What had she said? That Fiona had died in childbirth. It sounded unbelievable. Vibrant, alive Fiona.
Crazy Fiona.
But Gemma had lost her sister.
‘How did she die?’ he asked, his tone softening, and he saw her eyes widen in surprise. She hadn’t expected compassion.
‘I don’t…’
He took a deep breath. ‘Look, maybe we’d better have the whole story. Did she die of eclampsia?’
‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘She died of kidney failure caused by her pregnancy combined with uncontrolled diabetes. She died because she didn’t give a toss for her life—or the lives of her children. Both of them.’
Both of them.
Both…
Wasn’t the little boy hers, then?
Nate stared at the child, stunned, and then he looked at Gemma. There were similarities, he thought. Woman and boy were both dark-haired and pale-skinned. They looked like mother and son. But…maybe there were stronger similarities between the child and what he remembered of Fiona.
And the girl herself reminded him of Fiona. Though there were marked differences. Fiona had been almost ethereal in her beauty. She’d dressed with flamboyance and skill—and considerable expense—and he’d never seen her without make-up.
This girl looked as if she didn’t know what make-up was. And her clothes…! Her clothes wouldn’t be welcome at a welfare shop, he thought. They were dreadful.
But he could still see the resemblance—both to Fiona and to the little boy by her side.
And he remembered what the little boy had said. ‘Gemma, I’m thirsty.’ Not ‘Mummy, I’m thirsty.’
‘This is Fiona’s child?’
‘Good guess.’
‘You don’t want me to take him, too?’ It was a harsh snap and she blinked. And then she smiled. Her arm came out and she hugged the little boy to her.
‘No fear. Fiona was Cady’s birth mother but I’ve been mother to him for over two years now. Cady and I are a team.’
They were, too. Woman and child against the world. He stared at them both and they stared back—and again he felt his gut twist in a recognition of…
Of what? Of something. And he didn’t know what the hell it was.
He took a grip on himself. Sort of. ‘You’re not prepared to take on a second?’
‘No.’
‘You’d better explain.’
Her chin jutted. ‘I don’t see why I need to.’
Heck, she couldn’t just leave. She couldn’t. What was she proposing—that she just set down the baby and walk away? The prospect made him feel dizzy. His world was tipping on its axis and he cautiously placed his hands flat down on the desk as if righting himself.
‘I… Please.’ Once more he forced his voice to steady. ‘No, of course you don’t need to. But…but I need to know. Everything.’
She stared at him for a long, long minute. And then she lifted the cup from her nephew’s hands and set it on the desk.
‘Cady, look. There’s blocks in the corner,’ she told him, motioning to where Nate kept a basket of toys to amuse small children. ‘Can you build me a house?’
Cady considered and then nodded, with all the gravity of a carpenter agreeing to sign a contract for house construction.
‘Sure.’ He knelt on the floor and started to build. One block after another. The sight was somehow comforting compared to the unbelievable conversation that was taking place over the desk.
But then the doctor in him focused. The child seemed to be building more by feel than sight. He was lifting the coloured blocks and feeling their edges, fitting them together with a satisfactory click.
Was he blind? Maybe he normally wore glasses…
It wasn’t his business. Cady wasn’t his patient. Somehow this crazy conversation had to resume.
‘Right,’ Nate said. He took a deep breath and braced. ‘Tell me.’
‘My sister was… I think you could almost call her manic.’
‘Now, that’s what I don’t understand.’ Nate thought back to the last time he’d seen Fiona. Manic? For some reason the description suddenly seemed apt. He hadn’t known why then. He didn’t know why now.
‘In what sense was she manic?’
‘I told you she had diabetes.’
He thought that through and couldn’t make sense of it. ‘Diabetes is not usually a life sentence and it has nothing to do with a person’s mental state.’
‘It does if you’re as perfect as Fiona.’ Gemma shrugged. ‘You need to understand. Fiona…well, she was two years younger than me and from the time she was born she was perfect. My mother certainly thought so. My mother was a beauty queen in her own right. My father left us before I can remember, and all my mother’s pent-up ambitions centred on Fiona. Perfect Fiona.’ She took a deep breath, fighting back bitterness that had been instilled in her almost since birth.
‘Anyway, Fiona was as beautiful as even my mother could want. Even as a baby she was gorgeous and she turned from winning baby pageants to winning beauty contests almost without a break. And she was clever—brilliant really. She passed her exams with ease, she moved from one eligible man to another—whatever she wanted Fiona got. She was indulged to the point of stupidity by our mother, and when Mum died Fiona’s boyfriends took right over.’
He saw. Or maybe he saw. ‘And then?’
‘And then she was diagnosed with type-one diabetes.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Neither do I really. I only know that Fiona had just started medical school, she was flying high and suddenly she was faced with four insulin injections a day, constant monitoring and dietary restrictions.’
‘I do know what diabetes is,’ he told her. ‘Type one… It’s a damnable pest but if it’s well controlled it’s hardly life-threatening.’
‘Hers wasn’t well controlled. Not because it wasn’t possible to control it but because she wouldn’t. She hated it. She refused to monitor herself. She gave herself the same amount of insulin every day regardless of what her blood sugars were and sometimes she didn’t even do that. She refused to accept the dietary modifications. You need to understand. For once it was an area where she wasn’t perfect and she couldn’t bear it.’
He thought about that. He had diabetics in his practice who refused to take care of themselves and the results could be catastrophic. But…
‘She was a doctor. She knew. With medical training she’d know what the risks were.’
‘I think,’ Gemma told him, slowly as if the words were being dragged out of her, ‘I think my sister was a little bit crazy. She’d been indulged all her life. She was the golden girl and everyone treated her as if she was perfect. The thought of injections, the thought of not being able to eat everything she wanted and the thought of her body being less than perfect… Well, as I said, I think she was a little bit mad. It was as if she saw diabetes as a bar to her perfection and if she ignored it, it’d go away. Only as a doctor you’d know that that’s a disaster.’
He was horrified. Why hadn’t he guessed any of this? He’d never even known she’d been diabetic. And not to control it… ‘That’s practically suicide.’
‘Yes.’ She gave a grim little