A Child To Open Their Hearts. Marion Lennox

say.’ Keanu fastened a last dressing on Max’s legs. ‘There you go, Dr Lockhart. All better. You’re free to go.’

      Free to go...

      It sounded okay to him, Max thought, swinging his legs gingerly from the examination table. Hettie held his arm while he stood, and he had the sense to let her. Lying supine during medical procedures could make anyone dizzy.

      And dizziness did come, just a little, but it was enough for him to be grateful for Hettie’s support.

      She was small and slight. She’d been through an appalling experience, too, and yet he could feel her strength. She was some woman. How many women would have backed up such a morning with heading into work; with continuing to keep going?

      With offering to adopt a child?

      ‘Are you okay?’ Hettie asked, sounding worried.

      She was worried about him?

      ‘I’m fine. Just a bit wobbly.’

      ‘Take your time,’ Keanu told him. ‘We’ll find you a bed in the ward.’

      ‘If you can find me some clothes I’ll head up to the house.’ His clothes were either in the water or on board the boat. And where was his boat?

      ‘You need someone to keep an eye on you,’ Hettie said. ‘With those legs, you need care. I’m not sure where Caroline is...’

      And, as if on cue, the doors to the theatre swung open. Caroline burst through the doors, looking frantic.

      ‘Dad,’ she said as she saw him. ‘Oh, Dad...’ And she flung herself into his arms and burst into tears.

      Hettie stepped back.

      ‘You’ll be okay now,’ she said softly. ‘You’re with your family.’

      And she walked out and left him with his daughter.

      * * *

      Keanu was waiting as Hettie finished her interview with the local constabulary. He’d protested as she’d donned her nurse’s uniform instead of civvies the moment she’d reached the hospital. Now, though, with Max settled with his daughter and Joni asleep, there seemed no reason for her to stay. The hospital on Wildfire had settled to a new norm. Without Sefina.

      Hettie could hardly think of Sefina without wanting to be sick. Of all the senseless deaths...

      ‘There’s nothing more you can do, Het,’ Keanu told her as the policeman left. The young doctor was starting to sound stern. ‘You’ve had an appalling shock. For you and Max to save Joni was little short of miraculous. You need to give your body time to recover. Take Bugsy home with you and sleep.’

      ‘How can I sleep? Keanu, we failed her.’

      ‘The island failed her,’ he said. ‘The islanders hated Ian Lockhart, and Sefina was someone they could vent that anger on.’

      ‘It wasn’t her fault.’

      ‘We all know that. Even the islanders know that. It was only her husband who was overtly cruel and he’ll be prosecuted. Now you need to take care of you.’

      ‘I’ll stay with Joni.’

      ‘Not on my watch, Het,’ he said, even more firmly. ‘Joni’s a problem we need to solve but not now, not when you’re emotionally distraught. If I let you stay with him all the time it’ll tear your heart out when he leaves. I don’t know where your offer of adoption came from, but it’s crazy. You know it is. You haven’t had time yet even to absorb the enormity of Sefina’s death. So let’s be professional. We’re taking care of him. Go home.’

      ‘I don’t want to.’

      ‘I’ll give you something to help you sleep,’ he said, as if he hadn’t heard her objection, and he took her shoulders and propelled her to the nurses’ station. ‘But you’re signing off now and that’s an order.’

      * * *

      It was all very well, following orders, but Hettie needed to work. She was exhausted but work seemed the only way to get the events of the morning out of her head.

      She couldn’t—but neither could she get rid of this certainty of what she had to do.

      She’d tried hard not to get emotionally involved with her patients. Why did she suddenly, fiercely, want to adopt Joni?

      Why did she need to adopt Joni?

      She walked slowly around the lagoon, in no hurry to get to her neat little villa overlooking the water. The island was lush, beautiful, washed with rain. Most of the storm damage had been cleared. A few palms had fallen but tropical rain forest regenerated fast. Soon there’d be nary a scar.

      Except Sefina was dead.

      Maybe it’d be easier, she thought, if there was a body to bury. To keen over?

      It’d be a tiny funeral if the body was ever found. Nobody here had loved Sefina.

      No one would love Joni. He was Ian Lockhart’s son.

      He’d be adopted off the island, she thought bleakly. Here he’d never get over the stigma of being Ian’s son. He’d never be accepted.

      ‘I could make him be accepted.’ She said it out loud but even as she said it she faced its impossibility. On this island Joni was an illegitimate outsider. He always would be.

      ‘But I want him.’

      Why? She sank onto a fallen log and stared sightlessly over the lagoon. Why did she want, so fiercely, to hug Joni to her? To hold?

      Her maternal instinct was long dead. Killed by Darryn...

      ‘Oh, get over it.’ She rose and stared out at a heron standing one legged at the edge of the water. She often saw this guy here. He was a lone bird.

      ‘And that’s what I am, too,’ she told herself. ‘Today was an aberration. Joni will find himself some lovely parents on the mainland who’ll love him to bits. And I...’ She took a deep breath. ‘I’ll take the pills Keanu gave me and go to sleep. And I’ll wake up in the morning feeling not maternal at all. I’ll feel back to normal.’