The Surgeon’s Gift

by Carol Marinelli

  Her words seemed to reach him and Hugh let out a long ragged sigh. Rachael blinked a couple of times, scarcely able to believe the change in him, the proprietorial way he was behaving, and yet she understood it.

  ‘Then get rid of him.’ He watched as she opened the car door. ‘I’ll wait here.’

  There wasn’t much mowing going on in suburbia now. Every lawnmower in earshot must have been turned off as she stepped out of the car. But, then, who could blame them? Hugh’s black sports car was pretty eye-catching and a woman in a silver ballgown at three p.m. was quite a sight. Toss in an ex-husband waiting on the doorstep and, hell, why not call the wife and kids out to have a look?

  ‘Richard,’ she started angrily, striding toward him, but he beat her to it.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ He motioned to the car. ‘I didn’t mean to turn up while he was here. I don’t want to cause you any problems.’

  ‘Well, you are,’ she said pointedly. ‘Just what do you want? What on earth made you come here?’ Her voice was rising now and Richard put his finger up to his lips.

  ‘Please, Rachael, everyone’s looking …’

  ‘Let them look,’ she snarled. ‘I’m not your wife any more, Richard, you can’t tell me to be quiet and blend in any more. If I want to make a scene then I damn well will.’

  ‘I need to talk.’

  ‘I don’t want to hear it.’

  ‘Please,’ he begged. ‘I’m not coping.’

  His words stunned her, literally stunned her into silence, the smart, fiery response dying on her lips as she looked at him, really looked. And he looked terrible. His face was an unhealthy grey, there were dark rings under his eyes and for someone as proud and correct as Richard the admission that life wasn’t perfect was a shock in itself.

  ‘Can we go inside?’

  Dumbly she nodded, her dark locks falling forward as she scrabbled in her bag for her keys.

  Amy.

  It was the only thing on her mind. How many nights had she sat with her memory box on her lap, staring at the photos, running the ribboned lock of her daughter’s hair through her fingers? Only yesterday, hadn’t she held the velvet of her maternity dress in her hand and held onto a memory? She didn’t have much but she did have proof. Tangible proof that Amy had existed.

  And what did Richard have? Nothing.

  And if, after all this time, he wanted to talk, to share in the painfully few memories then who was she to deny him? Amy had a mother and father, she deserved one dignified afternoon in her memory.

  Hugh would have to understand.

  Hugh!

  ‘Wait inside.’ She literally flew down the path to the car, but as she did so she heard the engine start up. Breathless, she careered to a halt by the driver’s window, and by the look on Hugh’s face she half expected him to drive off. But he seemed to relent and the glass slid down, Rachael’s face anxious as she peered inside.

  ‘Hugh, please, don’t go like this.’

  ‘Like what, Rachael?’ He was staring fixedly ahead.

  ‘Angry.’ She gestured in the air. ‘Upset.’

  ‘What do you want, a cheerful wave and a kiss for luck, or perhaps you want me to wait outside, sit here until you’ve finished your little tête-á-tête?’

  ‘No.’ Nervously she chewed her bottom lip, unsure what to say. The truth was she didn’t really know what she wanted Hugh to do. ‘I’m just asking you not to drive off angry, to try to understand that I need to talk to him. I mean, Richard needs to talk. He’s not coping. It’s just for today, Hugh, it really is a one-off.’

  ‘Please,’ he scoffed, his fingers drumming on the wheel. ‘I mean it, Rachael, I’m not sharing you. It’s him or me. He’s in or out your life as far I’m concerned, not somewhere in the middle, and if that makes me arrogant or jealous then I’ll put my hand up and take the blame. He hurt you,’ he rasped. ‘He nearly destroyed you, yet with one crook of his finger you open the door to him.’

  ‘We were together for eight years,’ she pleaded, but her attempt at placating Hugh only seemed to incense him further.

  ‘And we’ve been together one night.’ He gave a low, bitter laugh. ‘I get the picture.’

  ‘It’s not that.’

  ‘Then what? What is he doing in your house while I’m sitting in the car?’

  She opened her mouth, then snapped it closed again. How could she expect him to understand? How could anyone understand? Hugh had offered her a sympathetic ear, a free rein to talk about her beloved daughter, but … Richard was, always would be Amy’s father. All she wanted was one poignant afternoon, the chance to talk about her labour and pregnancy with someone who had been there, to talk to someone who had held Amy, knew what she had been, what she could have been. In time she would explain to Hugh, but not now, not with the engine running and a street full of neighbours. For now he’d just have to do with the condensed version.

  ‘He wants to talk about Amy.’ She watched for Hugh’s reaction but his features were unreadable.

  ‘Are you sure about that?’ There was a sneer in Hugh’s voice that just didn’t belong. ‘Are you sure he doesn’t just know what buttons to push?’

  ‘That’s a terrible thing to say.’ Incensed, she stepped back then thought better and angrily swung her face to confront him head on. ‘We had a child together.’

  ‘Did he hold you then, Rachael? Did he comfort you, try to understand? No, he signed you up for the bloody gym and told you to pull yourself together. He wants you back, Rachael. I’m a man and I know what he’s thinking. He’s seen you with me and he doesn’t like it.’

  ‘I’m going inside,’ she said firmly, but her resolve wavered at the final hurdle. ‘Is that it, then, is that us finished?’

  If her eyes hadn’t been screwed tightly shut she’d have seen his face soften slightly.

  ‘No,’ he said after an age, his voice tired, almost weary. ‘I’ll come over tonight but, heaven help me, Rachael, if he’s still there you can forget it.’

  The engine roared into life and he sped off so quickly she was left literally standing in a puff of smoke. With a proud toss of her head she walked along the street and up her path, listening as the mowers purred back into life, resisting the urge to shout that the show was over as she marched into the house.

  Annoyingly, Richard was making coffee.

  Extremely annoyingly, in fact. There he was in her kitchen, filling up her mugs from her kettle as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

  ‘I can’t find the sweeteners,’ he said by way of greeting.

  ‘I don’t have any,’ Rachael said with a distinct edge to her voice. ‘It’s the real thing here, Richard. I take two sugars now, two large sugars.’ He spooned them in without comment, which must have hurt, Rachael thought with a wry smile, and as he pulled open the fridge she leant back against the kitchen wall. ‘If you’re looking for the low-fat milk, there isn’t any.’

  ‘Rachael, please, I didn’t come here for this.’

  Suddenly she felt stupid, stupid and petty. In the months they had been apart she had somehow distorted him into some sort of calorie-counting monster, an ogre, but now here he was, and all he looked like was Richard, a little bit more jaded, a bit shabbier, definitely more tired, but the monster she had envisaged just didn’t exist.

  ‘He seemed pretty put out,’ Richard said, handing her the mug, which she took without thanks.

  ‘Do you blame him? Ex-husbands don’t make the most welcome guest on a Sunday afternoon.’

  ‘So it’s serious, then?’

  It would have been so much easier to have said no. To tell Richard that it was early days yet, far too soon to be talking things up, but it would have been a lie. She and Hugh had shared so much in so little time. She had slept with him, the only man whose bed she had shared apart from Richard’s. There was so much chemistry she could have filled a high school’s curriculum talking about it, and to dismiss it would have cheapened it.

  ‘Yes, it’s serious.’


  ‘Oh.’

  The coffee was awful—had always been awful when Richard had made it, come to think of it. She wasn’t sure how he did it but he never got it right. Two sugars, the best instant coffee on the supermarket shelf and a generous splash of milk and it still didn’t work. Just about summed them up really. Good-looking, good job, nice home, and still it hadn’t worked out. Tipping it down the sink, the meaning was wasted on Richard.

  ‘I’m going to have a shower and change, I’ll be down in a moment.’

  She needed a moment to compose herself and to get out of this ridiculous dress, but, stepping under the shower, she hated the water that doused her body, hating it for removing every lingering trace of Hugh. Wrapping a towel around her, she picked up her dress, inhaling the tangy citrus that was so much part of the man she loved as if gaining strength. She dressed for Richard, in the sloppiest leggings and most faded T-shirt, totally ignoring her make-up bag. Opening her bedside drawer, Rachael felt her bitterness vanish, a sting behind her eyes so alien it took a moment to register they were tears as she pulled out the simple box, adorned with shells and starfish filled with all her memories. She wondered, begged of herself just how she should play this.

  It would be too much to walk in the lounge and place it on the coffee-table, expecting Richard to just open right up, but she didn’t want to lose the moment by having to escape upstairs to retrieve it. On legs that felt like jelly, Rachael made her way downstairs, carefully placing the box by the phone, ready to retrieve it when the moment was right.

  Was there a flicker of disappointment in Richard’s eyes as she sat down on the sofa in front of him? Had he expected the groomed woman he had seen last night to appear again?

  ‘Better?’

  Rachael nodded. ‘You said you weren’t coping,’ she started carefully.

  ‘I’m not.’ He looked around the lounge and out the window, his eyes finally coming back to her. ‘Work’s been hard.’

  ‘I know.’ She did know, Rachael knew only too well how hard it was to smile and just carry on.

  ‘I’ve lost a couple of big clients.’ He raked a hand through his hair. ‘They expect you to come along to these functions, to say the right thing all the time, to look the part …’ He was fiddling with his ring finger now, his empty ring finger. ‘You’ve met Susie.’

  Rachael frowned as she nodded, unsure where he was heading.

  ‘It’s just not working.’

  ‘I’m sorry. She seemed …’ Her voice trailed off. There was no polite way to describe Susie.

  ‘She’s not you,’ Richard said, and the break in his voice filled the strained air. ‘I should never have let you go.’

  ‘We weren’t happy, Richard,’ she pointed out. ‘We fought all the time.’

  ‘But things could be better,’ he argued. ‘I really need you, Rachael. I know that now, and last night was the final straw. Even the other partners say I was mad to let you go.’

  ‘What have the other partners got to do with anything?’ Rachael said through paling lips. ‘Where on earth do they come into this?’

  ‘They don’t,’ Richard said in a voice that did nothing to convince her. ‘This is about you and I, about getting back what we lost. I’m sure with a bit of give and take on both sides we could make things work.’ His looked at her imploringly. ‘You seem so much better now.’

  ‘You mean thinner.’ There was a warning note to her voice, which Richard quickly heeded.

  ‘Not just thinner,’ he said. ‘Happier, back in the swing of things. Maybe now that you’re over your depression we could give it another try.’

  ‘My depression!’ She stood up, her ears ringing with his choice of words. ‘And where the hell were you when I was getting over my ‘‘depression’’?’ Her voice was rising with each and every word, every livid nerve in her body snapping in fury. ‘Where were you when I needed you to be there for me, for both of us? At some bloody five-course dinner, making up ridiculous excuses to explain my absence when anyone with half a brain would have known why I didn’t want to come out; anyone with an ounce of compassion would have known that I wasn’t up to ‘‘networking’’. You should have been at home, Richard, not feeling sorry for yourself and wondering why I couldn’t still fit into a size eight dress, wondering when I’d snap out of it and get on with being the perfect wife. You should have been at home.’

  She sat down again, stunned at the venom in her attack, the violence of her words surprising even herself. ‘What about Amy?’ she whispered. ‘What about our daughter?’ Surely she couldn’t have got it so wrong, surely Richard not coping wasn’t to do with losing a couple of clients or the fact his fellow partners were moaning about his choice of date?

  ‘If you want to have another baby,’ Richard started nervously, still reeling from her outburst. ‘If that’s what it takes then that’s what we’ll do.’

  ‘That’s it?’ Her voice was shaking, her eyes widening incredulously. ‘That’s your solution to our ‘‘little problem’’?’

  ‘Rachael, please, stop making me out to be the bad guy. All I wanted, all I ever wanted was the best for you.’

  ‘The best for you, you mean.’

  ‘There’s no shame in looking nice, there’s nothing wrong with taking a pride in your appearance. You think that hotshot plastic surgeon would look twice at you if you were overweight?’

  ‘Yes,’ she answered definitely, immediately. ‘He cares for me, Richard—me, not for some trophy he can display to his colleagues, not as some asset that might help further his career. And I know as sure as I’m standing here that if we’d just lost a baby the last thing he’d even notice would be if my dress size had gone up.’

  But Richard couldn’t see it, simply refused to believe that what Rachael was saying might possibly be true.

  ‘Then you’re a fool, Rachael,’ he said spitefully. ‘And if that’s your attitude then you’re only going to get hurt again. Anyone can say the right things when the going’s good. Anyone can make promises at the beginning of a relationship, say the right thing because it’s what the other one wants to hear. I wonder if this—’ his lips sneered around the name ‘—Hugh would be quite so understanding if he’d been through what I’d had to put up with.’

  ‘Get out.’ The tremor in her voice had doubled, her lips were white as she struggled to stay calm. ‘Get out of my home, Richard.’ Something in her eyes, her voice, her body told him that she meant business. ‘And don’t even think about coming back.’

  ‘You’re just going to be hurt,’ was his parting shot as he pulled open the front door.

  She saw it then, Amy’s memory box, standing unopened on the hallway table, the final trigger as she watched him leave. Running up the hallway, there was so much Rachael wanted to scream at him, so much she wanted to say. She didn’t care about the neighbours, didn’t care about anything except righting a thousand wrongs, unleashing some of the anger that seemed to be suffocating her. But as she wrenched the door open huge arms held her, huge arms that wrapped around her like a vice, pushing her inside, holding her tight when she wanted to run, pulling her back as she crossed over the edge, burying his lips in her hair and gently hushing her as she fought like a cat to get past.

  ‘He’s gone, Rachael,’ Hugh rasped. ‘Just let him go.’

  ‘I hate him,’ she said. ‘I hate him.’ Burying her head in Hugh’s chest, she breathed in that smell, too much, much too much, but everything that she needed right now. ‘I thought you’d gone.’

  ‘I’m here,’ he whispered.

  ‘I didn’t think you’d come back.’

  ‘I’m not just jealous.’ He half smiled, pulling her gently back to look up at him. ‘I’m obsessive as well. One drive round the block and I was back.’

  He led her to the sofa. Pulling her down into his lap, he held her for a moment as she wrestled with the tears in her eyes.

  ‘Let it out,’ he said gently. ‘I’m here.’

  ‘He said we could have
another baby.’ An angry sob strangling her voice as she felt his grip tighten around her, heard the anger in the rapid breath he exhaled. But Hugh didn’t say anything, just sat quietly holding her, letting her continue. ‘I don’t want another baby, I want … I want …’

  But she couldn’t say it, couldn’t do it, couldn’t quite let go of that part of herself. Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath, knowing that there was going to be nothing pretty about her tears, scared, so scared of what might be swept away when the floodgates finally opened, so deep her pain Rachael truly thought she might vomit, might scream like a banshee if she gave in now.

  Yes, Hugh might love her, but there were some things he really didn’t need to see …

  ‘I’m fine now.’

  How long they sat there she wasn’t sure. Hugh held her, not saying a word, just holding her as the shadows on the wall lengthened and she stared dry-eyed at the darkening sky, only moving to grab a throw from the sofa when the cool change swept in. Wrapping it tightly around her, Hugh pulled her back into his arms, holding her tightly as if somehow his warmth might thaw the icy wall around that warm and vulnerable heart, wishing he could stroke away all that pain, say the right thing, but knowing deep down that words didn’t always help.

  Finally, when her eyes were heavy and sleep was the only escape, Rachael pulled away. ‘I think I’ll go to bed.’ She answered the unspoken question that hung in the air. ‘Alone.’

  ‘Don’t make me leave you, Rachael,’ he pleaded.

  ‘Please, Hugh, I really need to be alone.’

  ‘No, you don’t,’ he argued. ‘I want to be here with you.’

  ‘Don’t.’ Her hand shot up to her ears and she closed her eyes. ‘I just don’t need this right now.’

  She felt so washed out and so unsteady when she stood it was like she had been in bed for a week with the flu. ‘You understand, don’t you?’ she asked as he reluctantly turned to go.

  His hand stilled on the doorhandle. His back was to her, but she heard the pain in his voice as he answered, ‘Not really, Rachael, but I’m trying to.’

  And as he quietly slipped away she stood in the dark living room, listening to the hum of his engine purring through the empty streets.