Annie Claydon - Doctor On Her Doorstep

‘I know.’ He fingered the envelope he had tucked inside the file, wondering whether now was the time to bring it out. ‘They’ll look better. You know that, don’t you?’

‘Yeah. S’pose so.’ Julie huffed a sigh. ‘Every day, in every way it just gets better and better, is that it?’

Adam suppressed a grin. He could see why Jenna had taken to Julie. Underneath all that teenage petulance the kid had spirit. ‘Well, yeah. Some days are always going to be better than others, but if you look at it in the long term, things do get better.’ He was getting there. He got a grin in return. ‘You look better when you smile, you know.’

‘Yeah, I’ve heard that one before too.’

Adam came to a decision and pulled the envelope he had brought out of the file. ‘I brought you a picture. One of my patients, I treated her for burns.’

Julie focussed on the envelope. ‘So I’m supposed to look at this and see how much progress she’s made, am I?’ Petulant and bright. Adam could see why Julie was such a handful.

‘I had a lot of fears when I was hurt. A lot of feelings that I couldn’t come to terms with.’ The look on Julie’s face told Adam that she did, too. ‘So did the girl in the picture. It’s a tough road, but sometimes knowing that you’re not walking it alone makes it a bit easier.’

He was delving much deeper into his own pain than he’d expected to. But somehow, with Jenna sitting quietly beside him, and Julie, whose need was so much greater than his own, it felt okay. Almost a relief.

‘Okay. I’ll look.’ Julie reached for the photograph, struggling to get it out of the envelope with just one hand. Jenna didn’t move to help her. Tough love. But it was love, all the same, the kind that was going to haul Julie through this, kicking and screaming if necessary.

Jenna craned over to see the photograph. ‘Who’s the boy that she’s with?’

‘That’s Rick. They’re married now.’

Jenna exchanged looks with Julie. ‘He’s nice. I think he’s more of a Ricky than a Rick, don’t you?’

Julie giggled. ‘Yeah. Pretty neat guy.’

It wasn’t exactly textbook stuff, but it was working. The last thing that Julie was seeing were the faint scars on Claudia’s leg. She was seeing a young woman, happy and in love, her handsome boyfriend at her side. Jenna worked round to the scars, but only after she’d made her point about Rick not caring about them. Adam’s hand strayed absently to his shoulder. She was almost making him feel better.

‘Can you make me a copy of this?’ Julie regarded Adam, obviously assessing his age and likely technical competence. ‘Do you know how to do that?’

‘I’ve got a copy. Take this.’

‘So you like the younger man, do you?’ All the way down to the canteen, Adam had been smiling at something, and that was obviously it.

‘Oh, go boil your head.’ Jenna stuffed her take-away sandwich into his hand while she rummaged in her bag for her purse, then grabbed the sandwich back again. She wasn’t best pleased with him, but tact prevented Jenna from challenging him here and now on the matter.

He shot her a puzzled look and her exasperation began to cool. Not before he’d noticed it, though. ‘Want to talk about it?’ Before she could stop him, he’d taken her sandwich back, showing it to the cashier and then walking away with it to a quiet spot in the far corner of the canteen.

As soon as she reached the table where he was sitting, she made a lunge for the sandwich, but he was too quick for her, holding it out of her reach. ‘So you’re going to starve me into submission now, are you?’

‘If necessary.’

‘I do have money, you know. I can go and get another one.’ Jenna plumped herself down on the chair opposite.

‘You’re not going to, though.’

She probably shouldn’t have shown her hand by sitting down. ‘No. I’m not.’ He pushed her sandwich across the table towards her with one finger, and Jenna took possession of it. ‘You might have told me about being shot. That you know about trauma first hand.’ She lowered her voice, hissing the words across the table at him.

‘I might have done.’ He rubbed thoughtfully at his shoulder. ‘I would have done, if I’d known that I was going to tell Julie.’

‘That’s not the point. Do you really think that you’re best placed to help her if you’ve still got issues of your own to deal with?’

‘Who says that I do?’

The look in his eyes, for a start. And Jenna was sure that she’d not been mistaken when she’d thought she’d heard his stifled cry last night. Even though she hadn’t seen him, she’d sensed his presence out on the patio. ‘Well, do you?’

‘Not where Julie’s concerned. I have it under control.’ Maybe he saw the disbelief in her eyes. ‘If you want to know, you should just ask. Rob drives me crazy, tiptoeing around what happened as if it’s some guilty secret.’

‘Well, tact never was Rob’s strong point.’ She got a grin in response. ‘I would like to know, but the canteen’s probably not the best place in the world to have this conversation.’ Jenna looked around awkwardly.

‘It’s okay. My fiancée and I were both shot eighteen months ago in Guatemala, in a roadside ambush that went bad. Elena died, and I pulled through. I struggled with it, for a long time.’

The mixed emotions jostling in her chest drained away, leaving only horror and shock. ‘Adam, I’m so sorry.’

He slid his hand across the table towards hers, as if he should be the one to comfort her. ‘It happened and I won’t say that it hasn’t changed me. But I’d never let it compromise the welfare of any patient.’

‘No.’ Her fingers were trembling, and she pressed them down onto the tabletop to steady them. ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have insinuated that.’

‘But I still should have told you?’

‘Yes, I think you should.’

He nodded. ‘So do I. And I want you to promise me something.’

Anything. She’d do anything she could to help him. ‘Okay.’

‘If you ever think that a personal issue is getting in the way of my treatment of a patient, you’ll tell me. I don’t mean dropped hints or concerned noises, but words of one syllable.’

‘I can do that. I’m better at words of one syllable than I am at hints.’

He grinned. ‘Thought you might be.’ He looked at his watch. ‘As we’re here, do you have time for some coffee?’

‘Yes, of course.’ Those honest eyes of his. Never once countenancing pity, but demanding respect. Jenna could almost feel them drawing her in, inch by inch. ‘I’ve another twenty minutes of my lunch break left, and they’ll page me if they need me.’ He went to stand and she beat him to it. ‘Stay there, I’ll get them.’

Things were beginning to make sense. He’d papered over the cracks of his own trauma so effectively that it only surfaced at night when he couldn’t suppress it with an effort of will. And by the time Jenna returned with the coffee, setting his cup down in front of him, he had already moved on and was thinking about something else.

‘Acid’s a very personal way to attack someone.’

‘It was personal. Kind of.’ Jenna tipped some milk into his cup. ‘Julie has a sister, a year older than her. They’re very alike, could be twins. She’d borrowed her sister’s blouse and jacket to go out in.’

‘And the acid was meant for her sister?’

‘Yes. An ex-boyfriend who held a grudge. The parents knew there was a problem there, and had been keeping an eye on Julie’s sister.’

‘And no one thought to stop Julie from going out dressed in her sister’s clothes?’ Anger suffused every line of his face.

‘Easy to be wise after the event. I’ve talked to the parents and put in an urgent request for counselling for Julie’s sister, but she’s not at the top of the priority list.’