Not that he’d had any results, yet, but he’d been warned it would take a while, and anyway, he knew. His grandmother had remembered a few other things about Great-Uncle George, like his clumsiness and the way he’d never seemed to be able to see in the evening unless the lights were bright, and the time he’d stepped out in front of a car because he hadn’t seen it out of the corner of his eye.
Nothing on its own to make you think, but enough together to build a convincing picture. And he was convinced.
Convinced, and heartbroken, because of Laura.
Laura, who loved him. Laura, who wanted to be with him to help him navigate what was to come. Laura, who said she didn’t want children when she would have been a brilliant mother.
He couldn’t let her sacrifice herself for him. It wasn’t fair, and he needed to distance himself from her. Harder than it sounded, because she wasn’t having any of it, and he was too weak to resist her.
Too weak, too needy to ignore her, but too much in love with her to want her hurt in any way, and she would be.
And the next day, of course, they were working together, so he wouldn’t be able to ignore her, but he wouldn’t see her afterwards. He’d make some excuse, try and put a little distance between them for her sake...
* * *
He didn’t stay, so she got up early and took Millie for a run, then washed, dressed, made herself some tea and toast and forced herself to eat it, but the tea was weird again so she threw it down the sink and took a bottle of water with her to work. She obviously needed to run the water for longer, or rinse out the kettle. Maybe it needed descaling again.
But it happened again in her break, when she went to the café, and it happened again the next day, and the next, and she was beginning to wonder if Livvy had been right.
She wasn’t working with Tom that day, thank goodness, but the possibility that she’d run into him was making her feel sick with dread, and every now and again she’d hear his voice and her chest would squeeze with pain. She couldn’t be. He’d be devastated, and so would she. It couldn’t be happening.
And then the next morning she was sick.
No. Please, no. She couldn’t be. Could she?
She made herself eat something plain, went to work and was supposed to be in Resus, but that worried her because she’d be exposed to X-rays all the time, so she couldn’t just ignore it and hope it would go away.
She made it through the rest of the shift without having to make any excuses to leave the room, and escaped on time for a change, and after she’d got home and walked Millie she drove to the supermarket on the edge of town and bought some more fruit—and a pregnancy test.
Not that she could be, but...
She was.
There it was, on the wand, clear as day.
PREGNANT
How?
She had absolutely no idea. She’d taken her Pill without fail, at the same time every day, or within an hour or so.
Except the day young Rob Wilding had been brought in, the lad on the motorbike. But that was only a little more than three weeks ago. How could she be feeling queasy so soon? Unless she’d already been pregnant by then?
She walked out of the bathroom, sat down on the edge of the bed and stared blankly at the wall. This couldn’t be happening to her! There was no way she could be pregnant!
Except she was, apparently. Just like her mother.
She’d always vowed she’d never be like her mother, and yet there she was, alone, pregnant and without a proper permanent job, so no maternity leave, no job protection, no income apart from statutory maternity benefit which was barely enough to survive on—and Tom.
And knowing he was the father was no comfort, because she knew exactly how he’d react, and she was dreading it.
Numb, she got up and walked stiffly out of the bedroom to the study, and curled up in her grandfather’s old chair, desperate for his sane and loving presence, his sound advice, his unconditional love for her.
‘Oh, Grumps, what am I going to do?’ she asked, but he couldn’t help her.
Except he already had, she realised. She’d given up her permanent job and come up here to look after him until he’d died, but he was still looking after her as he always had. Still there for her, in the roof over her head and the means to feed herself and her child. She had a home of her own, and enough money tied up in his precious book collection to support her and her baby for years, if it came to that.
Maybe it wouldn’t. Maybe Tom would change his mind about them when he knew, or at the very least support his child, but if not, she’d still be all right.
‘Thank you, Grumps,’ she whispered, and swiped away a tear. ‘And don’t worry about me. I’m not going to be like her. I won’t, I promise. I’ll be the best mother I can be, and I’ll tell him or her all about you and how good you were to me.’
And she had to tell Tom.
She didn’t want to, she didn’t have a clue how to, but she had to tell him. Not today. It was too late today. She’d do it tomorrow. She wasn’t at work then and neither was Tom. She’d ring him in the morning.
* * *
Laura.
Why was she ringing him? He was trying to avoid her, but it was hard to keep any distance. He saw her every day at work, but he’d spoken to James and asked him to alter their shifts so they didn’t work together, and it was killing him.
Luckily James hadn’t asked any questions apart from ‘Are you OK?’, which he’d slightly sidestepped, but she was still there, still in the department at the same time for at least part of most days, and he was on edge all day, torn between wanting to see her and dreading hearing her voice because it just made him want to cry with frustration.
It was excruciating. Gut-wrenching. And now she was phoning him on his day off, just to torture him even more.
Why? What did she want?
His phone went to voicemail, so he gave it a minute and listened to her message.
‘Tom, hi. Um—I need to talk to you about something. Can you call me, please?’
That was it. Very calm, very level, very Laura.
He listened to it again, just to hear her voice, and detected an edge to it that he hadn’t noticed before.
What did they need to talk about? There was nothing to say, or at least nothing that he wanted to say to her he hadn’t already said, because he knew she’d do what Laura always did, and turn into the Good Samaritan riding to the rescue without a thought for her own happiness.
She’d done it for friends at uni, she’d done it for her grandfather, and he was damned if he’d let her make the same sacrifice for him, because he’d be asking far more of her than they ever had.
He’d be asking her to give up any hope of them having a family of their own, and that was wrong, so wrong, because she’d be an amazing mother. He’d seen her with children, he knew how much she cared, how passionately she felt about the appalling way her mother had treated her and the way her grandfather had had to step in.
So what should he do? Call her? Ignore her? Go round, on the off-chance?
Yeah. Maybe that was it. Go round. That way he could read her body language, find out what she was really saying. Whatever it was.
And then the light dawned, when he was almost there, and he smacked his head. Idiot. It was nothing to do with him, or them. Not that there was a ‘them’ any more. It was about the books. She wanted to talk to him about the books, because she wanted to sell them.
Oh, well, he was there now.
He rang the bell and stepped back, and he saw a movement in the sitting room window. Millie, watching out for passers-by from the back of the sofa, her whole body wiggling in greeting just as she always did when she saw him.
She vanished, and he guessed Laura must be coming to the door. He braced himself, sucking in a long, slow breath and letting it out again. In again
, nice and slow—hold—and out.
He saw a movement behind the glass, and the door swung slowly inwards.
‘Tom.’
She looked—odd. Calm, composed, but odd, and his heart started to beat harder against his ribs.
‘You left a message, saying you wanted to speak to me.’
She opened the door wider and stepped back, and he went in to a rapturous greeting from Millie, all wiggles and smiles as if nothing untoward was going on.
‘Can I get you a drink?’
‘No, I’m fine. What did you want? Is it about the books?’
She shook her head, and his mind went into overdrive.
‘Tom, I can’t do this standing in the hall. Come on in.’
She closed the front door, led him through to the kitchen and opened the fridge, getting out a bottle of chilled water and pouring herself a glass. ‘Sure you don’t want one?’
‘Yes, I’m sure, I just had a coffee.’ Come on, Laura, get to the point!
She put the water back into the fridge, closed the door and turned, propping herself against the worktop, arms wrapped around herself. He watched her chest rise slowly then fall as she took a calming breath, then she looked up and met his eyes.
‘I’m pregnant.’
He felt the breath sucked out of his body, and pain swamped him.
No! Not that! Anything but that...
‘No—no, Laura, you can’t be. We...’
‘I am. I have no idea how, but I am.’ She picked up a white plastic wand off the windowsill and handed it to him, and he took it with nerveless fingers and stared at it, the word swimming in front of his eyes.
And there it was. The very last, very worst thing that should have happened. He could feel panic rising in his chest, the fear for his child overwhelming him.
‘You can’t. You can’t be having a baby. We can’t do this. This can’t be happening.’
She folded her arms defensively across her chest and lifted her chin a fraction.
‘I’m not asking anything of you, Tom. I don’t need anything from you, you know I have more than enough money from my grandfather. I’m telling you because you have a right to know you’re going to be a father. Whether or not you exercise that right is up to you, but I very much hope you will. I never had a father, and I would have loved one. I don’t want my child to be denied that right—’
‘You can’t have it.’
Her chin firmed. ‘Why not? Why can’t I have it, Tom? It’s my child, and not only can I have it, I will have it. This is happening.’
‘No. Please, Laura, no. You don’t understand.’
‘Then tell me why. Make me understand, Tom, because frankly I don’t.’
‘Because I’m going blind, for the hundredth time, and it’s hereditary!’
‘I know that! And trust me, I didn’t ask for this either, but we’ve made a baby, like it or not, and that’s all there is to it.’
‘No, it’s not! I can’t—I just—please, don’t condemn it to this.’
‘For that reason alone? Or because you don’t want a child?’
‘Of course I want a child!’ he cried, his voice raw with anguish as he turned to face her, ravaged with grief. ‘I’d love nothing more than to have this child, but I can’t, Laura. We can’t. I’m going to go blind, I won’t be able to work, to drive, to look after it, to keep it safe, to do any of the things a father should be able to do. And worse than that, far, far worse than that is knowing that my child or my child’s child would be sitting on a time bomb, waiting for the day when it can’t see in the dark, when the light starts to close in, when it has no peripheral vision left, and then the rest breaks up until there’s nothing, Laura. Nothing. Just darkness. Total, black, unrelieved darkness...’
His voice cracked, and she walked quietly over to him and put her hands on his face, but he couldn’t meet her eyes. Not now...
‘Look at me, Tom.’
He forced his eyes open and met her calm, level gaze.
‘We can do this. Together—’
‘No. No, we can’t. I can’t. Please, Laura, listen to me.’
‘I am. I have. We’ve had this conversation, and I know how you feel. I feel the same, but we need to be rational. Your RP looks as if it’s X-linked, which means your child won’t go blind. If it’s a boy, he won’t even have the gene because he won’t have your X chromosome, and if it’s a girl, she will have it but she’ll be a carrier. OK, she may have some symptoms, like your mother and grandmother, but by the time she’s growing up there may well be a cure.’
‘You don’t know that. There may never be a cure.’
‘No, but nor do you know there won’t be. And as for you not being able to be a proper father, it could be years before your sight deteriorates to any significant extent, and even when it does, you can still be you. You can be a husband, a father, a doctor—you can be all of these things, and you can carry on doing them even when—if—you lose your sight. And your child will love you, Tom.’
Pain lanced through him, and he choked down a sob.
‘Laura, you don’t understand! If it’s a girl, she could still have vision issues, and even if she didn’t, it’s just kicking the can down the road. You don’t know there’ll ever be a cure, and if she has a son he’ll have this hanging over him like me. You can’t wish that on them—or on any child.’
‘Well, of course I don’t wish it on anyone, who on earth would, but are you telling me that you shouldn’t be here now? That you should have died before you were born because your life has been so worthless? What about all the people you’ve saved? Rob Wilding, for instance? That young man could be dead now if it hadn’t been for you and the team you were leading, but instead he’s going to be fine, and that’s down to you. He owes you his life, and if your mother had done what you’re suggesting I should do, he could be dead now and so could all the countless other people you’ve helped save over the past seven years. Ask your mother if she thinks that giving you life was the wrong thing to do. See what she says, because I’m sure she wouldn’t agree.’
He looked away. ‘Someone else would have saved them.’
‘Tom! Stop it! You’ve made a huge difference to a lot of people in your life, and our child deserves the right to have the chance to do that, too, to grow up, to make a contribution to society, to be a part of the world. Not to allow that to happen on the strength of something that might or might not happen to them isn’t fair, Tom, and I can’t do it. I won’t do it. I’m having this child, with you or without you, because I love it, and I love you, and I want to be with you and share this all with you, and there is no possible valid reason why that shouldn’t happen.’
He shook his head, his eyes raw with grief. ‘You still don’t understand. I can’t pass this on, Laura. I just can’t. I couldn’t live with myself.’
‘You may not have done, but even if you have, it really, really isn’t the end of the world.’ She took hold of his hands, pressed a kiss to them, held them against her heart and he could feel it beating.
‘You’re just scared, Tom,’ she said gently, ‘and it’s OK to be scared, but you don’t need to be. We can do this. Come on, sit down and let’s have a drink. I’ll make you a cup of tea and we can talk it over calmly.’
He shook his head and walked away, going into the sitting room with Millie at his heels. How could they do it? Together or otherwise, they couldn’t change the course of destiny, and she was right, he was scared. And he’d never been this scared of anything in his life before.
He dropped onto the sofa, and Millie hopped up beside him and lay across his lap, her head against his chest, staring up into his eyes. He stroked her automatically, and she turned her head and licked his hand. To reassure him?
‘Oh, Millie. Are you really clever enough to keep someone safe? How do you do that?’
Her tai
l waved, and he smiled in spite of himself.
* * *
‘Here, your tea. Don’t let her jog your arm.’
She set it down beside him, curled up at the other end of the sofa and watched him thoughtfully.
He was stroking Millie, and just that simple action seemed to be calming him.
‘How did she do it?’ he asked, his voice a little gruff.
‘Guide him? Years of training,’ she said quietly. ‘They’re bred for their calm reliability, their intelligence, their gentleness and trustworthiness. That’s important because they also have to be big, so they can do the things they have to do, like block your path.’
‘Block it?’
‘Yes. If you’re going to walk into danger, they’re trained to cross in front of you and stop, so you can’t go any further. She did it with me on the day of our interview.’
‘With you?’ He looked confused. ‘How? Why?’
She smiled a little sadly. ‘Because I was miles away, walking along without paying attention, and a car was reversing out of a drive. She blocked me, and probably saved me from serious injury. She wasn’t even in her harness, but she still kept me safe.’
‘Wow.’ He looked down at her, his face a picture. ‘She really is clever.’
‘Oh, she is. She’s amazing. My grandfather used to go to London on the train and she’d take him to the British Library. She was wonderful.’
‘How did he trust her to do that? That must be the hard part, to trust them.’
She smiled. ‘No. No, that’s not the hard part. That’s the easy part, once you’re used to it. Finish your tea and we’ll go for a walk, and she can show you.’
Show him? He stood up, drained his tea and put the cup down on the table. ‘Right, I’m ready.’
‘Millie? Come on, sweetheart. You’ve got to go to work.’
Healing Her Emergency Doc Page 15
