Cathryn Parry - The Good Mum

In his fogged mind, he put two and two together. “You’ve been ordered to cut my hair, haven’t you?”

She had the grace to laugh at their predicament. “Silly, isn’t it?”

The fact that his grandmother was ordering people to cut his hair was out of character, for sure. But he didn’t think it was a sign of dementia. The fact that he even had to consider that his grandmother could have dementia gave him a small moment of sadness.

“I’ll take good care of you,” Ashley said quickly. “I promise I’ll make it as fast and painless as possible. No chatter.” She smiled at him, putting her finger to her lips.

He stared back, determined not to look at those lips. They were tempting, and he didn’t want to be tempted.

“I’m sort of debriefing,” he said. He felt a sudden wave of anger and pain, and he almost faltered on his feet. He was very much debriefing.

And he doubted that even standing here talking to her was a good idea.

* * *

ASHLEY WAS BEFUDDLED as she watched the look on Aidan’s face move from wariness and confusion to anger. But there was no mistaking his feelings, because with a grimace of pain and a short shake of his head, he stood and walked away.

Without even pausing. Without even looking back at her.

She froze for a moment, her heart sinking, staring at Aidan’s retreating back. With a defiant gesture, he raked his hand once through his wild tangle of dark curls, as if he couldn’t have bothered about anyone in the salon, and then he opened the street door and left. Not a backward glance.

Ashley stood, shaking, her mouth opening and closing, debating what she should do. To do nothing was not an option—her new life depended on her doing something. Ilana would at some point want an account of what had happened, and if she decided that Ashley had been in the wrong—that she’d angered a client’s grandson and failed to sweet-talk him into going along with his grandmother’s wishes, then Ashley’s employment would be jeopardized, fair or not.

She couldn’t let that happen. How to fix it?

Maybe, to start, she should figure out what he’d meant by debriefing. That seemed the key to it.

She whirled for someone to ask about him. Kylie was seated at her receptionist station behind the front desk. She wore a headset and a wide-eyed expression, as if she couldn’t believe that Ashley had dared to touch a client’s chest. Ashley barely believed it herself. The thin cotton shirt he wore was no barrier. His skin had been hot—warm with pulsing blood that beat beneath a layer of muscles. She had been fascinated and scared, but also self-conscious and somewhat horrified that she’d been so tacky as to attempt to physically stop a customer from leaving.

Ashley placed her palms on Kylie’s desk. “What do you think is going on with that guy?” she whispered.

Kylie’s wide-eyed look came back. “I don’t know.”

“Maybe something happened before he flew home, at Doctor’s Aid? Could we go over everything his grandmother said this afternoon? Each word? Maybe there’s a clue.”

“Um, okay.” Kylie knocked at her teeth with a pen. “Well, his grandmother said that they came directly from the airport. Then they were going to lunch together, at a restaurant by the Aquarium, and she wanted him to get a haircut while she had her regular appointment.” Kylie smiled to herself. “I can see why. He really needs it.”

“Did she say anything else?” Ashley prodded.

Kylie scratched her head. “Well, Ilana walked over and looked in the appointment app and said, ‘Ashley is free.’ Then she told me to go get you and tell you that you had a walk-in. And I did.” Kylie looked up at Ashley with liquid brown eyes.

Ashley smiled reassuringly at her. “You did well.” Honestly, if she owned a salon—her dream business—she would never terrorize her employees. She would be pleasant to them all the time.

Sighing, she ran over her conversation with Aidan again in her mind. “Kylie, he asked if I’d noticed a change in his grandmother. Do you know what he meant by that?”

“Um...” With a bewildered look, Kylie turned to the computer screen that showed their bookings. Ashley gazed over her shoulder.

“Vivian Sharpe!” Ashley exclaimed, reading the entry in the computer. “Aidan’s grandmother is Vivian Sharpe?”

“Who’s that?” Kylie asked.

Only one of the richest and most influential people in Boston. Ashley groaned. In her more naive days, she’d once attempted to meet Vivian through Brandon and her sister—but the elderly woman had gone to great lengths to keep to her private entourage.

Vivian Sharpe—and her grandson Aidan—were on a whole other rarified level from Ashley. Vivian sat on the board of directors at Wellness Hospital. She had a particular interest in running the Sunshine Club, the cancer charity that Brandon volunteered for. Even worse, she owned the New England Captains, the professional baseball team where Ashley’s brother-in-law used to play, until he was traded to San Francisco. Brandon was over the moon about the Captains.

“Do you know this lady?” Kylie asked.

Ashley sighed. “Not really. I know of her, but that’s about it.”

Ashley communicated with the Sunshine Club office only through intermediaries—usually Susan Vanderbilt, a public relations manager at the hospital. Ashley hadn’t understood the etiquette at first, and she’d actually dared to approach Vivian once early on, at a fancy hospital Christmas party that Brandon had been invited to attend. Vivian had barely deigned to speak to her. Ashley’s sister had told her not to feel bad—that the elderly philanthropist kept herself aloof from most people, but Ashley had sensed there was more to it than that.

It had seemed personal to her.

Truth was the woman seemed not to approve of her, and that had hit Ashley in her most vulnerable spot—the worry and shame that she was in over her head with Brandon, that she wasn’t doing a good enough job at being his mom.

Just great. She felt like weeping, but now wasn’t the time or place. Her job and maybe Brandon’s place in his new world were at stake. She wished she could call her sister—ask her if she knew a Dr. Aidan from her time working at Wellness Hospital. Was there anything about him—any commonalities that she might use to appeal to him?

Ashley took out her phone. But her sister didn’t live in Boston anymore. She was three time zones away, in San Francisco, and anyway, she was likely in surgery, administering anesthesia.

She could do this. She’d made it this far, hadn’t she?

On a whim, Ashley opened up the web browser and typed in an internet search for Doctor’s Aid, Boston and Aidan. She found her answer on the first hit.

Dr. Aidan Lowe, that was his name. There was a photo of him—his hair neater, his skin less tanned—posed beside a regal, beautiful, confident-looking woman. Dr. Fleur Sanborne. In the caption she was described not as his wife, not as a fiancée, but as his partner.

Life partner, judging by the body language. He obviously adored her.

Ashley clicked on the article. “Friendly Fire Destroys Doctor’s Aid Clinic—Hub Doctor Killed.”

Hub was the unique word that the local headline writers used for “city of Boston.” Ashley froze reading it, barely able to breathe. Her hands shaking, she could only skim bits of phrases from the newspaper article, dated last October.

Dr. Aidan Lowe, an orthopedic surgeon of this city, escaped injury during an attack that firebombed a volunteer clinic in the war-torn region of southern Afghanistan...

Dr. Fleur Sanborne, also of this city, the chief medical adviser to Doctor’s Aid, International, died this morning after succumbing to her injuries...