Wanted: A Father for her Twins. Emily Forbes

it affected him directly? He wouldn’t want to turn up and have her unable to go for lack of something to wear. But for the same reason he couldn’t be counted on to bring the dress and shoes she actually requested. He’d bring what he deemed suitable. It was unlikely to be the same thing.

      She tossed the phone on the couch beside her and closed her eyes. Perhaps if she shut everything out for a few moments she’d find the energy to get up and finish the day’s chores.

      Seconds after she’d thrown the phone down it rang, startling her. Philip ringing to see what he could bring? She may as well glance out the window and check if the pigs were flying.

      ‘Hello?’

      ‘Hi, Rosie? It’s Nick Masters.’

      A warm glow spread through her, replacing the low feeling she’d been grappling with even before she had called Philip. ‘Nick, hi.’

      ‘I’ve just checked my operating schedule for the next fortnight. I know it’s late, but I’m only just out of surgery and I got the feeling you’re an information person like me so you’d rather know sooner than later.’

      Rosie managed ‘Thanks’ in reply, stunned he could know that about her in such a short space of time. Or at all. Would any of her past boyfriends have had such an insight into her character?

      ‘I can fit Charlie in on Monday week. I operate at St Catherine’s that day so it’s close for you.’

      ‘Monday’s good. St Catherine’s good.’ Some proper sentences would also be good, she muttered mentally. Come on, get it together. The guy doesn’t know you’re a house-bound loony, don’t let the secret out now! She kick-started her brain into gear. ‘Great. And you’re right, I do like to get all the facts, then I can deal with it, plan, work out what I’m going to do.’ So far so good. ‘Things are much less stressful when the information is on the table and you’re not left second-guessing. Not that I was scared about you operating…’ She stumbled to an embarrassed silence.

      Nick didn’t miss a beat, simply laughing as if she’d been joking. ‘I’m glad to hear it, although most people are terrified, some not so secretly, at the thought of their child having surgery. I’ll get the forms posted to you but he’ll need to be admitted at seven a.m. Can you manage that?’

      It would mean juggling Lucy’s schedule but that wasn’t Nick’s problem. ‘Yes, I’ll sort something out.’

      ‘What about your work, can you take time off?’

      ‘I’m on a leave of absence from my job to concentrate on the children.’

      There was a brief silence at the other end. Had she scared him off with too much information? ‘Maybe once I get Charlie sorted for you, that will help things settle down.’ She got the feeling it wasn’t what he wanted to say, or ask, but that’s all it was. A feeling. And she didn’t know him well enough to ask.

      ‘I hope so. It might be a start at least.’

      ‘Let me know if there’s anything I can do,’ he offered.

      ‘Thanks, Nick, but I doubt you have time to worry about how your patients are going to organise their lives.’ She settled back against the deep cushions of the couch, conscious she was behaving as if she was readying herself for a nice long chat with a good friend.

      ‘Not usually. But most of my private patients have a partner or, to be honest, a nanny to help pick up the slack, and in the public hospitals there’s Family and Community Services help if necessary. It’s no difficulty to schedule things to suit you, you just need to say.’

      ‘I appreciate that, but we’ll be fine, this time at least. We’ll see you on the sixteenth, and thank you.’ She hesitated, unused to the feeling of having help offered, of accepting it, then added, ‘If I get stuck and need an appointment changed, I’ll remember your invitation. It’s very kind of you.’

      He said goodbye and she ended the call, wondering what he’d wanted to say or ask when she’d mentioned her work leave. She shrugged, knowing she’d never know and it probably didn’t matter. It was just one more sign of how insular she’d become, that she could sit analysing the things an almost-stranger hadn’t said during a routine phone call.

      On another note, a more positive note, the phone call had helped her more than Nick would know. To be asked how she was coping, whether something would suit her, made all the difference. She suspected she wasn’t coping all that well given her growing preoccupation with her nephew’s specialist, a man who’d rung only to schedule surgery. A man unlikely to have any interest in an overwhelmed, grieving aunt. But if she allowed herself to ignore those obvious objections, he’d still managed to make her feel she was cared about. He’d managed to make her feel less alone at precisely the time she’d needed that reassurance, however fleeting it might be.

      The contrast between that phone call and the earlier one with Philip was marked. Philip, who should have asked after the children, out of politeness if not out of a sense of concern, hadn’t, yet a virtual stranger had.

      Returning to Canberra to live with the children was one of the options she was thinking over. After her phone call with her ex, that option was looking bleaker. What was there for her, for any of them, if her breakup with Philip was going to be permanent?

      Or perhaps, she reflected, recalling how her tongue had frozen and her belly had sprung to life at the sight of Nick today, what had there ever been there for her? Even with Philip?