Marion Lennox: Falling For Her Wounded Hero

Sometimes the grave was rain-washed, sometimes it was bathed in sunshine, but it was always covered in wildflowers and backed by the sea. He’d promised this on the day of the funeral and he’d kept his word. ‘I’ll look after this for you, Tasha. I’ll look after it for Emily and I’ll always make sure you can see it.’

It hurt but still she wanted it. She usually sent a curt thank you back and felt guilty that she couldn’t do better.

For Tom had been wonderful, she conceded. He’d been with her every step of the way during that appalling time.

It had been Tom who’d intervened when various specialists had decreed Emily needed to be in ICU, saying that spending time with her mother would decrease her tiny life span. Tom had simply looked at them and they’d backed off.

It had been Tom who’d organised discreet, empathic photographers, who’d put together her most treasured possession—an album of a perfect, beautiful baby being held with love.

It had been Tom who’d taken her back to Cray Point, who’d stood beside her during a heartbreaking burial and then let her be, to sit on the veranda and stare out at the horizon for as long as she’d needed. He’d been there when she’d felt like talking and had left her alone when she’d needed to be alone.

And when, three weeks after Emily’s death, she’d woken one morning and said she needed to go back to London, she needed to go back to work, he’d driven her to the airport and he’d hugged her goodbye.

She’d felt as if leaving him had been ripping yet another part of her life away.

But his emails had come every Sunday, and he was seemingly not bothered that she could hardly respond.

‘So what?’ she demanded of herself when there was still no email the next morning. ‘Tom was there when you needed him but it’s been eighteen months. You can’t expect him to photograph a grave for the rest of his life.’

Could she move on, too?

And with that came another thought. The idea had seeped into her consciousness a couple of months ago. It was stupid. She surely wasn’t brave enough to do it, but once it had seeded in her brain the longing it brought with it wouldn’t let her alone.

Could she try for another baby?

What would Tom think? she wondered, and her instinctive question was enough to make her stop walking and blink.

‘Tom’s not in the equation,’ she said out loud, and the people around her cast her curious glances.

She shook her head and kept going. Of course Tom wasn’t in the equation.

‘It’s good that the contact’s finally over,’ she told herself, but then she thought of Emily’s grave at Cray Point and knew that part of her heart would always be there.

With or without Tom Blake.

CHAPTER THREE

Six weeks later...

TODAY HAD BEEN an exhausting shift in the emergency department of her London hospital. The hospital was on the fringe of a poor socio-economic district, where unemployment was rife and where the young didn’t have enough to do. The combination was a recipe for disaster and the disasters often ended up in Tasha’s care.

She’d had two stabbings this shift. She was emotionally wiped—but, then, she thought as she changed to go home, she wanted to be emotionally wiped. She wanted to go home exhausted enough to sleep.

She’d hardly slept for weeks. Why?

Was it because the emails had stopped?

It was her own fault, she thought. She hadn’t made it clear she was grateful, because a part of her wasn’t. Tom’s emails were a jagged reminder of past pain. She didn’t want to remember—but neither did she want to forget.

And now Tom had obviously decided it was time to move on. She should be over it.

Could she ever be over it? She stared at her reflection in the change-room mirror and let her thoughts take her where they willed. How to move on?

Part of her ached for another baby, but did she have the courage?

‘Tasha? You have visitors.’ Ellen, the nurse administrator, put her nose around the door. ‘Two ladies are here to see you. They arrived two hours ago. They wouldn’t let me disturb you but said as soon as you finished your shift could I let you know. I’ve popped them into the counselling room with tea and biccies. They seem nice.’

‘Nice?’

Emergency departments saw many tragedies. Often family members came in, days, weeks, sometimes months after the event to talk through what had happened. Ellen usually pre-empted contact by finding the patient file and giving her time to read it. It helped. For doctors like Tasha, after weeks or months individual deaths could become blurred.

But Ellen wasn’t carrying a file and she’d described them as nice, nothing more.

‘It’s personal,’ Ellen said, seeing her confusion. ‘They say it’s nothing to do with a patient. They’re Australian. Hilda and Rhonda. Middle-aged. One’s knitting, the other’s doing crochet.’

Hilda and Rhonda.

She stilled, thinking of the only two Australians she knew who were called Hilda and Rhonda.

‘Shall I tell them you can’t see them?’ Ellen asked, watching her face. ‘I’m sure they’ll understand. They seem almost nervous about disturbing you. One word from me and I suspect they’ll scuttle.’

Did she want them to...scuttle?

No. Of course she didn’t.

For some reason her heart was doing some sort of stupid lurch. Surely something wasn’t wrong? With Tom?

It couldn’t be, she thought. He’d be safe home in Cray Point with his latest lady. Who? He’d mentioned his women in his emails. Alice? No, Alice had been a good twelve months ago. There’d been Kylie and Samantha and Susie since then.

The Blake brothers were incorrigible, she thought, and she even managed a sort of smile as she headed off to see what Rhonda and Hilda had in store for her.

But they weren’t here to tell her about Tom’s latest lady.

* * *

‘A subarachnoid haemorrhage?’ She stared at the two women in front of her and she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. ‘Tom’s had a subarachnoid haemorrhage?’

The women had greeted her with disbelief at first—‘You look so different!’

‘I’m wearing scrubs,’ she’d told them, but they’d shaken their heads in unison.

‘You look prettier. Younger. Though that time would have made anyone look old.’ They’d hugged her, but then they’d moved onto Tom.

These two women had formed a caring background during her time in Cray Point but now they seemed almost apologetic. Apologising for what they were telling her.

‘It was the surf,’ Rhonda said. ‘A minor accident, he said, just a cut needing a few stitches, but then his neck was stiff and he got a blinding headache. He collapsed, scaring the life out of us. We had to get the air ambulance and the doctors say he only just made it.’

‘But they say he’s going to be okay,’ Hilda broke in, speaking fast. Maybe she’d seen the colour drain from Tasha’s face. ‘Eventually. But it did some damage—the same as a minor stroke. Now he’s trying to pretend it’s business as normal but of course it’s not.’

‘What happened?’ Tasha asked, stunned.

‘It was the first of the winter storms,’ Hilda told her, sniffing at the idiocy of surfers in general and one surfer in particular. ‘The surf was huge and of course people were doing stupid things. They were surfing too close to the rocks for the conditions and he hit his head—a nasty, deep gash. Mary and Chris...did you meet them? They’re the medical couple who help out sometimes. They stitched his head and tried to persuade him he needed a scan but would he listen? And that night... Well, it was lucky I decided to stay on, though cleaning the pantry was an excuse. He’d put off having his latest woman for dinner so I thought he must be feeling really ill. And he was toying with his meal when all of a sudden he said “Hilda, my neck... My head...” And then he sort of slumped.’