by G. Benson
Anna looked up to see Kym holding out a coffee to her, a look of amusement on her face.
“Well, that’s what I’m trying to do.”
Smiling, Kym leant against the nurses’ station. “How’s that working out for you?”
Anna winked. “Not so well.”
“Want to share the complex thoughts that had you sticking your tongue out of your mouth a little?”
“I did not do that.”
“Oh, you did.”
“Can I help you, Kym?”
Suddenly looking a little off, Kym shrugged, eyes flicking to the ground then back to Anna. “I brought you coffee?”
Anna eyed Kym over the coffee cup as she took a sip. “That you did, and it’s amazing.” They held eye contact for a second. “What’s up?”
Opening her mouth, Kym quickly closed it again. Her fingers pulled at a loose thread on her sleeve, eyes flickering.
Without pushing her to answer, Anna simply watched her.
“I…I haven’t slept in our bed for, well, since he died.”
Head cocked slightly, Anna ran her thumbnail along the edge of her takeaway cup as she watched Kym, waiting as her friend took a deep breath, trying to smile.
“Not once. It’s been six months. I sleep here, mostly, or on the couch when I have to go home; once it was on the kitchen floor. I know it’s not normal that I should sleep there. But I’m so scared of waking up and reaching for him and him not being there. I…I think about moving, but that would be like giving up on him completely.” Her eyes swam with unshed tears, none falling as her lips stayed curved up. A subtle waver caught her voice as she fought to sound casual. “That’s not normal, is it? I should be…doing something. Anything?”
There was nothing Anna could think to say to that. “You’re doing what you need to do. There’s no guidebook for this.” She waved her hand between the two of them to indicate the “this” she meant. “I don’t think you should be doing anything, specifically.”
“I went to a support group.” Kym blurted out the words. “I left because I felt like I was ten giant steps behind the rest of them.”
“It’s been six months. That’s nothing, not really.”
“Sometimes I can’t stand it, Anna, that I’m alive and he’s gone.” Kym’s stricken features twisted as she fought to stay blasé. “All the air goes out of the room and I just, I can’t stand it.”
A lump caught in Anna’s throat, and she grasped Kym’s forearm. “I know, Kym.”
Kym nodded with tears in her eyes, rotating her arm to return the grasp, fingers tight.
Anna’s voice was as tight as her smile. “I haven’t been into their room. Not once.” She tilted her head, chin jutting up slightly. “It’s probably covered in dust and serving as a creepy shrine to them, but I can’t bring myself to go in there.” She squeezed Kym’s arm. “Neither can Ella. I sleep in the tiny spare room and share a bathroom with the kids in a house that’s apparently mine but I won’t let feel like it, because going in there and packing it up? Facing that? It’s the step that makes all this reality.”
Kym let out a slow breath that Anna was sure she had been holding for months.
“Thank you.”
“There’s no guidebook, despite how useful that would be.”
They let go of each other’s arms as one, both placing smiles on their lips, taking a shaky sip of coffee.
Some of the forced edge slipped from Kym’s smile. “If your pen leaks in your pocket later, I’m going to be amazed at the power of your mind.”
Anna did the only thing she could think to do, now that Kym had changed the subject: she went with it. “We had this caseworker, Lorna, stop in to check up, the other night.”
Kym’s eyes widened. “What, like someone who’s keeping an eye on you?”
“They warned us that will happen the first six months, a couple of random visits. She’s called a few times, too.”
“I thought everything was sorted, the paperwork and everything”
“Oh, it is. I’ve not had the confirmation, but they said it could take months and it’s only been six weeks or so since I signed it all. Sometimes there needs to be a hearing thing, or if there’s no issue, they just sign off on it.” Anna flicked her thumbnail on her coffee lid yet again. “It was their wishes, so it should all be fine.”
Kym pushed off from the nurses’ station, face still a little watery, and led a slow wander towards the elevators. “How did it go, with the caseworker?”
Anna shrugged, keeping her face deadpan. “She came at six thirty at night, Toby was stark naked running around the house after his bath and Ella was chasing him with one of her old dresses to try and get him to put it on. I was in the kitchen being lazy and heating a frozen pizza.”
Kym stopped dead at the elevator and pursed her lips, face going red with what Anna was pretty sure was concealed amusement. “Oh. Well, um…” She looked sideways at Anna and finally laughed loudly. Anna couldn’t help but join in. “I’m sorry, but of course. Of course she shows up then.”
Anna was glad to hear the tension had left Kym’s voice. “Right? She’s lovely, though. It was her second visit. She came in the beginning, too. She even managed a smile and said she once made her brother wear her gymnastic leotard and perform in the backyard.”
“So, basically, she gave Ella more ideas?” The buttons in the elevator lit up slowly as they made their way to the top floor. “So while it wasn’t the best circumstances she could have come over in, it was fine?”
“Yeah. I was worried she’d be out to find fault or something, but she really is just there to check in.”
“Good.” Kym hesitated a moment. “Hey, can I ask something?”
Anna looked sideways at her as they walked into the cardio wing. “Sure?”
“What about Sally’s parents? You told me why not yours, but what about them?”
Anna bit her lower lip. “They, um, didn’t have a great relationship with Sally. Or rather, Sally didn’t see them much at all.”
“Oh.”
Anna shrugged. “We got stupid drunk one night and she ranted about them being bigoted, closed-minded, judgemental assholes she didn’t want in her life any more than she had to, and that she didn’t want around her kids.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
Sadly, Sally had told her a lot more, too. But as far as Anna was concerned, that summed it up enough.
“Well, they sound delightful.”
Anna grabbed the file she needed from the nurses station. “Oh, they are. They told Sally she was condemning Ella to hell because she was conceived before they were married.”
“Right. Got it. They suck.”
“Exactly. Now, I have to get to a surgery.”
Kym sighed. “I should get back to Psych. My resident is useless.”
File held to her chest, Anna watched Kym walk around the corner and disappear. Bracing herself for consultations with worried parents, she checked she had everything she needed in the file and headed for her first patient’s room.
Surgery completed earlier than she had hoped, Anna was walking past a stairwell door when she felt fingers wrap around her bicep and tug. Suddenly she was through the door and pressed against it and Lane was in front of her, delicious body pressed against her, smiling.
“Hi.”
An involuntary grin spread over Anna’s lips. “Hi. This isn’t our usual stairwell.”
“I thought I’d branch out. Wouldn’t want to get stuck in a rut.”
Anna grazed Lane’s lips as she said, “Good idea.”
“I thought so.”
Their lips pressed together with more urgency than Anna had anticipated. Lane’s thigh moved between Anna’s, causing Anna to groan into Lane’s mouth. Her fingers slipped under Lane’s scrub shirt to cling to her skin.
It had started to become like this, in these brief moments. They fell on each other, hungry. Their constant flirting, the verbal sparring, the looks and touches—they all built so that in the rare times they were alone, one of them escalated soft, playful kisses into something much more frantic.
Lane’s teeth bit at Anna’s tongue, and Anna’s nails dug down. Pinned, she was being driven crazy as Lane’s thigh built a rhythm. Soft lips pulled away from Anna’s, and her groan of protest turned to delight as those lips pressed against her neck.
The sound of a mobile ringing echoed, bouncing off the cement walls.
“You have,” Lane bit at the sensitive skin of Anna’s neck as she spoke, “to be,” her tongue traced a trail to Anna’s collarbone, “kidding me.” Lips kissing Anna there once, Lane then met Anna’s irritable look. She snickered.
“What?”
“You look so disgruntled.”
“I hate your phone.”
Lane didn’t move, obviously enjoying the close contact. “Well, yesterday afternoon I hated your pager.”
“Yeah? Yesterday morning, your mobile rang.”
“Should we even mention the evening before?” Lane fished her phone out blindly.
Anna flushed. “Tess should have knocked.”
“Yes, she should have. In a public stairwell.”
“We need to stop making out like high schoolers all over the hospital.”
Mouth dropping open, Lane stared at her. “But I don’t want to stop.”
“Yeah, well, the entire hospital knows what we’re doing—Tess is a giant gossip. The cafeteria lady winked at me yesterday and said she liked that doctors don’t snub nurses anymore.”
“Seriously?”
“Yes, now, go. Return that call—save patients or move wards or whatever you nurses do.”
“Yes, Doctor.” Lane gave a mock salute with two fingers. “See you later?”
“Of course.”
Lane kissed her, pulling back with a groan when her phone started ringing again.
She glared at it. “Okay, I get it!” Lane looked back to Anna, slightly sulky. “Bye.”
Anna pouted as she pulled away. “Bye.”
Hovering a minute, looking like she wanted to fall forward once more, Lane’s eyes flickered to Anna’s lips. With a groan, she turned and walked down the stairs, calling over her shoulder. “You’ll be the death of me, Foster.”
Lane answered the call. “Dad, you have terrible timing.” There was a pause. “Yes, I am supposed to be at work.”
Anna sighed happily and dropped her head back against the door.
Hurriedly washing her hands after surgery, Anna breathed in the smell of coffee. Next to her, Lane waited patiently as she held the take-away cups. They only had five minutes, and Anna didn’t want to waste them. Drying her hands with a paper towel, she’d just thrown it away and turned to face Lane when her phone rang.
With a heavy sigh, Anna shot Lane an apologetic look and pulled the offending item out of her pocket.
“Yes?”
“Anna! Dinner, tonight. Lasagne. Are we still doing that?”
Anna chuckled. “Of course we are, Mum. I’ve been looking forward to that food all week.”
“I bet the kids are, too.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing! Nothing. One question—why don’t you ask Lane?”
Panic flipped in Anna’s gut. What was she supposed to say with Lane in hearing range? She glanced at Lane, who was ostensibly reading the small print on her coffee cup.
“Uh…maybe, Mum?” Did you ask the girl you’ve had one real date with over for dinner with your mother? Was she even comfortable with that concept? The answer to that was, “hell, no.” Anna was trying to keep the two of them separate from the kids, to keep boundaries there. Having Lane over for dinner on a Friday night for her mother’s homemade lasagne was not a notion Anna was particularly excited about.
But, damn her mother, because Anna heard Ella yell in the background, “Nurse Lane is coming? Awesome! I didn’t even get to see her last time, Aunty Na hogged her.”
Pursing her lips, she prayed Lane couldn’t hear the conversation. Anna chanced another glance at her. Still staring at the coffee cup, Lane’s eyes weren’t even moving—faker.
Now Ella thought Lane was coming. Really, damn her mother and her excellent lasagne.
Sandra’s voice came over the phone again, “Oh, honey, you should see her, she’s so excited.” She dropped her voice. “And she had a bad day at school.”
Anna closed her eyes and counted to five. “Will Dad be there?”
Her mother’s voice changed. “Ah…no. He’s staying in.”
Still avoiding her and Toby, then. He seemed to cope with Ella, but she and Toby apparently reminded him too much of Jake.
Lovely. At least that was one less mess to introduce Lane to. “Sure, I’ll ask her. Tell Ella not to get her hopes up. She might be busy.”
“She sounds like the kind of girl who’ll drop everything for you, but whatever, sweetie. I’ll see you at Ja—your place.” It was a slight hiccup, one she tried to glaze over but didn’t completely manage to. Her mother rushed to keep talking. “I’ll bring Ella over and meet you and Toby around six thirty. Tell Lane six thirty sharp. Ella and I will start the food prep here.”
“Yes, Ma.”
“Love you.”
“Love you, too, Mum.”
The phone dropped heavily into her pocket.
Giving up the pretence of reading the three sentences on her cup, Lane looked up. “That sounded, um, fun?”
“Parents.”
“Tell me about it.”
“Ah, Mum is cooking at my place tonight, with the kids—lasagne. She asked if you wanted to join.”
“Oh. Uh…are you okay with that?”
Could this woman be any more thoughtful? “Um, sure, Ella heard, she’s incredibly excited. She’ll talk your ear off about how her cast is coming off in a few weeks.”
“A week, actually.”
“That flew by.”
“Yeah. I’d love to join tonight.” Lane’s smile lit up the darkened scrub room.
Guilt joined the panic that was swirling around Anna’s gut, but she forced her voice to remain neutral, unsure if she was managing to keep the panic off her face. “Six thirty?”
“Sounds great.” Lane grabbed a fistful of Anna’s scrub shirt and tugged her close. As the softness of Lane enveloped her, Anna calmed down slightly. “You can get that look off your face, Anna. It’s just lasagne.”
Lane was onto her. “Sorry. It’s lasagne that involves my mother and hanging at my house and—”
“I don’t have to come,” Lane said. “If it’s going to make your complicated little head explode, I’ll just go get drunk with Kym at a bar and talk her ear off about this totally hot anaesthetist I’m seeing.”
Anna laughed, relaxing completely into Lane and dropping a kiss to her lips. “No. It’s fine—complicated, like you said. Come. Ella would be incredibly disappointed if you didn’t.”
Kissing her once, Lane asked, “Just Ella?”
“Maybe my mum, too.”
Lane actually pouted. “Mean.”
“Fine.” Anna gave in. “I’d miss you, too.”
“I knew it.”
Their kiss was interrupted as Lane pulled back, eyes wide with realisation. “Shit. I’m meeting your mother.”
Smug that Lane finally got it, Anna leant back against the sink. “My point exactly.”
Reaching for one of the coffees, Anna took a triumphant sip as she watched Lane stare straight ahead.
“At least there’ll be lasagne.”
Lane’s voice had never been so high.
Anna got a full half hour at home alone
with Toby before the house was invaded. She was trying to swallow down her conflicted feelings.
It wasn’t like she and Lane would start a romp on the table.
She eyed the spacious dining room table when that occurred to her and had a lot of trouble quelling thoughts of a half-naked Lane spread over it.
Anna read books with Toby, enjoying quiet one-on-one time that wasn’t possible at the day care. He leant against her as he sat in her lap, revelling in it. He pointed delightedly at every page, his lips rounded, saying, “Oo!” at everything. “Oo! Na! Oo!”
They were interrupted at six thirty by the tornado that was her mother, the mouth-watering smell of pre-cooked sauce, and an incredibly overexcited Ella.
The lasagne was quickly thrown together and into the oven. It would only need twenty minutes to cook.
Deftly pouring two glasses of wine, Sandra handed one over. “Here, you need this.”
One gulp and Anna instantly felt a little better. Under her mother’s orders, she started to make a salad, grateful someone else was directing dinner. She had quickly discovered why parents complained about having to cook something every single night: without the option of going out to eat every second night, it was hard to find meals that a fussy toddler and six-year-old would eat; it was incredibly tedious. Anna heaved a sigh as she sliced tomato, amazed that, over such a short period, so much had changed. Every now and again, she just wanted slow-cooked lamb from her old favourite restaurant.
Ella was floating around like a very cute but bad smell, and Anna enjoyed seeing her move out of the quiet headspace she spent so much time in.
“When’s Nurse Lane getting here?”
For the fifth time, Anna looked at the clock. “In about fifteen minutes. Three minutes less than when you asked me the last time.”
Ella clung to the bench with the fingertips of one hand, taking the carrot Anna held out with the other and jamming it in her mouth.
The hope that it would quiet her for at least a moment was soon dashed. “Is she staying for all of dinner?” Ella asked while chewing,
Anna actually laughed. “Yes, Ella Bella. She’s not going to get up and leave halfway through.”
