Which would be a kind of payback. Something to help lessen the guilt that would never go away.
At the end of their rounds, she said, ‘Can we have a quick word?’
He looked confused, but shrugged. ‘Sure. What can I do for you?’
‘Shall we talk over lunch?’ she suggested. ‘My shout.’
He frowned, suspicion creeping in to his expression. ‘Is this anything to do with the sensory garden?’
‘Absolutely not. No strings,’ she promised. ‘A sandwich and coffee in the staff canteen. And no haranguing you about my pet project. Just something I wanted to run by you.’
‘OK. See you in my office at, what, half-past twelve?’ he suggested. ‘Though obviously that depends on our patients. One of them might need some extra time.’
She liked the fact that even though he was clearly struggling to deal with his personal life, he was still putting his patients first. ‘That’d be great. I’ll come and collect you.’
Erin spent the rest of the morning in clinic, and to her relief everything ran on time. Nate’s pre-surgery consultations had clearly also gone well, because he was sitting at his desk in his office when she turned up at half-past twelve.
‘I’ll just save my file,’ he said, and tapped a few buttons on his computer keyboard while she waited.
In the staff canteen, she bought them both a sandwich and coffee, plus a blueberry muffin, and directed him to find them a quiet table in the corner.
‘Cake?’ he asked when she turned up at their table.
‘Absolutely. Cake makes everything better,’ she said.
‘So what can I do for you?’ he asked, looking slightly wary.
‘Yesterday, you said that you didn’t know me.’
He winced. ‘Sorry. That was rude. I didn’t mean it to sound as mean as that.’
‘I’m not trying to make you feel bad about what you said,’ she said. ‘What I mean is that we all go through times when we can’t see the wood for the trees, and sometimes it helps to talk to someone who’s completely not connected with the situation—someone who might have a completely different viewpoint.’
He didn’t look convinced.
‘So I guess I’m repeating my offer from yesterday,’ she finished.
‘That’s very kind of you, but—’ he began.
‘Don’t say no,’ she broke in. ‘Just eat your lunch and think about it.’
‘Why are you being so kind?’ he asked. ‘Because you don’t know me, either.’
‘I don’t have any weird ulterior motive,’ she said. ‘It’s kind of payback. You know—what goes around, comes around. In the past, I was in a tough situation when I really needed to talk to someone. I was lucky, because someone was there for me. So now it’s my turn to be that person for someone else.’
‘As in me?’ He looked thoughtful. ‘Got you.’
Though she noticed that he still looked worried. And she could guess why. ‘For the record,’ she said gently, ‘I’m not a gossip. Whatever you say to me will go nowhere else. And right now I think you really do need to talk to someone, because you look like hell.’
He smiled, then. ‘And you tell it like it is.’
She shrugged. ‘It’s the easiest way. So just eat your cake and think about it, yes?’
* * *
Nate knew that he really didn’t deserve this. But, oh, it was so tempting to take up Erin’s offer. If nothing else, she might help him to see things from Caitlin’s point of view so he could understand what was going on in his daughter’s head. Since Caitlin had come to live with him, he’d never felt more alone.
He believed Erin when she said she wasn’t a gossip. He’d never heard her talk about other people in the staff room in their absence. Besides, the kind of people who organised departmental evenings out and collections for gifts for colleagues weren’t the kind of people who took pleasure in tearing people down.
Even though he barely knew her, he had the strongest feeling that he could trust her.
And maybe she had a point. Talking to someone who didn’t know either of them might help him see his way through this. Then maybe he could be the father Caitlin so clearly needed. ‘You’re sure about this?’ he asked. ‘Because it’s a long story and it’s not pretty. I...’ He dragged in a breath. ‘Right now, I don’t like myself very much.’
‘Nothing’s beautiful all the time, and if you have regrets about a situation then it’s proof that you’re willing to consider making changes to improve things,’ she said. ‘And it might not be as bad as you think. Try me.’
‘Thank you.’ But where did he start? ‘It’s my daughter,’ he said eventually.
‘You’re a new dad?’ she asked. ‘Well, that would explain the shadows under your eyes. Not enough sleep, thanks to your newborn.’
He gave her a wry smile. ‘Yes to the sleepless nights bit—but it’s complicated.’
She simply spread her hands and smiled back, giving him space to make sense of things in his own head rather than barging in with questions. Funny how that made it so much easier to talk to her.
‘I’m sort of a new dad, but Caitlin’s not a newborn,’ he explained. ‘She’s thirteen.’
* * *
Nate had a thirteen-year-old daughter.
So did that mean he was married? Well, good, Erin thought. That would make him absolutely out of bounds. Any relationship between them would have to be strictly platonic. She was aware that made her a coward, choosing to spend her time with people she knew were unavailable so were therefore safe: but she’d turned her life round now and she wasn’t going to risk letting everything go off track again.
But then again, he’d just said he was a new dad. How? Was he fostering the girl?
Giving him a barrage of questions would be the quickest way to make him close up again; but silence would be just as bad. ‘Thirteen’s a tough age,’ she said, hoping that she didn’t sound judgemental.
‘And she doesn’t get on with her mother’s new husband.’
New husband? Oh, help. So Nate wasn’t married, then—or, at least, he wasn’t married to the mother of his daughter.
‘She didn’t get on with my now ex-girlfriend, either.’
Meaning that Nate was single. Which in turn meant he was no longer safe. Erin masked her burgeoning dismay with a kind smile.
‘And I have absolutely no idea how to connect with my daughter.’ He sighed. ‘Anyone would think I was eighty-five, not thirty-five.’
So if Caitlin was thirteen now, Nate had been quite young when she was born. Not even fully qualified as a doctor, let alone as a surgeon.
Clearly her thoughts showed in her expression, as he sighed again. ‘I’m sure you’ve already done the maths and worked out that we had Caitlin when we were young. Too young, really. Steph was twenty-one and I was twenty-two. We hadn’t actually planned to have Caitlin at that point, but we didn’t want the alternative, so we got married. We thought at the time it would work out because we loved each other and we’d manage to muddle through it together.’
Yeah. Erin knew that one. Except loving someone wasn’t