She’d sensed back there in the ward that he’d had his doubts about her, would have preferred his daughter to be operated on by one of the regular surgeons, but if that was the case it was too bad. Yet she couldn’t blame him. It was clear to see that he was a loving father and it must have been horrendous to come home to find his daughter had been given emergency surgery in his absence by a stranger instead of a close colleague.
There didn’t appear to be any mother in the family set-up, so he must be either divorced or a widower. Neither situation very unusual. Both the kind of set-up where a loving grandmother would be welcome.
His mother had arrived at the ward just as Annabel was leaving and the two women had spoken briefly.
‘How is Lucy now?’ Mary Lewis had asked anxiously when they’d come face to face, and Annabel had thought how lovely it would be to have a mother like this kindly, chubby woman.
She’d managed a tired smile. ‘Progressing satisfactorily,’ she’d told her. ‘Pulse and temperature normal. No post-operative complications at the moment. But as her father is only too aware, there is still a possibility of brain damage.’
The colour had drained from the older woman’s face.
‘Oh, no!’
‘I’ve told your son that there were no signs of damage to the brain or the meninges, but one can’t be sure until the patient is fully awake and over the effects of the operation,’ Annabel had told her. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going off duty for a while to get some sleep.’
The anxious grandmother had flashed her a sympathetic smile.
‘Yes, of course, my dear. You must be exhausted. Thank you for taking such good care of our little one.’
‘It’s my job,’ Annabel had told her, and as she’d walked through the hospital grounds to the utilitarian flat she was renting because she couldn’t be bothered to start house-hunting, she’d thought that there hadn’t been any thanks coming from Aaron Lewis. But she could forgive him for that. He would be on a knife edge until Lucy opened her eyes. Praying that he would see lucid normality there.
She’d been looking forward to being a parent herself not so long ago. But a fall on a wet tiled floor in a hospital corridor while moving at speed had sent her crashing down and had brought an end to all her hopes and dreams.
If it had been in the first weeks after she’d found out she was to have a child, Annabel might have felt she’d had a lucky escape after her affair with an American doctor had dwindled and died when she’d discovered he had a wife and family back in the States. But at four months into the pregnancy Annabel had settled into the role of prospective single parent and had been eagerly looking forward to the birth of her child. Now, bereft and lonely after her shamefaced lover had returned to his homeland, she was doing the job she’d always done, using her skills to try to save or improve the lives of other people’s children, and all the time she was mourning the loss of her own baby.
As she lay looking up at the drab ceiling the memory of her affair with Randolph Graham was preventing sleep. They’d worked together in Paediatrics in a big Middlesex hospital where he’d come to do a twelve-month exchange and Annabel, in her thirties, having spent all her working life caring for the children of others, had been happy to discover her pregnancy with the amiable American as her partner.
But when he heard that the two of them had made a child, everything had changed. He’d confessed that he was married and that had been the end of the affair. After the first shock of his deceit and the realisation that she was faced with the prospect of becoming a single mother, Annabel had rallied and had been looking forward to having a child of her own. Since she’d lost it the days were empty and her heart like a stone.
It was the reason why she’d moved north to get away from painful memories of betrayal and loss. But agonising parents such as Aaron Lewis need have no fear. Her dedication to the job was as strong as ever. No one would be able to say that she put her own heartache before that of others, and as an autumn sun poked its head through the curtains she rolled over and slept.
* * *
Lucy was awake and crying.
‘My head hurts, Daddy,’ she whimpered.
‘Yes, I know,’ Aaron said gently. ‘We’ll give you something to make it feel better in a moment, Lucy, but first tell me, can you see me all right?’
She blinked weakly.
‘Yes. You’ve got your blue shirt on.’
‘Can you see Grandma?’
Without moving her head, Lucy looked sideways to where Mary was sitting.
‘Yes. Why is she crying?’
‘Because you’re awake...and getting better.’
‘What happened to me?’
Aaron took a deep breath.
‘Let’s see if you can remember.’
Her bruised little face was crumpled with the effort of thinking back but she didn’t disappoint him.
‘I fell off the climbing frame and there was something there. I banged my head on it.’
‘Good girl,’ he said gently, and his mother’s tears turned to smiles. ‘The doctor who mended your poorly head is coming to see you and then we’ll give you something to make it feel better.’
It was the same as before. He heard the door behind him open and shut and she was standing beside him, the pale-faced doctor who had been there for Lucy when he hadn’t been.
‘Hello, Lucy,’ she said quietly. ‘How are you feeling?’
‘My head hurts,’ she said fretfully.
‘I’m sure that it does. You gave it a nasty knock and I had to put you together again like they tried to do for Humpty Dumpty. Sister is going to give you something to stop it hurting and a nice cool drink. Then later on we’ll take some pictures of your head.’
‘Will that hurt?’ Lucy asked.
‘We’ll be very gentle,’ Annabel promised, then turned to the tall figure beside her. ‘Does she remember what happened?’
‘Yes, thank goodness.’
His eyes were moist and if he hadn’t been Head of Paediatrics she would have put a comforting hand out to him, but she’d never operated on the child of a top doctor before, she thought wryly, and didn’t know what the rules were.
Aaron’s glance had switched to his mother.
‘Go home and get some rest,’ he told her gently. ‘You’ve had an anxious time. I wish you could have been spared it. The folks in Reception will get you a taxi and I’ll use your car when I come home, which will be a while yet.’
‘All right,’ she agreed, getting to her feet. ‘Now that I’ve seen Lucy awake I feel better.’ Planting a kiss on her granddaughter’s bruised cheek, she went.
As a nurse gave the little girl something for the pain and a drink in a cup with a spout so that she didn’t have to move, Annabel said, ‘You are lucky to have such a wonderful mother. Does she live with you?’
He was staring at her with raised brows and she felt her cheeks reddening. Aaron Lewis must think her extremely nosy, she thought as she fiddled with her stethoscope and pushed back a strand of hair off her brow.
It seemed an eternity before he spoke and then he said, ‘Yes, my mother is wonderful and, yes, she does live with us. Having her there helps to make up for Lucy’s mother not being around any more.’
If