‘It’s Eve, I need to ask another favour.’ She blurted out the request as soon as Felix picked up the phone.
‘I’m not sure Domusamare have got any beds left.’ There was a slightly teasing tone to his voice and she could picture the slow smile spreading across his face. He had a beautiful smile and she knew that in a different time and place she’d have asked Eden more about her brother, but her life was far too complicated already and this was strictly work related.
‘I’ve got a patient who’s in surgery to have three severed fingers reattached. His wife was operating the mitre saw that cut them off and she’s convinced herself his life is ruined and that he’s going to hate her. She just needs to know there’s some hope and I wondered if you’d be willing to talk to her, please?’
‘Of course. I’ve just finished with my last patient of the day, so I can head down now.’
‘Thanks, Felix, you’re a star. See you in a bit.’ As she ended the call, Eve hoped she didn’t sound as patronising as she feared she might. She was probably overthinking things; it seemed to be her speciality these days. It was probably no surprise given how much of her time she spent attempting to hide her true feelings from Annie and trying to second guess if she was sayingand doing the right things to keep up the pretence that her feelings for Max hadn’t changed.
‘So, as you can see, there are lots of things we can do to help someone adapt to losing fingers, even if the worst comes to the worst. But the chances are we’ll be working on rehab to get the function back with Dan. Either way, I promise it isn’t the end of the world.’ Felix’s tone was reassuring as Sienna handed his phone back, having watched the video he’d shown her of the kind of work he did with other patients like Dan.
‘Thank you so much.’ Sienna’s face had flooded with relief almost as soon as Felix had begun talking, and her whole demeanour had changed from the woman who’d felt completely hopeless just half an hour earlier. ‘Both of you have been so kind.’
‘It’s what we’re here for.’ Felix smiled, not offering any indication of the fact that neither of them were on the clock any more. It was just one more suggestion of what a good guy he was and there didn’t seem to be any evidence to the contrary. Eve had heard Max giving Felix a really hard time during their OT sessions. She was sure he got his fair share of that from a lot of his patients, who must often had been frustrated and in physical and emotional pain, but it never seemed to faze him. She was half hoping that some deep, dark secret would come to light, something that would make Felix far less attractive, but the more time she spent with him, the harder it was to imagine.
‘Sienna, oh baby, are you okay?’ A man who looked to be in his mid-sixties swept into the relatives’ room, followed by a woman of a similar age, both of them hugging Sienna in turn as she offered a muffled response.
‘I’ve done something terrible, Dad… Oh, Mum, I thought I was going to lose him.’
‘It’s all right, darling, everything’s going to be okay.’ Sienna’s mother still had her daughter wrapped in a tight embrace as she spoke, and her father turned towards Eve and Felix.
‘Can you give me any update on my son-in-law, please? When Sienna rang us, she was so upset she wasn’t making any sense.’
‘Dan’s in theatre and the surgical team were hopeful of being able to reattach his fingers, but there are never any guarantees with these things.’ Eve tried to make her tone hopeful without over-promising, and Sienna’s father seemed to take it in the spirit it was intended and nodded slowly.
‘Thank you so much. That sounds like good news to me, sweetheart.’ He said turning back towards his daughter. ‘Dan’s made of tough stuff, and if anyone can get through something like this unscathed, it’s him.’
‘What if he hates me for it, Dad? I can’t lose him. I was terrified the whole time he was on active service that was going to happen. Now he’s working locally and he should be safe, but then I go and do something as stupid as this.’
‘It was an accident, darling.’ Sienna’s father repeated what Eve had told her more than once. ‘And Dan must have put his fingers on the base of the saw to steady himself. Neither of you did those things because you wanted this to happen, and of course he’s not going to hate you, he worships the ground you walk on.’
‘I just love him so much.’ Sienna gave into tears again and Eve bit her lip. She’d felt every bit as terrified as Sienna when Max had been admitted to hospital after his assault, except there’d been no miracle recovery for him. Rehab hadn’t managed to undo the personality-altering impact of his injuries and now she knew it never would. Despite the fact that Max hadbeen training to be a surgeon, she’d have given anything for his injury to have been the same as Dan’s, even if meant he had to change career. At least he’d still be Max. It was crazy to envy a woman in Sienna’s position, but she did.
‘Now that your parents are here, we’ll leave you to wait for one of the surgical team to come down with an update. If you decide to leave the relatives’ room, just let one of the reception team know where to find you.’ Eve forced a smile as she looked at Sienna. She had to get away soon or there was a chance she might blurt out how lucky she thought the other woman was that Dan’s injuries would only change him physically. It wouldn’t have been professional or even fair to make the comparison, but the words felt as though they were bubbling up inside her, all the same.
‘Thank you both again, so much.’ Sienna broke free from her parents and hugged both Eve and Felix, before they left in a flurry of further thank yous from both her and her parents.
‘Are you okay?’ Felix turned to her almost as soon as they were outside in the corridor and she had to blink furiously to stop the threatened tears.
‘I just wish Max’s injuries were that easy to deal with.’
‘I can only imagine how hard it’s been.’ Felix put a hand over hers in a totally innocent gesture, but an unwanted bolt of desire shot through her body. It had been almost two years since Max had held her hand in a way that meant anything, and these days he was more likely to bat her away. She longed to have that feeling again, of wanting someone and being wanted in return. She couldn’t deny it any longer. She wanted to walk hand in hand with someone she loved, and to be held by a man who loved her more than he loved anyone else. Max was never going to do that again, she knew that for certain now and it hurt like hell, but she couldn’t walk away, because she couldn’t bear the thought of completely closing the door on everything they’d beento one another and just disappearing out of his life. What made it even more impossible was everything else she stood to lose, if she was no longer Max’s fiancée. She’d have nothing left at all.
‘Can I ask you something?’ Felix’s voice was soft and she nodded slowly in response, bracing herself for what he might be about to ask. ‘Why doesn’t Eden know about Max? Does anyone here know what happened?’
‘No.’ Eve’s response was barely audible and she wondered for a moment if she’d even said it out loud. She couldn’t look Felix in the eye as she continued. ‘Coming to work is my escape from it all, a place where I don’t have to think about the fact that I’ve got a fiancé who is never going to be the same person he was before he was attacked, or that the woman who should have become my mother-in-law absolutely refuses to acknowledge the truth. I spend my life being forced to play along with Annie’s fantasy that one day we’ll get back to where we were. I just need somewhere that I can be Eve Bellingham, a doctor trying to do the best by her patients. I can’t bring Max into this world, otherwise I won’t get any respite from how much it hurts that I’ve lost him, even when he’s still sitting there in front of me.’
She hadn’t meant to say all of that and she definitely hadn’t mean to allow the tears to finally start falling. But they came faster still when Felix pulled her towards him and held her in a way she’d ached to be held for two long years.
‘I’m so sorry, Eve. I wish there was something I could do or say that would really help, but I want you to know that I’m here if you ever want to offload. I might not ever fully understand what it feels like to have a partner who has suffered a head injury like Max’s, but I do know what it’s like to have a partner who seems to have changed into another person altogether and how awful it feels to know you can’t do anything about it.’
‘I hate it so much. I just want things to go back to how they were and it kills me that they never will.’ It was all she couldmanage to say in a voice thick with tears. There was so much she wanted to ask him about what he’d just said, but right now she couldn’t find the words. All she could do was lean against him and hold on tight, hoping that this brief moment of being held, and feeling understood, would sustain her for whatever came next.
10
Max’s birthday used to be a big occasion and he always made sure that Eve’s birthday was even bigger. He knew how to do celebrations in style and that had probably stemmed from the way that Annie handled those kinds of events. Despite her success and her determination to honour her maternal family’s legacy, Annie was far from being the stereotypical lawyer, and was obsessed with family rather than work. Max had followed his mother’s example by making Eve’s birthday special from the start of their relationship. It always began with her favourite breakfast and a carefully selected gift, and he’d always book a celebratory meal somewhere wonderful. But it hadn’t ended there. When he’d discovered more about Eve’s experiences of birthdays after her mum had died, and the event had stopped being marked in any significant way, he’d decided that she ought to have a birthday week to make up for it.
Her father’s idea of making an effort had been a twenty-pound note stuffed into a generic birthday card – the kind that came in a multiple pack, rather than the sort that said‘Happy Birthday to a Special Daughter.’ On more than one occasion the card had arrived late and, once she’d reached the age oftwenty-five, the cards had stopped arriving altogether. It hadn’t mattered as much as it might have done, because by then she’d become one of the Pascoe clan, sucked into Max’s family in a way that had made her feel lovedandvalued. She’d spent a long time before that wondering how different things might have been if her mother hadn’t died when she was barely in her teens, but she’d finally been able to let go of all those what-ifs, because the void created by her mother’s absence had no longer felt so overwhelmingly huge.
