Doubtful. Still, what choice do I have? I don’t want my husband to be miserable. And it has been three months. He’s waited long enough. “Give me a minute.” I do my best sashay to the dressing room, hoping it’s sexier than my usual waddle. Sure I’m tired but children are tiring—everyone says so. It’s not like taking care of Elliot will get easier as he gets older. If we’re going to get our romantic life back on track, there’s no better time to start.
I try to convince myself of this as I wriggle into the corset. It’s every bit as uncomfortable as it looked, and it’s doing not-so-nice things to my new figure. My breasts protrude until I feel like an overstuffed sausage. Sexy is not the word I’d use to describe it.
Releasing my long hair from its clasp, I fluff it around my shoulders and endeavor to act more confident than I feel. When I open the door, I’m relieved to see my husband has dimmed the lights. This will help with the illusion.
Warwick waits for me on the bed, his toned body gleaming. He licks his lips when he sees me, and reaches for my hand. “Darling, you are good enough to eat. Come here.”
I feel a moment of panic. I can’t do this. It’s too soon.
His expression is so eager, so hopeful. He’ll never understand how I feel. My husband has counted the days until we can be together again. I should be grateful he still finds me this attractive when I gave birth a few short months ago.
Seeing my hesitation, his smile falters, and I do the only thing I can to keep him happy. I go to him, summoning the memory that has always kept me safe.
When Warwick touches me, I am transported to another place.
I’m a little girl again, wearing a patterned sundress instead of a corset. I sit cross-legged in a field of daisies, watching while my father shows me how to make a chain of the blossoms, his dark head bent over the project. Once the crown of flowers is finished, I will wear it in my hair and spin in the sunlight, proclaiming myself Queen of the Meadow.
My mother smiles when she sees what we’re doing, and says she’d like to have one once we’re finished with mine. She spreads a blue blanket on the ground and unpacks our picnic basket as Maisey crawls nearby, cooing and pulling up fistfuls of grass.
As my beautiful husband invades my body, my mind drifts further and further away.
“Say ‘Ah,’” I said, pulling my mouth into an exaggerated O and crossing my eyes in an attempt to relax my young patient. It worked. It gave me a slight headache, but it worked. The little boy sitting on the examination table giggled, and his mother smiled briefly. She held the boy’s baby brother, and for a moment I was distracted. The skinny legs pumping in his mother’s arms reminded me of another baby, another time. I shook my head, surprised by the unexpected memory. I returned my focus to my young patient. Arinya, the Thai nurse I’m training, smiled. She was tiny, slender and so stunning, with dark brown eyes and long dark locks that should have looked sweaty and lank and tangled in this heat, but didn’t. Not for the first time I envied not only the length of her glossy hair, but her built-in air-conditioning that didn’t allow her to wilt in the humidity.
I grinned, then winked. “Ahhh.” I tried again, crossing my eyes harder (cue stronger headache), and the little boy obediently opened his mouth, his shoulders shaking in mirth as he tried to copy me. I used the tongue depressor to quickly scan his throat and tonsils, and nodded as I disposed of the thin wooden stick, not for the first time thinking I should have bought shares in that tongue depressor factory—we went through so damn many of them.
“His throat looks good and healthy, no spots, no redness,” I told Arinya, who quickly noted the details on the boy’s medical chart.
I winked at the boy again. “Good job, dude.” I reached for him, tickling his ears as I gently felt around his throat, easily locating his lymph nodes. I chuckled as the kid squirmed. “Hey, you have to sit still,” I told him, tickling him some more, and his mother laughed as he let loose with a peal of giggles.
“Glands are fine,” I said to Arinya. I conducted the rest of the examination as quickly as I could, trying to make the boy laugh at every opportunity. This was his first-ever visit to a health clinic, such as it was, and I wanted to make the experience a positive one. We wanted this new program to work. That meant people needed to come back. I decided I’d hold off on breaking out the syringes for his inoculations until his next visit. No sense traumatizing the poor kid—or his mother, not on the first visit. No, that stuff was best introduced slowly. Suck the locals into a false sense of security, I say.
The sounds of hammers and saws, men’s voices speaking in a language I still could not master and the dull wash of waves on the shore a short distance away permeated the elevated hut. No, clinic. I had to keep correcting myself. We were making this place a clinic. I eyed the gaps in the wall between the reeds of bamboo. It rained a little every day, and then the temperatures soared north of thirty-five degrees Celsius, which I automatically convert to ninety-five degrees Fahrenheit in my head. Today was hot, and I could feel the prickle of heat, the slide of a drop of perspiration down my spine. I loved it. Give me a cold beer and a hot guy on a sandy beach, and I’m in heaven. I looked at the reflex handle that Arinya was holding out to me and smiled. Plenty of time for that later. Right now, we had a little champ waiting to see what the weird lady was going to do with this funny-looking hammer.
After testing his reflexes, then letting him hit me with that damn reflex hammer, and after measuring his height and weight, head circumference and general health overall, I finally nodded, giving the kid a thumbs-up signal. I pulled a lollipop out of the rear pocket of my denim shorts. Out of all the supplies I’d arranged to have shipped over, it was the candy that seemed to be the item in most demand. And soccer balls. Candy and soccer balls.
“You’re in good shape, young man,” I said. The kid was cute, shy and a little too skinny, with a grubby smile that could melt your heart. He needed good, regular meals, and regular baths wouldn’t hurt, but he was in a lot better shape than some of the other kids I’d seen. I glanced at his mother briefly. He may not be well fed, but it was clear he was well-loved. I wondered briefly what that would feel like, then shook off the self-indulgent thought as I turned to Arinya. “Invite his mother to the nutrition classes, but tell her I think her little man is doing fine.”
I listened absently as Arinya spoke quickly in Thai to the mother. In the few months I’d been in Thailand, I’d managed to pick up hello, goodbye and thank you—and not much else. Okay, maybe some scorching swear words. The Learn to Speak Thai app on my phone seemed like such a great idea, but only worked if I had reliable access to a phone network, which I didn’t, out here in a remote coastal village that was closer to Malaysia than it was to Bangkok. Still, the singsong sounds were relaxing as I packed up the items I’d used, and prepared the treatment room for our next patient—whenever they chose to appear.
It was still a challenge to get some of the locals to trust us enough to come for a checkup—but we were gradually breaking down their resistance. Some of the people here had never seen a doctor, which was something that I, as a nurse, found difficult to relate to. Although as far as I was concerned a good nurse was better than a doctor any day—but I’m biased. I smiled. The main building was almost finished, Arinya and two other nurses had nearly completed their training, and it wouldn’t be long before the clinic was operating in earnest. Another successful build. I straightened my shoulders. Yep. This program was going to save lives, and I was darn proud to be part of it. It felt so good to do good. I rubbed my neck, tilting my head back to stretch my muscles, and looked up at the ceiling. Well, maybe ceiling was a stretch.
Our temporary clinic was located in the barely used village school while the main building was constructed. The roof was thatched from what looked like banana leaves, palm fronds and some mud-like ingredient that could easily have been dried cow manure. I wasn’t going to look too closely.
“Hey, Lucy, that order of bamboo has arrived, and the builders