The Doctors' Christmas Reunion / Unwrapping The Neurosurgeon's Heart

‘I just cannot believe how many stars there are. I know they are there, in the city and we just don’t see them for the other lights, but out here…’

She waved her arms around as if to encompass the beauty she couldn’t put into words.

‘And all yours,’ Andy said, wondering if she remembered his promise to give her the moon and the stars…

And looking at her, her clear skin luminous in the starlight, her golden-brown hair framing a face he’d always thought perfection, he wanted to take her in his arms again, take her back to that time, make her really his once more.

‘Did you ask me something?’

Her question broke the moment, although he knew the moment he’d felt had never been possible.

Thought back to his question.

‘Oh, I just wondered if you still hated surgery?’

She’d started forward but now paused again, turned back to him.

‘I’ve never really hated it so much as felt very uncomfortable. It seems so intrusive to be fumbling around inside someone else’s body.’

Ellie sighed, and shook her head as if to chase the thoughts away.

‘And speaking of bodies, I really need to talk to you about something that came up today. Shall we get a pizza and sit in the park to eat it?’

‘You’ve hidden a dead body somewhere, and need my help to bury it?’ Andy said, hoping the teasing words hid a sudden panic inside him.

Was she tired of their pretend marriage?

Was she leaving him completely?

Did she want a divorce?

Nonsense! he told himself. She’d mentioned bodies. It was something from work she wanted to discuss.

But the tension she’d aroused remained with him as he ordered their pizza, half with anchovies and half without, took extra paper napkins as they’d be eating in the park, and waited while Ellie chatted with the young girl behind the counter, blithely unaware of the torment her words had caused him.

Their marriage as a marriage might be virtually over, but could he live without the woman he loved?

The woman, he was fairly certain, who still loved him?

And could their marriage really be over?

He thought of the times when they’d tried to talk about it, as two intelligent people working out their differences. But the problem with loving someone was that you knew their sore and vulnerable spots—knew the words that would stab them in those places…

Worse still, you used those words as weapons.

So not talking had seemed easier, although Ellie deciding to make the move downstairs had left him feeling hollowed out inside. He was aware it could be a prelude to her leaving altogether for all she’d said they both needed their own space for a while.

Andy carried the pizza up to the park, which was deserted at this time of night, and set it down on a table, aware as he always was of Ellie’s warmth by his side.

But worry about this ‘talk’ now nibbled at his mind so, as he placed a piece of pizza—from the anchovies’ side—on a napkin, and passed it to his wife, he said, ‘Okay, talk. What’s up?’

Ellie turned, questions in her night-dark eyes, and he realised he’d spoken too abruptly.

‘Right!’ she began, apparently reading his anxiety in his face. ‘Chelsea arrived this morning—your cousin Chelsea—and she’s pregnant and wanted to get away from home and people who know her until after the baby’s born. Apparently both her parents are off somewhere and Harry’s been looking after her—’

‘Not very well, if she’s pregnant!’ Andy muttered. ‘Does he know she’s here?’

‘Apparently so,’ Ellie said, ‘although I will phone him when we get home to tell him she’s arrived safely. I tried earlier but his phone was switched off.’

‘But where’s her mother, for heaven’s sake? I know her father’s probably off saving whales somewhere, but her mum? And Harry’s what? All of nineteen, I imagine, and far more involved in his own life at university than caring for his sister. Of all the irresponsible—’

He realised he was yelling now and it really wasn’t Ellie he should be yelling at, but she simply smiled at him and said, ‘She’s off finding herself, apparently.’

‘Mad, they’re both mad, they always have been. How Dad and Ken can possibly be brothers beats me. And as for Jill, why isn’t she at home, looking after a kid who’s barely out of childhood? I would have thought teenage years were when young girls, in particular, needed their mothers around.’

‘She’s sixteen,’ Ellie told him, ‘and twelve to sixteen weeks gestation. A bit hard to be precise at that stage and she has a very slight build.’

She paused, and Andy wondered what worried her about the situation. Apart from it being Chelsea. Teenage pregnancy was far from uncommon these days.

Was she thinking of their arrival here in town—of the coincidence of her being sixteen weeks pregnant when they’d first begun their move to Maytown?

Andy watched as Ellie ate her slice of pizza, chewing and swallowing it before she smiled at him, then shrugged as if uncertain where to begin.

‘I can understand her turning to a boyfriend for comfort, with her parents gone, and that the pregnancy was an accident, but I didn’t want to push her to talk too much about the future.’

He saw the worry in the little crease between her eyebrows, and read it in her voice.

‘The thing is, Andy, we’ll take her in, I was sure you’d agree with that, but I wondered if she—if we…’

It was so unlike Ellie to be this hesitant over something that he reached out and took her hand, feeling her fingers curl into his, warm and sticky from the pizza but accepting his support.

‘I wouldn’t like your mum to find out about our marriage right now and be upset, which she will if I’m downstairs and you’re upstairs while Chelsea’s with us. I mean, it’s a bit like shouting it to the world.’

Her head lifted so she could watch his face as he considered it.

‘Easily fixed,’ Andy said, barely suppressing his delight because the top part of the house was desperately empty without Ellie in it. A cool, contained and even frosty Ellie was better than no Ellie at all.

If only he’d realised that before she’d made the move downstairs. He should have talked to her about feeling shut out; about his own pain, and how much it had frightened him; about feeling cast adrift after she left —

‘You’ll move back up? I’m still sleeping in Dad’s old room, so you can go back into Mum’s.’

She half smiled and he guessed that life in the downstairs flat hadn’t been entirely joyous either.

‘I didn’t take all that much,’ she said, ‘but, yes, I think that would be best.’

‘And Chelsea? Has she planned anything beyond escaping to Maytown for the period of her pregnancy?’

Ellie shrugged.

‘We barely talked, and right now she’s confused, and lost, and really needs to know she’s safe and loved and cared for. I do wonder about Jill going off like that when Chelsea is still so young. Do you think because her husband is always off somewhere, she felt it was her turn?’

Andy grinned at her.

‘Who knows what goes on in other people’s relationships?’ he said, and she responded with a small smile, turning her fingers so she could squeeze his hand.

‘Too true. Look at ours!’ she said with a smile.

The smile and something in her tone of voice suggested there was more hope than defeat in the words but before he could pursue it, Ellie was talking again.

‘Well, all we can do is be there for her. I can only help her with her pregnancy at the moment, and perhaps you and I can both talk with her about the future. About the baby, maybe—’

‘No!’

The word seemed to echo around the park, far too loud, far too strong, far too emotionally charged…

Andy breathed deeply, counted to ten then another five, and regained a semblance of control over the dark fear that had seized him.

‘I know she’s family and I’m happy to take her in, but just what is going to happen to the baby when it arrives? Will you want to keep it, too? Is this your way of getting back at me for refusing more IVF? How long before you start thinking of it as your baby?’

Obviously, the counting hadn’t helped because he was shouting now. Ellie’s face looked white and strained in the gloom.

The silence that fell between them was somehow louder than his words, broken only when Ellie stood up and said quietly, ‘I was only thinking we might help her. Yes, take her in, she’s family. It’s up to her to decide about the baby but while she’s with us we might both be able to help her find a path ahead—at least begin to plan for her future.’

She stepped backwards away from the bench she’d been sitting on, and turned away, pausing only to say, ‘And it was our baby I wanted, Andy, not someone else’s.’

CHAPTER THREE

HOW HAD THEY gone from hand-holding to being back at war? From what had felt almost like old times to cold apartness?

Andy caught up with her as she stormed away, his long strides easily covering the ground he’d lost.

But getting past his careless words wouldn’t be as easy. There’d been no mistaking the raw pain in her voice, even months after they’d lost their baby.

‘I’m sorry,’ he began, wondering why the words sounded less meaningful than they would have if his arms had been around her, holding her as he whispered them into her ear.

But he did touch her shoulder, draw her closer, so he could look into her eyes.

‘Of course we’ll help Chelsea decide what she wants to do.’ He ploughed on, realising this wasn’t such a great idea as Ellie’s lips were right there in front of him, and so damn kissable.

He needed to take a deep breath and walk on.

He needed to walk and talk, not stop and kiss…

‘I imagine she’ll be at school during the day, and hopefully she can make some friends before the end of term.’

But Ellie, he realised, was no longer by his side. This time she’d stopped several paces back and was muttering to herself.

‘You okay?’ he asked.

‘Yes!’ Ellie caught up with him. ‘I just hadn’t thought about school. Chelsea’s only sixteen so of course she should still be at school.’

She hesitated again.

‘Although maybe sixteen is an acceptable age to leave school—I’ll have to find out. And will going to school, being pregnant in a place full of strangers, be frightening for her?’

Andy imagined a pregnant Chelsea having to brave it up in front of a room full of teenage strangers. Guilt at his earlier reaction ate into him. Wasn’t their profession meant to be a caring one?

Then he smiled as the answer came to him.

‘Well, if she’s with us for the weekend, she can join in the soccer barbecue. Most of the team are at the high school. They’re all good kids, they’ll look after her.’

‘Oh, Andy! That’s a wonderful idea,’ the woman he loved replied, with such enthusiasm that she threw her arms around him and gave him a hug.

It was just a quick hug, and maybe it was the shock of it that stopped him returning it, or the thought of it turning it into something longer, more intimate. There was that kiss idea again…

The mere thought of kissing Ellie made his head spin.

But it was not to be. Although it did seem to Andy that maybe they could make their way back to being friends—something that had seemed impossible when the emotion-driven arguments had sent her off to sleep downstairs two long months ago.

Back then, he hadn’t realised just how broken things had become between them, possibly because his mother had often sought refuge from her loud and boisterous family by escaping to the downstairs flat. Even when they had both been upstairs, his parents, in his memory, had never shared a bedroom, his mother being a light sleeper and his father often being called out in the middle of the night.

After a while he’d accepted it was easier this way—easier to have Ellie in a separate space even if he lay awake at night wondering if she, too, was awake.

Wondering if she, too, was thinking of their first night together, of their wedding night…

Sharing a bed and not sharing love, that would have been impossible…

‘You’re really okay about having Chelsea to stay?’ Ellie asked, linking her arm through Andy’s as they walked through their gate, down the path, and stopped at the bottom of the steps that led up to the veranda.

‘Of course I am. Though we should do something about one of the girls’ rooms to make it comfortable for her.’

‘Or let her do it up how she wants it. It will give her something to do over the holidays and I think she’d probably enjoy it.’

‘You’re a good woman, Ellie Fraser,’ Andy said, his voice curling into her ears, the deep tone finding its way into her heart.

‘You’re not so bad yourself, for a bloke!’ she parried, afraid, because what was happening inside her felt a little bit like falling in love, or the tentative, fragile, beginning part of falling in love, again.

She’d worked out, back when their world had crashed, that it was okay to still love Andy—that would never change—but it would be better not to be ‘in love’ with him, because that would make the gulf between them too hard to bear.

‘You might want to check on Chelsea, while I move my things back into your mother’s room,’ Ellie said. ‘She was going to grab something to eat and go to bed, but if she’s awake I know she’d like to see you and know you’re happy to have her here.’

And being downstairs, packing what few things she’d actually moved, would give Ellie time to think about her feelings for Andy, something that was easier to do when he wasn’t around, his body sending messages to hers, reminding her of what they’d had.

She had to think, too, about the decision she’d made so recently—the one to give up and go back to the city.

She could hardly do that with Chelsea here, and become yet another person leaving her in the lurch!

She watched Andy take the steps two at a time and turn along the veranda, peering into rooms to find their guest.

She’d shower downstairs then gather up her things. Upstairs, they’d share the en suite bathroom, as they had when he’d shifted into his father’s room.

Back then, in the beginning of the separation, any physical contact between them had actually seemed uncomfortable—dangerous even—but these days, close proximity, particularly in a hug of all things, was reminding her body of the passion they’d shared, and sending little flares of desire skittering along her nerves.

Had he felt it, too?

He certainly hadn’t hugged her back, or swung her around the way he used to…

He’d smelled like Andy when she’d hugged him, the faintest lingering scent of his aftershave reminding her—

The thoughts followed her to bed, where she lay wondering about love and loving and sex and Chelsea until, in the middle of a totally unconnected thought about her mother’s recipe for Christmas pudding, she fell asleep.

Having found his young cousin fast asleep in one of his sister’s rooms, Andy headed for the kitchen and made a cup of tea. He momentarily considered calling to Ellie to see if she wanted one, then remembered the way his body had reacted when she’d hugged him.

It was far better to concentrate on soccer, and focus his mind on doing his best for the makeshift team he was building…

He closed his eyes and cleared his mind, then sat down at the kitchen table with a large notebook in which he was devising soccer practice strategies for his team. With the help of numerous internet videos, he felt he was getting closer to being able to call himself a coach.

At least Andy had help from Madeleine Courtney, one of the high-school teachers, who claimed to have learned soccer coaching. But as her system seemed to consist of dividing the participants into two teams and letting them go at it, he had his doubts about its effectiveness.

His soccer club had started as something he could get his teeth into to stop himself thinking about Ellie and the mess their life was in.

For the first few weeks he hadn’t bothered too much about skills or techniques, concentrating on getting the participants interested enough to keep coming. Which had simply meant playing.

But now he wanted more of them than that. There was an inter-town competition beginning in the New Year, with a trial game this weekend, and he wanted them competitive, keen to win, but able to lose gracefully.

Some of these kids had had very little discipline at home, and too much time on their hands. The local police sergeant had introduced him to five of them, so in reality they were doing time for misdemeanours. If he, Andy, could get them fit and interested in the game, who knew where it could lead?

Three others, two girls and a boy, had been brought to Outpatients by their parents because his father had started a weight-loss group and he, Andy, had been prepared to continue it.

But in his opinion, playing sport would not only help their weight loss and build healthy muscle, it would improve their self-esteem as well.

It was win-win, all the way…

But it was up to Andy to get it right. And for that he needed practice strategies for dribbling and passing, things he could easily demonstrate to the kids so they could practise them in their correct positions. And, of course, he needed to teach them the rules. It was one of the reasons he’d arranged the barbecue—so they could have a sit-down session on the veranda going over the rules, and the importance of them in the game, before they ate.

And played.

Should pregnant women—girls—play soccer? Another player would even up his numbers. Even if Chelsea only stood in goal, she’d be handy.

He’d have to check.

Or maybe he could ask Ellie…

He was an idiot. He was only plunging himself into this challenge so he didn’t have to think about Ellie.

Or the mess he’d made of things between them…

It would be impossible to have her on the team.

He should think about soccer, not Ellie.

It had become a kind of mantra to keep him sane.

Andy divided up his players into two teams and marked out their positions—four defenders, four midfielders and two forwards, plus a goalie for each team, or for one team if he couldn’t persuade their new housemate to play.

He wrote out a programme for warming up, some aerobic exercise, and then the drills he wanted them to do. If they worked this way two days a week, they could then have a game after warm-up on Friday. This would be a practice game—a rehearsal for Saturday afternoon—when more and more parents and other spectators were turning up to watch the newly minted Maytown Soccer Team.

In fact, they could do some of the drills on the old tennis court area here at home, which would mean they’d be less likely to skive off into an impromptu game.

And he’d appoint Rangi, one of the Sudanese lads, as his offsider to run the programmes on afternoons he couldn’t make it or was running late.

Satisfied that he had, at last, brought a little structure to the group, Andy put away his notebook and headed for bed, wondering if Ellie might get interested in the team even if she wasn’t playing. Pictured them together on the sidelines, as one again…

He sighed as he went to bed—alone—and shut his mind against all the questions that were too dangerous to consider: all the what if I’d done this or said that, all the useless, totally impossible, ever-haunting what-ifs…

Although knowing Ellie was back in the bed they’d shared helped chase the dark thoughts away.

He had nearly kissed her, and he could practically hear her breathing…

Ellie woke early, showered, and dressed for work, then went to check on their new lodger.

Chelsea was up and dressed, sitting on the bed as if uncertain what to do next.

‘Come on,’ Ellie said to her. ‘You’ll have to learn to treat this house as your home, and to a certain extent look after yourself because Andy and I are often called out and you’ll starve if you can’t manage.’

She opened the pantry and pointed to a range of cereal, tea-bags, coffee, even drinking chocolate.

‘And there are always eggs and bacon in the fridge if you like a cooked breakfast, but it will be a case of help yourself because we tend to get up, eat, then go to work.’

Chelsea settled on cereal, while Ellie made toast for herself and a pot of tea that she set on the table, along with mugs, milk, and sugar.

‘Will you be okay here on your own while we’re at work?’ she asked, and Chelsea smiled at her.

‘I’m just so happy to have a home. Ours was so lonely without Mum and Dad. Harry was hardly ever there. I’ll sort out my things then sit on the veranda and read a book. From what I’ve seen, the Fraser passion for sci-fi is alive and well in this house.’

Ellie shuddered.

‘It was totally foreign to me when I first met Andy, and I’ve never got caught up in it, although I have read some of it.’

At lunchtime, when she and her new boarder sat together in the kitchen, Chelsea explained she was old enough to leave school but she really hadn’t wanted to. She’d always wanted to be a scientist so she desperately wanted to finish her schooling, and if possible get into a university.

‘How much school have you missed now?’ Ellie asked her.

The girl frowned as she worked out her answer.

‘About three—maybe five—weeks,’ she said. ‘I just sat around wishing it would all go away.’

‘And if you went back to school here, could you make that up?’

‘You mean now, this year, before the end of term—with this?’

She patted her bump.

‘Why not?’ Ellie said. ‘Even if you go back long enough to get some work to do over the Christmas holidays that will catch you up, then you can go back full time next year.’

‘And when the baby comes?’

Ellie sighed.

‘That’s going to depend on what you want to do about the baby. You don’t have to make any decisions right now, but there are really only two choices.’

‘Keeping it or adoption?’

Tears filled the girl’s eyes.

‘We’ve plenty of time to sort that out,’ Ellie told her. ‘We’ll talk about it, you and me, and Andy. Your boyfriend, Alex, too. Talk to him. He should have some say. Between the lot of us we’ll work out what’s best for both of you.’

Ellie pushed back her chair as she stood up, needing to get back to work and not yet ready for tearful discussions about the baby’s future.

Any baby’s future…

‘If you wouldn’t mind clearing away our plates, then you could have a good look at your room, maybe take down the old posters. You’d better roll them up and put them away somewhere in case they turn out to be precious to their former owner. We can get some paint to freshen up the walls and some new bed linen for you.’

The tears Ellie had been hoping to avoid arrived in full flood, along with mutterings of ‘too good to me,’ and ‘you’re too kind’.

But Ellie was already heading down the steps.

‘Have a shower and a lie down. You’ll feel a lot better after you’ve had a rest.’

The afternoon was blessedly free of any drama, and she even had one cancellation, which gave her a few minutes to think about her concern for the elderly men in town. Her grandmother had regularly attended a sewing, knitting, and craft group once a week in the hall at a local church, going along for a chat more than the knitting or sewing. The Country Women’s Association—an institution in Australia—provided for the women as well, but finding something for the men might prove more difficult.