Caroline Anderson - Sarah's Gift

‘Ignore her, she’s just jealous because she insists on doing it the hard way,’ Ryan said with a grin, and then ducked the end of a teatowel Ginny snapped at him.

‘Cook, slave,’ she ordered, and then ran upstairs to change, leaving Ryan humming happily over his potatoes.

‘So, who am I making tea for?’ Matt asked.

‘Pass. Ginny definitely, and I’ve never known Sarah say no,’ Ryan told him, stabbing potatoes and lobbing them into a dish.

‘Absolutely not. Count me in.’

‘Unless you’d prefer wine or beer?’ he continued, looking at Matt.

‘Got any low-alcohol beer?’

‘In the fridge. I’ll have some too. Sarah?’

She was watching Matt as he stooped over the fridge, his jeans pulled taut over his hips and thighs. ‘Tea is fine. I’ll make it,’ she said absently, and wondered what on earth had got into her that she couldn’t seem to stop looking at him. She made tea for herself and Ginny, then took it through to the sitting room, leaving Ryan and Matt alone together.

She needed a minute or two alone, time to think about how she felt and why. It was crazy—must be because they’d worked together all day and were in tune.

So why didn’t she feel the same about Ryan, or Patrick, or Jack? Because she worked with them often enough, God knows, and they shared sick jokes and horrendous tragedies and hilarious moments of black comedy.

So why Matt? And why now, after all this time, did she have to choose a man with a child—and not just a child, but a girl, a five-year-old girl with dark hair and solemn eyes, in need of a mother.

Her arms ached, and she hugged them around her waist so they didn’t feel so empty. Overhead she could hear Ginny, talking to Ryan’s children. She was a stepmother. Her own life had contained tragedy, as had Ryan’s, and they were happy.

Clearly it was possible to start again, to find happiness again with someone else.

She tried to remember Rob’s face, but she couldn’t see it, or hear his voice. Only the voices of the children, and the lusty wail of a new-born baby girl—

‘Hi. Which tea’s mine?’

‘Um—the mug with yellow poppies on it,’ she said, and wondered if her voice sounded odd to Ginny or if she’d get away with it.

Nope.

Ginny sat down beside her and laid a hand on her arm. ‘You OK?’

She nodded and dredged up a smile. ‘Yes, fine. Just a bit tired. I think I’m getting a cold,’ she lied.

‘Aren’t we all? Norwich is hell. I’m thinking of giving up.’

Sarah looked at her in astonishment. ‘But you’re almost there! You’ve nearly done your training!’

She shrugged. ‘I didn’t mean just yet. I want to qualify as a GP, then I can do locum work in the term, but the kids need me. It’s all very well Betty and Doug having them occasionally, but they’re getting on a bit to have them all the time in the holidays and they need continuity.’

‘And you need them,’ Sarah added quietly.

‘Yes—yes, I do.’

‘I can understand that. I need them, too. We’re no different in that respect.’

Ginny looked down into her tea and swirled it, her face pensive. ‘You could always get married again and have more children,’ she suggested tentatively.

Sarah swallowed the tight lump in her throat. ‘Yes, I suppose I could. I won’t get them back, though.’

Anguish chased across Ginny’s weary features, and she reached out to Sarah. ‘No, of course not. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to imply they were like tins of beans in a supermarket—just go and buy some more or something. I know you can’t get them back. I just thought, if you could fill the void—’

‘I know.’ Sarah reached out and laid her hand on Ginny’s knee for a second. ‘I know. Don’t worry about me, Ginny, I’m fine.’

‘Virginia, do you want me to do all this garlic bread?’ Ryan yelled from the kitchen.

She stood up with an apologetic smile. ‘Don’t run away.’

Sarah didn’t run. She sat there, listening to the byplay in the kitchen, the teasing laughter and affectionate ribbing, and tried to remember what it had been like married to Rob.

Very similar, she thought. She couldn’t quite remember, though, not clearly. It was almost sad how little she did remember, how much she must have forgotten. It didn’t seem to do them all justice, somehow.

Gus came in, trailed by Emily, looking tired but otherwise quite at home. It was amazing how resilient and flexible children were. Gus turned on the television and they sat down cross-legged in front of the screen. Evie ran in then, hugged Sarah in passing and sat down beside them, changing channels until she found something she wanted to watch.

Sensing a squabble brewing, Sarah got to her feet and called the children. ‘Shall we go and see if the table needs laying? I think supper’s nearly ready.’

‘Did I hear Daddy say something about garlic bread?’ Evie asked, looking over her shoulder.

‘Yes, you did.’

Oh, yum, I like garlic bread. Come on, you two, let’s go and lay the table.’

Sarah followed the headlong dash into the dining room, helped them count the number of places that were needed and then went to find another chair while they set out the cutlery.

Matt was lounging in the kitchen doorway, a beer dangling from his finger, an indulgent smile playing around his lips. He turned to her. ‘How long have these two been married?’ he asked softly.

She peered past him to where they were wrestling with the corkscrew and giggling, and smiled. ‘Just over a year.’

‘It shows,’ he said drily. ‘Shall we start taking things through to the dining room?’

‘Good idea.’ They loaded up with salads, plates of cold meat and cheese, steaming garlic bread and hot jacket potatoes crisped in the oven, and then went back for Ryan and Ginny.

‘If you could bear to drag yourselves apart,’ Sarah said from the doorway, ‘we’ve taken everything through. All we need is the wine, one more chair and you two.’

They separated reluctantly, and as Sarah looked at the soft flush on Ginny’s cheeks and the possessive glow in Ryan’s eyes she thought inexplicably of Matt.

Heat raced through her, taking her breath away.

‘You’re mad,’ she muttered to herself, and turned to find her nose almost on Matt’s broad and rather solid chest.

‘Excuse me?’ he murmured.

‘Nothing. Come on, let’s eat.’

She went back into the dining room, herded the children onto their seats and sat down amongst them, automatically stopping fights, pouring them half-glasses of water from the jug and taking two of the four pieces of garlic bread away from Gus.

‘But I like it!’ he protested.

‘So does everyone else. You have to share—and, anyway, if you have all that, you won’t have room for all the other lovely things.’

The others were seating themselves during this exchange, and Ryan turned to Matt with a laugh. ‘You can see why we love having Sarah here, can’t you? She’s just a natural with them.’

‘So I see.’

She could feel his eyes on her, seeing her, all the way through their meal. She had never felt more watched, and yet every time she looked up he was looking somewhere else, talking to someone else, spearing a piece of salad, handing someone something—never looking at her.

And yet she knew—she just knew —that he was.

What she didn’t understand was why.

A new SHO on her A and E rotation was attached to Sarah the next day, so she hardly saw Matt. She missed him, especially since the young woman was struggling to deal with the new job.

Sarah had to prompt her to X-ray a person who had come in, having had a minor shunt in her car and struck her head on the steering-wheel.