now. Could we reschedule the scan?’

  ‘No,’ she says, ‘we can’t. It has to be done before twenty-three weeks and I’m twenty-three weeks this Saturday.’ This, she realizes, is the reason he is still here. This is what he wanted to tell her. He might not even have mentioned the little boy’s death if it wasn’t for this.

  ‘I wish it wasn’t like this,’ he says. ‘I really do.’

  She says nothing.

  ‘I’d like to be there when we find out the sex.’ He sounds sad.

  ‘But I don’t want to find out – do you?’

  He widens his eyes, then nods. ‘Actually, you know what, I’d probably rather not know the sex yet either. I just assumed you’d want to. But a surprise would be much better.’

  She wonders whether his reason for not wanting to know the sex is quite the same as hers. He takes her hands. ‘Listen, I was thinking, how about we fix up a weekend away, just me and you, when things have settled down a little? I’d like to take you up the coast; it’s beautiful up there in the fall. We could do it one weekend in November when David has Joe.’

  ‘OK,’ she nods. ‘Which one?’

  ‘How about Thanksgiving weekend? Late November – that’s not so far away, really. You could ask David if he can do that weekend.’

  Time has slowed down, she realizes, because right now even a week feels like a huge stretch to wait. But for Greg a month or two will pass in a blink.

  ‘You working on the book today?’ he says. ‘How’s that going?’

  ‘Well, it’s been harder than I thought, actually, to select and balance everything, to make all the images work together.’

  ‘It’s a very valuable thing you’re doing, you know that, right?’

  ‘I know. I’ve been enjoying it. I’m glad you heard about it; it’s turned out to be a great project for me, with the move and everything.’

  ‘I knew it would be. They’re lucky to get you.’

  Sometimes it’s like being married to two people: the godlike surgeon, fearsome and focused, decisive, uncommunicative, ruthless – and then this warm and beautiful man, full of love, rooting for her, respecting her work, supporting her.

  ‘You know you can take a break, don’t you?’ he says. ‘When you finish the book, when the baby’s born, you could just stop for a bit – if you wanted to. We can afford it, if that’s what you want to do.’

  She leans against the door frame. This is the first time he has engaged in the reality of this baby and it feels like progress. She has always worked, she can’t imagine not taking pictures, but maybe this time she won’t try to take commissions with a newborn. It would be good not to have to rely on unreliable sitters, rush jobs, worry all the time, produce shoddy work. And the truth is that it is unrealistic to think that she will be able to build up a whole new set of contacts whilst caring for Joe and a new baby. When Joe was tiny she’d had no choice but to work – and it had been an ordeal. There was one particularly painful shoot when a babysitter didn’t show up and she had to take Joe, aged about three months, to the Holland Park home of a Tory politician. Joe wouldn’t stop wailing, and the politician, rigid in his salmon-pink shirt, lost patience and stalked off to his gazebo, like a sulking flamingo.

  She wants to talk about her work with Greg – how she will manage her career and the baby – but it’s almost eight now and she has to get Joe going. ‘Can we talk about this tonight?’

  ‘I’m going to Chicago tonight,’ he says. ‘The big event tomorrow? Remember?’

  ‘Oh my God, your prize!’ She feels something deflate inside her but tries not to show it, smiling wildly. ‘Shit! You’ve barely mentioned it, Greg. We have to celebrate ourselves, when you get back.’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Aren’t you excited?’

  ‘Of course, I’m glad of it, it’s great to be noticed. And it’s going to help enormously with research funding.’

  ‘I should be coming with you.’

  ‘Don
’t be silly, we talked about this – you can’t leave Joe, and you certainly can’t bring him. Anyway, it’s not a family thing. You can watch it online if you want to though.’

  ‘Will there be lots of doctors there?’

  He nods. ‘Several hundred probably – my speech is going to be streamed live.’

  ‘Brilliant, I’ll watch it then.’ She reaches up and kisses him. ‘You are a genius.’

  She goes to the bottom of the stairs, then, with one hand on her belly, ‘Joey? Breakfast!’

  His prize event is on the calendar; she shouldn’t have forgotten. She can’t possibly resent him for going away this time. This is a big deal for him. It is odd that he doesn’t seem more excited. But perhaps the situation with the child who died is overshadowing some of the glory. She wonders, suddenly, whether he might have made a surgical mistake, misjudged something, perhaps tried a risky technique.

  ‘Joey? Come on, you’re going to be late for school.’ Joe appears at the top of the landing and comes downstairs, very slowly, one step at a time. His face is as white as the walls.

  ‘Hey, what’s up, love?’

  ‘I’m sick.’

  ‘Oh dear, poor darling. What’s wrong?’ She reaches out and feels his forehead. It is perfectly cool.

  ‘I have a bad fever.’

  ‘I don’t think you do, lovey, or you’d be hot.’

  ‘I am hot. I have a bad tummy ache too.’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘And a headache.’ He puts both hands up to the sides of his head, as if pressing on an invisible force field. ‘And I might be going to throw up.’

  ‘OK, well, luckily we happen to have one of the world’s top children’s doctors in our kitchen right now. He can take a look and see what’s wrong with you.’

  A look of panic flits across Joe’s face.

  ‘Greg,’ she smiles at him. ‘It’s only Greg.’

  ‘Actually, I might just be hungry,’ he says.

  He looks small and sacrificial as he walks away down the narrow corridor and through the arch into the kitchen, where Greg is packing up his papers.

  ‘Hey, buddy,’ she hears Greg say in a cheerful voice. ‘How’s it going?’