‘It’s nothing.’ She shrugged. ‘At least, not like you’re thinking. But you don’t have to take my word for it. How about when you have a free moment today, maybe between operations, you bring him to VenomSci’s visitor centre and we’ll find out?’
* * *
‘Music, please,’ Jake requested, making the first incision as the first song on his playlist filled the operating room.
At least with this, his first teaching operation instead of just lecture room talks and video presentations, he finally had something to really get his teeth into, and switch his head off from Silvio Delgado’s most recent shenanigans.
And from more run-ins with Flávia.
Why the heck had he gone at her so hard in the cafeteria? He could pretend it had been about protecting Brady, but he knew that wasn’t it.
No, he’d been making a point of proving to her—and, more pertinently, himself—that their night together had been a one-off. That he harboured no lingering desires.
He knew it was a lie. Still, he wasn’t certain how taking Brady to VenomSci’s visitor centre was designed to help, but there was a part of him which welcomed the opportunity just to change the dialogue between them.
‘I realise you’ve been thrown in at the deep end on this case and haven’t had a chance to do surgical rounds on the patients in my clinical trial.’ He glanced up at the new surgical intern, after a while. ‘But it will be a great learning opportunity for you. So talk me through what you do know about this patient.’
It wasn’t the intern’s fault that Delgado had stirred things up by claiming the intern, who had been shadowing Jake for the past week, for a surgery of his own this afternoon. Typical Delgado, still smarting from Jake’s perceived snub at the Welcome Gala, and trying to stamp his authority all over the hospital.
‘The patient is a thirty-five-year-old female. She has dermatofibrosarcoma protuberans—a rare type of soft-tissue sarcoma developing in the deep layers of the skin.’
‘So how would you normally expect to operate on the patient?’ Jake asked, his eyes on the patient and the image on the monitors.
‘Resect the tumour by cutting a two-centre margin around the sarcoma. If they come back negative, then you’ve cleared the tumour and there’s a very low chance that the cancer should return.’
‘Good,’ Jake confirmed, continuing his work until he was satisfied. ‘Now what we’re actually going to do is this...lights, please.’
As the OR went dark, the familiar glow could be seen on the patient’s body. As Jake had anticipated, the dye showed the sarcoma to clearly be larger than images had been able to identify, reaching out in multiple directions and travelling from the dermis, quite deeply down.
‘So there it is.’
The intern peered in.
‘It’s like our own personal markers,’ he breathed.
‘Right. No guesswork needed. No taking healthy tissue unnecessarily as part of the margins. But more significantly, no inadvertently leaving behind unidentified tumour, thinking that we’ve actually got it all. DFSP is one of those sarcomas where local recurrence is particularly common if the resection is incomplete.’
‘So no intraoperative freezing to cut sections for biopsy?’
‘We’ll still do that as we resect the tumour, then we’ll close with a skin graft, and follow up with vacuum sealing negative pressure drainage.’
* * *
Flávia watched Jake usher Brady through the doors of the centre and told herself that she didn’t really feel her pulse hammering through her veins like air in the old radiator system of her first city apartment.
Especially pretending that she didn’t feel it pulsing at her neck, her nipples, her core.
Part of her hadn’t really thought he’d come, though she’d wanted him to.
For the kid’s sake, she reminded herself hastily.
But she plastered a smile on her face and crossed the room.
‘Jake, Brady, I’m so glad you came. This way, please.’
‘What is it you want to prove?’ Jake muttered as they followed her through the centre and to the area she wanted them to see.
But Flávia was already paying attention to Brady, at the way his eyes widened, beamed and then focused as he glanced around the space. A Ferris wheel spun slowly, with a projection behind, showing different rainforest animals and their habitats and prey. There was an interactive area with knowledge-based quizzes, games showing mimicry in nature and challenging the player to tell one from the other and an arcade-style machine for the life cycle of a butterfly.
And Brady was utterly fascinated.
‘What exactly is the point of this?’ Jake demanded after ten minutes or so.
‘Give it time and you’ll find out,’ she instructed him. ‘Now, go to the gallery over there, get a coffee, sit down and just watch.’
She could feel his eyes boring into her as she deliberately turned her back on him, and the barely suppressed fury. Yet he obeyed. Clearly, despite the way he had presented the facts in the past, his nephew meant more to him than just a responsibility his sister had left on him.
Flávia filed that away for later.
Then, she watched as Brady made his way into the interactive area, taking in each game and experiment and weighing each of them up as he decided which one to look at first. Evidently torn.
‘This one is all about mimicry in nature.’ She tried to help him, selecting one of the games and taking a few steps towards it, to see if Brady followed her. ‘Do you recognise any of them?’
He practically skipped behind her.
‘That pair is a viceroy butterfly and a monarch butterfly—the viceroy mimics the monarch, which tastes horrible to predators because of its milkweed diet as a caterpillar. That pair is a bushveld lizard and an oogpister beetle, and the beetle tastes horrible to predators because of the formic acid due to its diet of army ants. And that pair is a wasp spider and a wasp, which it kind of self-explanatory.’
‘Good.’ Flávia nodded. ‘Although the viceroy and monarch butterflies are now thought to show mutual mimicry, as the viceroy can release its own toxins when stressed, which makes it equally unpalatable to predators.’
‘Really?’ Brady stared at her in wonder.
‘Sure. Look, if you press that button you can start the game and learn more.’
The boy didn’t need any more encouragement, and Flávia backed off to let him have his head.
For over an hour she accompanied him around the room, letting him choose what to try next, only giving guidance to information when Brady invited it. Nonetheless, it was a good hour later before he finally showed signs of becoming saturated, and she called him for a short break, watching as he enjoyed his slushie, his eyes still roaming the room, from the activities he’d enjoyed the most to those he evidently still wanted to try.
And then, unexpectedly, he turned his serious eyes on her.
‘Are you Uncle Jake’s girlfriend?’
‘I...no.’ Flávia fought against getting flustered. ‘I’m just a colleague.’
‘Oh.’
There was no mistaking the disappointment in his tone, and despite everything in her screaming to leave it alone, Flávia couldn’t help herself.
‘Does your uncle have lots of girlfriends, then?’
‘No.’ Brady took another sip of his drink. ‘Mummy told me that he might do, before she died. But he hasn’t. Not until you.’
He was so calm, so collected, but Flávia hadn’t missed the way he’d steeled himself before he’d spoken. Jake had told her that Brady didn’t seem to want to grieve at all for his mother, but she suspected that wasn’t right.
‘You must miss your mummy a lot.’
The little boy stopped drinking. He stared at his glass.
‘I miss her all the time.’
‘Do you talk about h
er, with your uncle?’ she asked quietly, even though she already knew what Jake had told her.
‘No.’
‘Why not?’ she pressed gently.
‘I think it makes him sad.’ He sucked in a breath. ‘It makes me sad, too, sometimes. But it also makes me happy to remember her. I don’t think it makes Uncle Jake happy to remember Mummy. I think he would prefer to forget her.’
Her heart almost broke for the little boy. Brady did grieve for his mother. He just held it in, keeping it away from Jake because he didn’t want to hurt his uncle. The way she had done with her father when her mother had walked out on the family.
Only, she’d been lucky. She’d had her sister to talk to.
‘Oh, Brady, I don’t think that’s true. I think your uncle would hate to know you felt you couldn’t talk about your mummy to him. I don’t think he’d want you to forget her.’
‘I won’t forget her. I have a memory box. Mummy and I made it together when I was a kid.’
‘Does it have photos?’
She didn’t like to point out that, at seven years old, he still was a kid.
‘Lots and lots of photos.’ He nodded. ‘And flowers we picked on picnics, the programme for a football game we went to, cinema tickets, museum tickets, tickets to our favourite film...’ He trailed off. ‘It’s in England, though. So I can’t show you.’
‘And you’ve never shown your uncle?’
‘No, but I nearly showed Oz once.’
‘Who’s Oz?’
‘He’s Uncle Jake’s best friend. He’s kinda cool and he does have a lot of girlfriends. I talk to him about Mummy sometimes, but not always. I don’t want Uncle Jake to hear and be upset.’
‘What about you? Do you have a best friend? In school, maybe?’
‘Not really.’ He shook his head. ‘I did have one at my old school, but I had to leave it because Uncle Jake works in London, and they’re not as friendly in my new school. Sometimes they crawl under the table when the teacher is out of the room and slap my legs. And they play games I don’t know, or won’t let me join in because in my old school we had different rules. I bet you had a lot of best friends when you were in school.’
‘I’ll let you into a little secret,’ Flávia whispered, wishing with every fibre of her being that she could haul the little boy into her arms and cuddle all his unhappiness away. But she couldn’t bring back his mum, and that was the one thing he would really want. ‘I didn’t have many friends in school, either.’
‘So, what did you do?’
‘I was lucky. I had my sister,’ she admitted. ‘And when I came home I had papai and vovô. My dad and my granddad.’
‘I have a granddad. And a grandma. But I only met them once. Mummy didn’t like them. She said that they weren’t unkind but that they were very cold, and they didn’t know how to show love. She told me that was why she wanted me to live with Uncle Jake.’
‘Because he knew how to show love?’ Flávia managed, her heart breaking all over again.
‘She said he could learn, but my granddad and grandma never could. She said Uncle Jake was a good brother when they were little, they had just gone different ways when they grew older. She told me it was going to be my job to teach him how to love. Because she thought he could, he just doesn’t know how to. But I don’t know how to teach him.’ He looked up at her abruptly, his eyes swimming. ‘He isn’t like Mummy and I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.’
She glanced up to where Jake was in the gallery, but he wasn’t there. Hoping against hope he was on his way down, Flávia didn’t think twice. She moved around the table, her arms going around the tiny, shaking body, her mouth pressed to his head, her voice low and soothing. And if it was a little choked up, she prayed that Brady couldn’t tell.
‘You’re not supposed to do anything, sweetheart. You’re doing everything right, trust me. I know your uncle loves you, very much. I just don’t think he knows how to show it, but I think you can teach him. Just like your mummy believed you could.’
‘You have to help me,’ he whispered fiercely.
She wasn’t sure that she was the best person to teach anybody about love. Sure, she loved her family with everything she had, but she didn’t know how to love anybody else. Hadn’t Enrico taught her that much? Hadn’t he pointed out how selfish she was when he called off their engagement? How wrong she was for being unwilling to sacrifice the dangers of her career for a life with him?
He’d made her choose between risking her life with her deadly snakes, and marrying him and having a family. And she’d wished she could choose him. She’d wished she could be the kind of person who would want to choose love.
But she’d had to accept the fact that she wasn’t that kind of person. When it had come down to it, she’d been afraid that she would end up resenting him for making the ultimatum and so, in the end, she’d chosen her snakes.
So how was she the right kind of person to help Brady teach Jake anything about self-sacrificing love?
Besides, there was no question that Jake would hate her inserting herself into their lives. Into his life.
But how could she refuse when Brady was asking so desperately? When he was clinging to her as though she was his life raft in his own personal storm? When she could feel his wet tears soaking into her cotton tee?
‘It’s okay, sweetheart. I’ll help you as much as I can.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
JAKE HAMMERED THE punchbag, over and over and over again. Anything to get rid of this suffocating emotion which had come over him in that visitor centre when he’d watched Flávia with his nephew. When he’d heard Brady taking to her, spilling his heart to her, connecting with her, in a way Brady hadn’t done, even once, in their ten months together.
He’d left the gallery partway through Brady’s confession, intent on coming in and setting the record straight. Telling his nephew that he would never have avoided conversation about Helen if he’d realised that Brady wanted to talk about his mother.
But as he’d stood in the doorway and watched Flávia cradle the little boy in her arms, he had frozen. A thousand self-recriminations chasing through his head.
What the hell did he even say to the boy?
The simple fact was that he should have known that Brady would want—need—to talk about his mother. He hadn’t avoided the topic purely out of respect for Brady’s space—the kid was only seven. No, he’d used that as an excuse to help himself avoid conversation which might include things as complicated, as icky, as feelings.
Helen had been right in that their own parents hadn’t prepared them for or taught them about love. But she had been wrong thinking that he had the capacity to learn it now.
So what use was he to Brady?
He, who had never failed at anything in his life before?
And so, he’d stood there at the door, watching a relative stranger give his nephew the kind of love and comfort he himself had no idea how to show. He’d tried to force his legs to move, to carry him inside, to say any one of the caring things that tripped easily off his tongue when dealing with frightened cancer patients and their even more terrified families. But his body and brain had refused to work. He’d been immobile. Numb. Until suddenly, he’d found himself moving again. Only, he hadn’t been heading into the room with his nephew; instead, he’d been halfway across the hospital grounds, calling Patricia to let her know where to collect Brady for their usual afternoon session, whilst he’d thrown himself into his next operation.
Ironic how residents and colleagues thanked him for his quiet, efficient teaching style, whilst the one person he couldn’t teach, or even talk to, was a seven-year-old kid who needed him most.
And so, after the operation, he’d wound up here, in the gym complex within the hospital guest accommodations. People were out there in the main area, on treadmills, or rowing machines, or whatever,
but in this small side room, with the boxing equipment, he felt as though he was in his own little world. He could belt seven shades out of a punchbag and hope to hell he could simultaneously beat some sense into himself.
He kept seeing Flávia’s face, hearing her words, but it wasn’t her whom he was mad with. It was himself. And his own inabilities.
Of all the people with whom to have left her infinitely precious son, Helen had chosen him. Not for the first time, Jake seriously doubted the rationale of his sister’s decision.
Who would ever have considered him, so famously detached for all his life, to take up the role of a surrogate father?
Surely, even his parents—Brady’s grandparents—would have been a better choice?
In spite of everything.
Jake slammed his gloved fists into the bag again.
He was going to mess it all up. Mess Brady up. He didn’t have a clue how to care for the boy properly; today had taught him that much. He’d been too quick to accept all the explanations that people had given him. Whether it was to blame Brady’s wild actions on the fact that his mother had died ten months ago, or to blame his refusal to communicate with others on a genuine physical and mental inability to do so.
Flávia had come along, and in one afternoon she’d turned all of that on its head.
She’d shown him a bright, engaged and engaging seven-year-old. A normal kid who was obviously grieving over the death of his mother, but who wasn’t irreparably damaged.
She had seen all that. And he’d seen nothing. So he had to ask himself if that would still be the case in another year—in six months, even—of Brady being in his care.
Again and again, he slammed his fists into the bag. But none of it did any good. None of it changed anything. Until, suddenly something lifted. And he knew, in that instant, that he was no longer alone. Flávia had walked into the gym.
Jake stopped. Not turning around. Just waiting.
‘So this is where you went.’
She didn’t even bother to disguise the accusation in her voice and he didn’t blame her. Even as he lied.
Falling For The Single Dad Surgeon (A Summer In São Paulo Book 2) Page 8
