New Doc in Town / Orphan Under the Christmas Tree

by Meredith Webber

  ‘Not yet. I’ve asked Lauren to talk to Alyssa later today, when she’s feeling up to a visit,’ he explained, assuring himself it was Alyssa’s well-being in the forefront of his mind.

  The question of reporting it haunted Tom. Reporting it would bring in a whole raft of outsiders—Lauren among them—but starting with the police. They would question Alyssa, talk to her about the options she had, advise and consult, and generally attempt to help her out of the situation in which she found herself.

  A situation she might not want to escape no matter how sensible escape would be.

  His stomach clenched at the thought of what battered women went through both physically and emotionally or maybe clenched at the thought of what the teenage Lauren had suffered, but his stomach would just have to live with it.

  ‘Alyssa’s emotionally fragile,’ he continued to explain to his colleague. ‘And right now she’s also a long way from her own family and friends so she’s lacking support, although her mother-in-law is behind her and all for reporting it. I’m concerned that pushing her into the system might make things much harder for her. Let’s leave it until Lauren’s seen her.’

  He ended the conversation, promising he’d be over at the hospital before long, then sat down on the veranda to try to sort out the increasingly twisted strands of thought inside his head.

  Ignoring the strand that was Lauren, he considered how Alyssa must be feeling. She was American so being out here in Australia might mean she was cut off from her family and friends. But he knew enough about DV situations to know the woman was nearly always isolated from her support very early on in the relationship.

  Tom looked hopefully down the drive. Lauren would know what to do.

  Was he being fair, asking this of her?

  Oh, she’d handle it, for all the emotional storm she’d suffered earlier. The professional Lauren he knew could handle anything, but at what risk to the woman inside her professional armour?

  Realising that his thoughts were becoming more tangled than ever, he gave up trying to sort the muddle and returned to the hospital.

  Lauren and Bobby walked slowly home. The house was quiet but the door to Tom’s room was open, the bed unmade but empty.

  ‘He must have gone back to work,’ she said to Bobby, but he was far too excited unpacking his new clothes to worry about his protector, while Lauren was relieved to find she could avoid the man for a little longer, her embarrassment over her meltdown still burning in her, while guilt still nibbled around the edges of her mind.

  Fortunately she had Bobby as a diversion—a very good diversion as it happened when he unpacked his new clothes and announced, ‘I’ll put them on now and ride the bike over to the house to show the other kids.’

  Lauren wanted to protest that they needed to be washed first, but his face was shiny with excitement and she couldn’t dampen it. Although riding over to the house? It was only a couple of blocks, but how old should kids be before they were allowed to ride bikes around town on their own?

  She’d been driving the old ute on the farm when she wasn’t much older than Bobby but, never having lived in town, she wasn’t certain of the ‘rules’!

  ‘I could drive you over,’ she suggested, thinking about time and when Alyssa might be well enough for a visit. Her mind was swinging between Bobby and the patient while she resolutely ignored any thoughts of the past. ‘I can put the bike in my car and you can ride it around the yard when we get to the house, although most of the kids will still be at school. So what if we do this?’

  Bobby offered her a suspicious glare, the shiny excitement gone, and she knew she had to put him first—at least until Tom could take over the child-care or she could get Jo back to babysit.

  ‘What?’

  ‘We wash your new clothes because sometimes new clothes are stiff and prickly and washing will make them soft, and by the time we’ve put them through the dryer, the kids at the house will be home from school and you can show them then.’

  ‘So what’ll I do now?’ her small guest demanded.

  Watching another of the hospital DVDs would be the ideal solution, but Lauren was sure that too much TV was bad for children.

  ‘How about you help me work out how to use Dr Tom’s washing machine? Mine’s different but you’re a boy so you should be able to work it out for me.’

  Blatant sexism in that statement but she knew she had to keep him occupied, though getting the washing machine started wouldn’t take for ever …

  ‘Get any other dirty clothes you’ve got out of your bedroom,’ she told him, and though he balked he did go off, muttering to himself, returning with what must be the entire contents of his small duffel bag.

  ‘It’s all dirty,’ he announced. ‘Mum hated washing.’

  ‘I don’t think anyone loves it,’ Lauren told him. ‘But with machines it’s a lot easier. My old granny used to boil all the clothes in a copper. It was outside the house, and you had to light a fire under it, and carry the water to it in buckets.’

  ‘Like a witch’s cauldron? The thing witches put stuff in to make spells?’ Bobby asked, and as Lauren acknowledged the old coppers were very like a witch’s cauldron, she wondered if he’d seen such things on television or a DVD or if he was a reader.

  She hoped it was the latter and made a mental note to collect some more books that might suit him from the refuge.

  The refuge!

  She’d had so much on her mind since Friday she hadn’t even collected the cheque from the fundraising. Would it be enough to keep the refuge open?

  For a short time at least …

  Should she be concentrating on that rather than an orphaned little boy?

  Of course not! Right now Bobby needed her, and later Alyssa needed her, and later again—well, then she’d think about the refuge …

  The boy who needed her most was in the laundry, carefully studying all the knobs on the washing machine, eventually telling Lauren they should look for a book of instructions.

  ‘Not because I can’t work it,’ he assured her, ‘but we don’t want to bust Tom’s washing machine.’

  Tom, not Dr Tom—well that was okay, Lauren decided. Tom had moved from the professional Bobby might have seen at the hospital where he was Dr Tom to everyone, to a protector.

  A friend?

  Lauren hoped so.

  She found the washing machine manual on a shelf above the machine and wondered for a moment where someone coming into her house might find hers—in a box under the bed perhaps?

  In with her recipe books in a basket in the kitchen?

  Turning her mind back to Bobby, she found him studying the illustrations and comparing them to the machine, taking total responsibility for the operation. He set all the buttons and dials and got it going, Lauren crossing her fingers behind her back that it would work because he was refusing to allow her to look at the book.

  ‘It will take forty-eight minutes,’ he announced, closing the book but keeping hold of it. ‘What can we do for forty-eight minutes?’

  Have a reasonably good panic attack, was Lauren’s first thought but she forced the past—and what lay ahead—from her mind again.

  ‘Have lunch? I know it’s late but we had a late breakfast and you had ice cream with Jo but we should have something to eat. And we should do some grocery shopping while we’re out, so we’re not eating all Tom’s food. We’ll make sandwiches and while we’re eating we’ll write a shopping list. You can tell me what you like to eat.’

  ‘Sausages,’ Bobby announced, ‘and Tom’s got a barbecue, I saw it outside on the veranda. I like barbecued sausages in bread with tomato sauce, only I like ordinary sausages best, not the fancy ones like we got at the markets yesterday. They were okay but I like shop sausages best.’

  Thinking of sausages was a sure cure for panic attacks!

  The market sausages were probably healthier, but however much he liked sausages of any kind, Lauren doubted they were nutritious food for a growing boy—not if eat
en every day. She thought about this as Bobby opened Tom’s pantry and surveyed the spreads available for sandwiches, announcing he’d have peanut butter.

  ‘And he hasn’t got any cereal, so you’d better put that on the list,’ he added. ‘I like Frosty Flakes, the kind with the gorilla on the packet.’

  Lauren had never heard of Frosty Flakes let alone seen a gorilla on a packet of cereal but she found a pen and paper and obediently wrote Frosty Flakes on it, adding milk, which would surely be needed to go with the cereal.

  And sausages in case he really wouldn’t eat anything else.

  And bread.

  And tomato sauce …

  Later she’d have a think about nutrition but right now it seemed a good idea to have food in the house that Bobby would actually eat.

  Caring for a growing boy, as Bobby had called himself, was certainly throwing up some challenges …

  Bobby was on his fourth peanut-butter sandwich—when to stop, something else she’d have to check—when Tom walked in. Lauren’s stomach squelched and embarrassment flooded her body, but Tom’s easy grin restored a little of her equilibrium, enough for her to ask, ‘Peanut-butter sandwich?’ as casually as if she hadn’t been weeping all over him only a couple of hours earlier.

  ‘Thanks,’ Tom said, his grin turning into an ‘everything’s okay’ kind of smile just for her, the message in his eyes telling her they’d get through this, although what Tom had to get through she didn’t know …

  He ruffled Bobby’s hair as he walked past to subside into a chair beside the young boy, who, Lauren noticed, moved in his chair, just a little closer to Tom.

  Fair enough, she could have done with being closer to Tom herself, so confused did she feel.

  Not that she could rely on him to sort her out. He was a friend, nothing more.

  ‘Coffee or tea?’ she offered, dragging her attention back to her housewifely duties, passing him a sandwich.

  ‘Coffee would be lovely but you don’t have to get it.’

  She smiled at him, a real smile this time, as Tom’s remembered kindness while she’d stuttered out her confession warmed the cold and shaken bits inside her.

  ‘That protest lacks oomph,’ she teased him. ‘To make it really effective you have to pretend to be getting up from the chair, probably groaning a little with the effort.’

  He smiled back at her and for a moment she felt a stillness in the air, the room disappearing from in front of her eyes—as if some cataclysmic change was occurring.

  Surely not from a smile.

  It was a hangover reaction from earlier.

  Although …

  Steadying herself, she boiled the electric kettle and poured the water over coffee grounds in Tom’s plunger, mentally adding coffee beans and a new toaster to the shopping list.

  Waiting for the grounds to settle before pushing the plunger, she sniffed the delicious aroma and thought how a smile couldn’t stop the world from turning.

  Something had, she reminded herself.

  She pushed the plunger down slowly, forcing the grounds to the bottom of the jug, then poured two cups, one for Tom, one for herself, hesitating at the kitchen bench, surely not afraid to turn around?

  Surely not worried he’d smile again?

  ‘Was it my fault?’

  Lauren had, very carefully—wary of smiles—put Tom’s cup of coffee on the table in front of him when, right out of the blue, Bobby asked the question.

  Startled, she turned to look at the little boy. The usual scowl was gone from his face, but he was frowning, clearly worrying about something.

  ‘The toaster?’ she asked, then before he could reply, she added, ‘Don’t worry, we’ll get a new one when we do our grocery shop.’

  Bobby shot her a look that clearly said, Stupid woman.

  ‘Greg hitting Mum—was it my fault?’ he demanded, his voice cracking slightly so Lauren understood this had been bubbling away inside him for some time.

  She knelt beside him but Tom was quicker, lifting Bobby onto his lap and giving him a tight hug before tilting the boy’s face up to his.

  ‘Now, you listen to me, young man,’ Tom said, gently but firmly. ‘There is no way any of what happened between your mum and Greg was anything to do with you.’

  Bobby buried his head in Tom’s shirt so his next words were muffled, but no less devastating for not being clear.

  ‘He’d say I was a brat and swear about me when he was yelling at her or hitting her so it had to be my fault.’

  She saw Tom’s arms tighten around the distraught child, and heard him murmuring soothing words, assuring and reassuring Bobby that grown-up people might behave very badly from time to time but it was never the fault of the child or children in their lives.

  Echoes in his words resonated deep inside Lauren and she felt she, too, was getting absolution for the guilt and shame she’d carried for so long.

  Something worked for Bobby, too. After rubbing his head against Tom’s shirt one last time, probably wiping his nose on it, the little boy clambered off Tom’s knee, announcing he had to check the washing, and disappeared into the laundry.

  Lauren shook her head, her own problems forgotten as she considered what Bobby had been carting around in his young conscience.

  ‘You wouldn’t believe we have a child health worker talking all the time to these kids about them not being responsible for adult behaviour. That’s the one essential employee at the refuge because we’re aware of the damage DV does to the kids who are exposed to it, but we mustn’t be using the right approach that Bobby was still worried he was to blame. Are we doing it wrong, Tom?’

  He reached out and took her hand, and once again it seemed as if the world had disappeared, leaving only the two of them on the planet, but now wasn’t the time for be worrying about whatever was happening in her head—or heart maybe?—she had to work out how to do things better for the children at the refuge.

  ‘I doubt any amount of counselling, or play-acting, or support can take away a child’s memories of violence. My parents didn’t hit each other but they yelled and no amount of psychology study or analysis or counselling—and, yes, I’ve had it—has eradicated from my head the sound of their voices screaming abuse at each other as the car crashed and killed them.’

  He paused, and Lauren, so shocked to hear what had happened to her friend, turned her hand over so she could squeeze his fingers in silent support.

  ‘You’d think I’d hear the crash, the noise of shrieking metal, maybe even my sister crying out before she died, but, no, I hear their voices … ‘

  ‘Your sister died as well?’

  The words were out before she could stop them, although now they were out she had a vague memory of him mentioning the sister being killed.

  Tom didn’t pause to answer. He was already on his feet, dropping a light kiss on the top of her head, telling her he had to get back to work, and that Alyssa was sleeping but if Lauren could call in later …

  He’d had a sister?

  Of course there was no reason why she should have known.

  Sure, they were friends, but friends didn’t tell each other everything.

  His sister had also died.

  The little boy he’d once been—the one in the strange bed—had lost his whole family?

  Water sloshing around her feet brought her back to the present.

  ‘Bobby?’

  ‘It’s not my fault!’

  And it wasn’t. Something had clogged the drain in the tub beside the washing machine—the tub into which the waste-water from the machine ran. By the time they’d cleaned up the mess and hung out the washing—she’d opted not to use the dryer, fearful of what else might go wrong—there was only an hour before the shops shut and they had to put off the visit to the house to get their groceries.

  And some time this afternoon or evening she had to visit Alyssa!

  Mopping up after Bobby seemed a far easier task …

  CHAPTER EIGHT

 
TOM returned to an empty house but a suspiciously clean kitchen and laundry floor. Having experienced similar problems with his washing machine, he didn’t need to see the clothes hanging on the line to understand what had happened.

  Small-boy clothes! Surely the sight of a child’s clothes hanging on a clothesline couldn’t give him a swirling feeling in his stomach. Hunger, that’s what it would be. One peanut-butter sandwich did not a lunch make! Although hadn’t he had the same feeling when they’d looked at the owls?

  Owls—kisses—Lauren …

  To distract himself from thoughts he couldn’t handle, he looked out at the clothesline again, then frowned. Not all the clothes were new! What looked like the contents of Bobby’s entire wardrobe were strung up on the lines. Had some of the clothes been in Joan’s case—the case he’d tucked up on a high cupboard—also dirty? He should check.

  Or get Lauren to check.

  But thinking of Lauren and what she’d been through in her sensitive adolescent years made his stomach swirl again so he turned back to the pantry and refrigerator and made himself another peanut-butter sandwich, just in case it was hunger.

  But the peanut-butter sandwich did nothing to chase away the images of Alyssa’s battered body, and now his mind kept imposing Lauren’s face on the images.

  He had to do something! Something practical. Joan Sims’s suitcases!

  He opened the first one, and stared at the contents, completely bewildered by what looked like an open-weave canvas and lots of bits of wool—little bits of wool. Nothing else as far as he could see so he closed the case again, feeling slightly embarrassed to have opened it.

  But he desperately needed a diversion and if clothes needed washing …

  He opened the second case—normal stuff—toiletries and, yes, clothes, some clean, but a big plastic bag full of garments obviously intended for the laundry.

  Tom took the bag through to the laundry, dumped the lot in the machine and got it going, checking first that the outlet wasn’t clogged. He considered putting in some of his own clothes—Joan’s didn’t nearly fill the machine—and put his hand into his pocket, thinking the trousers he had on could go in.