To the Doctor: A Daughter

by Marion Lennox

  ‘I guess.’ He frowned. ‘A bit. But there doesn’t seem to be any doubt. Gemma said they were even living together for a while. What the pair of them wouldn’t do to hurt her…’

  ‘That’s what I mean.’ Graham shook his head. ‘It’s a long shot-but I guess it’s a stupid suggestion. Whoever the father is, it’s definitely not you. Which is all that matters.’

  ‘Hell, I wish I was.’

  ‘Do you really?’ Graham asked curiously. ‘Two weeks ago the thought of marriage was giving you the collywobbles. Now you have a daughter. Do you want a son as well?’

  There was no hesitation. ‘Yes. And a wife.’ He groaned and slammed his fist down on the table so hard that it hurt. ‘More than anything else in the world.’

  Nate lay awake far into the night, his trapped mind examining every possibility he could think of. Twisting this way and that. Trying to see a way out of this mess.

  And at three in the morning he sat up and turned the light on. A conversation was playing over and over in his head.

  It was his brief conversation with Jeff, his pathologist friend from Sydney Central, when he’d been checking on Gemma’s credentials. He hadn’t understood the conversation then and he didn’t understand it now.

  What had he said?

  He got up and made himself a cup of coffee, thinking back to the conversation. He’d thought it odd at the time, which was why he remembered it

  Did he have it right?

  ‘Margot couldn’t stand the sister. Come to think of it, no one could-once you got to see past that beautiful face. She was as mad as a cut snake and what she and that husband of hers did to Gemma…’

  And…

  ‘They fed her a pack of lies. And she believed it. Hell, as far as I know, she still believes it. She won’t talk about Fiona to anyone.’

  Hell.

  He let his coffee get cold and paced a bit while he thought about it some more.

  It was a long shot-a crazy shot.

  He’d never get anything out of Jeff.

  Would he?

  Damn, it was three in the morning.

  No matter. He picked up the phone and dialled Sydney Central.

  ‘Can you put me through to Jeff Sandhurst, please? Yes, I realise he’s not on duty and I know it’s three in the morning. Yes, I realise… But it’s urgent. Tell him it’s Dr Nate Ethan from Terama and I need to speak to him-now.’

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  NATE rose before dawn. Well, he couldn’t sleep so he decided he might as well work.

  First there was a letter to write. A letter that was short and to the point and entirely satisfactory. He hoped.

  Then he did some random medico-legal paperwork while he waited for his patients to wake, then spent much longer than usual visiting each of them. He was killing time. He wasn’t facing Gemma with what he’d found out. Or what he planned. Who knew how she’d react? And this was too important for her to have scruples.

  This wasn’t pistols at dawn but it was just as unethical.

  Nine o’clock seemed a long way off.

  His last patient was the farmer they’d pulled from under the plane, and Ian wasn’t impressed by the dark shadows under his eyes.

  ‘Hell, Doc, you look as bad as me.’ Ian was recovering beautifully. He was tackling his breakfast bacon and eggs with all the trimmings which, considering the condition he’d been in the night before, was little short of a miracle. ‘Did you have trouble during the night?’

  ‘Um…yes.’ It seemed safer to agree.

  ‘Not as dramatic as our accident, I hope.’ Ian’s face became closed and he winced as he shifted against the pillows. He wasn’t quite as great as he made out. ‘Of all the stupid accidents. I’ve been thinking and thinking. I should have let him have his four feet of land. It was a strip four feet wide and fifty feet long. That’s the strip we were fighting over. And he died for it.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Maybe we just had to fight.’ Ian shook his head. ‘Maybe we even enjoyed the drama of the thing. Seems we’ve been shouting over the fence at each other since we were lads.’ His weathered face puckered in distress. ‘Hell. The whole thing seems so damned pointless now. How’s Olive?’

  ‘Terrible.’ There was no point in dissembling.

  ‘Tell her I’ll milk her cows. I’m mostly running beef cattle now and I’ve only got forty milkers. I can easily run her herd with ours. We’ll split the milk income and it won’t cost her a thing.’

  And why couldn’t he have been as accommodating as this before Hector killed himself? Nate wondered. Why on earth did people fight?

  Why had Fiona wanted to hurt Gemma so badly?

  Maybe she’d sensed that it hadn’t only been in health that Gemma had surpassed her, he thought. She’d been jealous of Gemma long before she’d been diagnosed with diabetes.

  Maybe it was because Gemma was just…good.

  What would Gemma say if she knew what he was about to do?

  He wouldn’t tell her. He’d stay away from her until it was time.

  ‘What the mind doesn’t know the heart doesn’t grieve over,’ he said to himself-and then he thought, Heck, the medical board could come down on him like a ton of bricks…if Alan called his bluff… He who dares wins.

  ‘And if I mouth one more platitude I’m going to go out of my mind,’ he told himself grimly. ‘Bring on nine o’clock.’

  At nine Gemma was packed and ready to go. Cady had his own little suitcase packed. He was tearful, clinging to Mrs McCurdle as if he was being torn apart.

  Gemma wasn’t tearful. She was just…blank.

  ‘You don’t need to say goodbye,’ she told Nate when he finally left his patients and came to find her. She was standing on the veranda, waiting. Alan had told her that he was driving Cady back to Sydney and she was to follow in her own car.

  With Cady on board he was sure she’d follow.

  ‘I’m staying,’ Nate told her. He was standing on the veranda with his daughter cradled in his arms. Mia was fast asleep but for some reason Nate had fetched her from her cot. It was as if he wanted Mia to say her own goodbye.

  Graham had said goodbye briefly-harshly. There’d been raw emotion in the old man’s voice as he’d escaped to the surgery, leaving Nate to see them off.

  So the scene was set. Nate looked across at Cady and he hesitated. The little boy was too dark. Too like his mother.

  He’d be better off away from the veranda where Alan couldn’t see him.

  ‘You haven’t said goodbye to Rufus,’ he told the boy, touching him lightly on his shoulder and sending an urgent message to Mrs McCurdle with his eyes. ‘Helen, what about taking Cady into the kitchen and bringing him back out when Alan gets here?’

  ‘I don’t like my daddy,’ Cady sobbed, and Mrs McCurdle hiccuped on her own sob and took him back into the house.

  Which left Nate and Gemma. And Mia.

  ‘I don’t know how to thank you,’ Gemma started, but he shook his head and looked down at the sleeping Mia.

  ‘There’s no need. You’ve given me my daughter. It’s me who owes you. But there’s something I want you to do for me.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘When Alan comes…I want you to shut up and listen.’

  She frowned in incomprehension. ‘Why?’

  ‘Just… Whatever I say, you’re not to contradict me. Do you hear?’

  ‘I…’ She still didn’t understand but his eyes were compelling. She shrugged. ‘OK. I guess.’

  ‘Then let’s just put these suitcases back inside in the hall,’ he suggested, heaving them back inside the door and out of the way. ‘Just in case they’re not wanted.’

  Alan arrived just when he’d said he would. He was driving a Porsche, and Nate looked from the gleaming car to Gemma’s battered old Datsun and any last qualms he had about what he was doing faded to nothing. By the time Alan climbed from his car Nate was ready-with words if not with pistols.

  And a letter…

&
nbsp; ‘Is the boy ready?’ Alan didn’t bother with greetings. He was focused on Gemma and his dislike was obvious. Whatever pretence he’d ever made of loving this woman was long gone. She was now only a tool.

  Gemma’s face was pure misery. So much so that Nate felt like going in boots and all.

  Which would have been stupid.

  ‘He’s…he’s in the kitchen, saying goodbye to the dog,’ Gemma faltered, trying not to look at Nate. ‘I’ll go and fetch him.’

  ‘Don’t fetch him yet, Gem.’ Nate’s voice was soft and dangerous. He was calmly watchful and his eyes didn’t leave Alan’s face. ‘There’s a few things I want to have out with Alan first.’

  ‘Like what?’ Alan already had his hand on the screen door. ‘I don’t have time to mess around. I’ve wasted enough time already.’

  Nate chose his words with care.

  ‘Then I’ll be blunt. If you’re thinking of taking my son back to Sydney, it’s time you thought again.’

  ‘My son.’

  The words spun around them. Alan stopped dead and stared.

  Nate stood calmly unconcerned, cradling his daughter as if he hadn’t just dropped a bombshell. He’d let the blanket fall away so Mia’s red hair-Nate’s red hair-was clearly visible.

  ‘I don’t want your kid,’ Alan said at last, regaining his composure after what he obviously thought was a mistake. ‘I want mine.’

  ‘But I’m not talking about my daughter.’ Nate’s tone was still steady. Alan clearly hadn’t taken it on board that Mia was a girl. ‘I’m talking about my son.’

  Alan stared. ‘You mean…Cady?’

  ‘I mean Cady.’

  Silence. Gemma didn’t say a word. How could she? She was so stunned she was having trouble standing up. She reached out and grabbed a veranda rail and held on as if she needed support.

  She did.

  ‘I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,’ Alan said at last, and hauled the screen door open-but Nate’s voice cut like a whip.

  ‘I think you do. I think you know very well that Cady is my son. Not yours.’

  ‘He’s not-’

  ‘I fathered two children for Fiona,’ Nate went on ruthlessly. ‘She used me-she chose me and she used me but I let myself be used. Well, why not? If it wasn’t me then it would have been someone else, and she promised that I wouldn’t be liable for their care. But she left me in no doubt that I was the father.’

  ‘I don’t… This is nonsense…’

  ‘Do you want to see the letter she wrote to me after Cady was born?’ Nate shoved his free hand in his pocket and brought out a typed note. It looked battered and frayed around the edges as if it had been read and reread a hundred times. ‘Let me read it to you.’

  And because there was no reply-there could be no reply when both were stunned into silence-he read aloud.

  ‘Dear Nate,

  ‘I thought you should know that you have a son. I’ve called him Cady. Cute, huh? As I told you, there’s no problem with paternity-I’ve suckered my sister’s husband into thinking he’s the father. He has far more resources than you to finance the kid’s upkeep, and this’ll pay off a few scores to my sister as well. But I thought you should know your genes live on. And who knows…if I want another kid some day I know where to find you. The sex was great.

  ‘Fiona’

  Silence, silence and more silence. It stretched on and on into infinity.

  ‘I always thought the boy would be OK,’ Nate said at last. ‘I thought he’d be looked after. And let’s face it, fatherhood wasn’t my style-though the thought of planting a few genes in a woman as gorgeous as Fiona had definite appeal. So I thought no more of it. After this note I didn’t hear from her for three years. Until she wanted another baby.’

  He proffered Mia to Alan-who almost flinched. Nate smiled. ‘Then-after I fathered Mia-I heard nothing again. Nor did I expect to. It was a hell of a shock when Gemma brought me my daughter, told me Fiona was dead and I found out what sort of scumbag was playing father to my son.’

  ‘You don’t… You can’t…’

  ‘Can’t what?’

  ‘Cady is…’

  ‘Are you denying the children are mine?’ Nate lifted the blanket right away from Mia’s face then, so her colouring was clear to all of them. The similarities were striking. ‘You are kidding.’

  ‘Cady…’

  ‘Cady’s colouring’s not as obvious,’ Nate told him. ‘But the similarities are there.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘Then let’s do a blood test, shall we?’ Nate said softly-and watched Alan’s face lose its colour. ‘A DNA test can be done very easily. It’ll establish once and for all that I fathered both the children.’

  He was mad, Gemma thought blindly. Stark staring mad!

  Alan was staring at Nate with such vicious hatred in his eyes that Gemma felt sick. If there’d been pistols available there’d have been blood spilt, she thought.

  There was a baby between them.

  Nate’s smile was polite and cold and absolutely implacable.

  ‘Get your butt off my property,’ he told him.

  ‘You-’

  ‘Now.’

  To Gemma’s absolute bewilderment, Alan swore once, turned on his heel-and went.

  Gemma sat down-hard-right on the top step and stuck her head between her knees. By the time she raised her head the Porsche was disappearing with a screech of burned rubber and Nate was sitting down beside her. Mia slept on regardless. He held her easily in the crook of one arm-a contented dad, supremely pleased with himself

  Smoking pistols wouldn’t have felt half as good.

  ‘Good, huh?’ He looked modestly down at the letter in his hand and Gemma could only stare at him in disbelief.

  ‘Fiona never wrote that letter.’

  ‘Of course she didn’t. I wrote it this morning.’ His voice was smugness personified. ‘Do you like the bit about the sex?’

  ‘You…you…’

  ‘Wonderful person?’ he suggested hopefully, and she choked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No! Nate, it’s not the truth.’

  ‘It’s no less of a fabrication than the lies your sister and your ex-husband have been feeding you.’

  Silence. Then… ‘If someone doesn’t tell me what’s going on,’ she said softly, ‘I’m going to drum my heels on the veranda and have hysterics. At full throttle.’

  ‘Can I watch?’

  ‘Nate…’

  ‘Gemma.’

  ‘Just tell me.’

  ‘You can’t guess?’

  She took a deep breath. ‘Somehow… Am I missing something or has Alan just conceded that he’s not Cady’s father?’

  ‘I believe he’s conceded that. Yes.’

  ‘But…you’re not?’

  ‘I’m not.’ He smiled, his very nicest smile that threw her into even greater turmoil than she was already feeling. ‘No, Gemma. Contrary to what I told Alan, I would never knowingly agree to father a child I didn’t intend to care for. I met Fiona for the first time twelve months before Mia was born.’

  She thought that over and came to the obvious conclusion. ‘So you lied.’

  ‘I lied.’ His virtuous look came back. ‘But for a very good cause.’

  ‘But… How did you know…how did you guess?’

  ‘Now, that’s a bit of a problem,’ he told her. ‘I sort of hoped you wouldn’t ask that. Can I say that I found out that he was gay?’

  ‘I wouldn’t believe you.’

  ‘Rats.’

  ‘So…’

  ‘Gemma, did Alan ever volunteer to be a sperm donor?’ Nate asked, and he watched as she took that on board. Her face changed. To even deeper confusion.

  ‘Yes. Yes, he did. Just before we were married. I wasn’t keen on it, but they were advertising round the hospital and he thought it’d be great…’

  ‘To spread his seed a little? I can see that in him. But he only
did it the once?’

  ‘He said once was enough.’ She was thinking it through. ‘But I remember…his mother was so pleased that he’d done it because he’d had mumps really badly as a teenager and she’d been worried that…’ Her voice trailed away to a note of discovery. ‘Oh.’

  ‘Oh’s right. So he’ll have donated sperm. He’ll have been tested for fertility. In Sydney Central’s pathology lab. Who knows what he was told? But we can guess. Maybe that’s why he didn’t go back again. And if… Maybe if he was told he was infertile but then your sister told him she was carrying his child…’

  She was staring in open-mouthed amazement. ‘Of course. That was why…’

  ‘Why he forgot about your salary? Why he dumped you faster than he could look at you and moved in with Fiona? A beautiful woman like Fiona who was telling the world that she was carrying his child? Wow! He’d married you for money but even to a creep like Alan some things are better than money.’

  ‘So then…’ Gemma was still thinking it through. ‘Cady wasn’t his?’

  ‘No, Gemma, Cady wasn’t his. And maybe deep down he knew it. Maybe that’s why he could treat Cady so dreadfully.’

  ‘Then who? Who is his father?’

  ‘I don’t know. Does it matter?’

  She thought about that for a whole two seconds and shook her head. ‘Of course not. If it’s not Alan. Oh, joy, if it’s not Alan…’

  Bleakness was disappearing by the moment and a brightness was appearing that he’d never seen before. It was as if a weight had been lifted that had been too great to be borne.

  ‘Fiona wanted to hurt me so badly…’ she said slowly. ‘She would have lied to anyone. Nate, how do you know all this?’

  The answer to that was easy. ‘I don’t.’

  ‘But…’

  He placed a finger on her lips. His baby was sleeping peacefully against his chest. The kookaburras were at it again in the gums above their heads, their laughter a glorious background for the crazy conversation happening on the veranda. The morning sun was on their faces, and the world was righting itself. It was as it should be.

  Time is to come.

  ‘Gemma, I can’t tell you how I know,’ Nate said softly. ‘If I’m queried then I don’t know. Suffice it to say that people have broken a few rules on your behalf. Because they care about you.’