Melting The Trauma Doc's Heart

She could hear the indrawn breath, as if the caller was about to start a lengthy story. And there was something about his tone that sent a shiver down Olivia’s spine. Without thinking, she turned off the engine of her car and slowly leaned back into her seat, touching the speakerphone icon on the screen. She had no idea what this was about but it felt like it was going to be something significant. Potentially life-changing?

‘I thought you should know that your father’s dying,’ the voice continued. ‘He’s got pancreatic cancer, which is what killed his father about twenty years ago. Not that that bothered you, from what I hear, seeing as you apparently refused to come to your grandfather’s funeral.’

She could hear a judgemental note in his voice and that put her back up. For heaven’s sake, Olivia thought, I was only thirteen years old. I’d never even met my grandfather that I could remember. I hadn’t seen my father since he’d walked out on his family. Why would anyone think I was expected to travel from the other side of the world to go to a funeral for a stranger?

‘I wouldn’t have known anything about you,’ Isaac was saying now, ‘but I found your father crying over a box of old letters. And parcels. All the things that you’d sent back to him over the years without even bothering to open them.’

Olivia’s jaw dropped. He was accusing her of something she knew nothing about. Letters? Parcels? She’d never seen anything from her father. He’d never even made a phone call. She could remember being in floods of tears that first Christmas after he’d gone and her mother trying to comfort her.

‘I know it’s difficult, Olivia, but you wouldn’t want to grow up in a place like Cutler’s Creek, believe me. I don’t think there’s even a proper school there. My new job in London is going to give us both the most amazing opportunities, you just wait and see. We can even think about getting you that pony you’ve always wanted.’

Did her mother know something about that mail? Had she thought that cutting any links Olivia had to a small country town would help her embrace a new life in a huge city? She could imagine her mother being that determined. Convincing herself that she was doing the best thing for her daughter, even.

She tuned back into the continuing voicemail. ‘He loves you. He wants the chance to tell you that before he dies. I have no idea how long he’s got but I imagine it’s not that long because he’s refusing to seek treatment.’

Why would he do that? Olivia could feel the frown line between her eyes deepen. Pancreatic cancer could kill in a matter of weeks in some cases if nothing was done. Why didn’t he want to fight? Did he not have people in his life who could persuade him it was worth fighting?

As if to answer her question, Isaac was talking at the same time. There was a rising note of something like anger behind his words now.

‘You probably don’t know and maybe you don’t even care but there’s a whole community here in Cutler’s Creek that thinks a great deal of your father. He’s a good man and I think it’s a crying shame that you turned your back on him.’

‘I didn’t,’ Olivia said, her tone shocking her with both its volume and the outrage it contained. ‘It was totally the opposite…’

‘Maybe the past shouldn’t matter now,’ Isaac said, and it almost felt as if they were having a real conversation. ‘If the people around here knew about this, they’d move heaven and earth to grant any last wish he might have but your father doesn’t want anyone to know and, anyway, there’s only one person who can do that, and that’s you. You could stop him dying with that regret on his mind.’

There was a long moment’s silence, then, as if the speaker was taking a long breath. Trying to control his emotional outburst, perhaps? Yes…when he spoke again, it was at a much slower pace. In a much quieter tone.

‘I don’t know you, Dr Olivia Donaldson,’ he said. ‘And I’m not sure I’d want to know someone who could turn their back on someone who loves them that much but I thought you should know. Before it’s too late. Because…because if you’ve inherited even a fraction of the compassion for others that your father has, you wouldn’t want to refuse to give him the one thing that would mean so much to him.’

Olivia could hear a breath being released as a sigh. ‘You never know…one day it might be your dying regret. That you never gave him a chance…’

The click told her the call was ended. Another voice was giving her the automatic options of saving, deleting or listening to the message again. Olivia simply turned her phone off and, for the longest time, she sat there without moving a muscle. She was stunned. Shaking, even.

It shouldn’t matter this much. It was ancient history. Maybe she was just feeling angry that a stranger was blaming her so unfairly. Telling her that it was her behaviour that had caused someone grief. Enough grief that, after all these years—decades, in fact—this father that she hadn’t seen since she was a young girl had been crying? She tried to shake off the unpleasant knot that was trying to form in her stomach. She didn’t care about this man. She hated him, in fact. He’d walked out on her without a backward glance.

Or had he?

Was it true? About the mail? What had been in those parcels? Books, maybe. The thought slid into her head uninvited. Unwelcome. Her father had always given her books. He’d been the one to read the bedtime stories when she was too young to read for herself. She could remember the way he’d lounged on the edge of her bed, his elbow propped on her pillow so that she could snuggle into the crook of his arm as she listened.

Olivia closed her eyes tightly. She recognised that prickly sensation that was tears trying to form. She hadn’t shed any tears over her father for longer than she could remember. But remembering him reading to her had unlocked so many things that she’d buried. There had been a time when she’d missed him so much… She’d missed his hugs, that gleam in his eye that told her he was proud of her, that rich chuckle that was his laughter and…and even his smell, which came from that old-fashioned aftershave he insisted on using.

That knot in her stomach was tightening enough to be painful. Olivia felt like she was being attacked on all sorts of emotional fronts. She’d only lost her mother a matter of months ago and she was going to become an orphan now? With no close family at all? There was a possibility that her mother had betrayed her long ago but even if that was the case, why hadn’t her father tried harder? How unfair was it that he had given up and then blamed her? Okay, she had refused to go to her grandfather’s funeral when her mother had passed on the information and message from her father and she had written a response telling him that she never wanted to hear from him again but she’d only been a teenager. A kid. He’d been the adult. If he’d really cared that much, he would have tried again.

And, on top of all that, here was this complete stranger judging her and deciding she wasn’t a person worth knowing. It was so unfair that it couldn’t be allowed to go unanswered. Olivia flicked her phone on. She was going to return that call and tell this Isaac Cameron exactly what she thought of someone who could attack someone they knew nothing about.

Maybe she would write another letter to her father as well and put things straight about who had turned their back on whom. Or…her finger was still a little shaky as she poised it over the icons on the screen of her phone…she could do it face to face. Like an adult instead of a petulant teenager. Because, if she did that, she’d know for sure what the truth actually was. And maybe she needed to know the truth.

The icon that she chose to press instead was a browser. Just to find out how hard it might be to get to Cutler’s Creek. Dunedin was the nearest city but there was an airport in Queenstown, as well. With a rental car it wouldn’t take too long to get deeper into the centre of the South Island. If she left early enough, she could be back in Auckland by tomorrow night. Not early enough to attend that gala function but, to be honest, that added to the appeal of the plan she was formulating.

By the time Olivia Donaldson pulled out of the car park and was headed into rush-hour traffic to get to her central city apartment, she had been online to organise every minute of her day off. She’d also sent Simon a text message.

So sorry but I won’t be able to make it tomorrow night after all. Something’s come up and I need to head south for the day. It’s a personal thing…

CHAPTER TWO (#ua3b8766e-ca35-50a9-b4f3-a3021f1e41a6)

RURAL NEW ZEALAND was a lot wilder and emptier than English countryside.

Olivia Donaldson had had memories of the country’s biggest city, Auckland, because she’d lived there until she was about eight years old but she’d never been to a small town like Cutler’s Creek.

The main street boasted a church, community hall, petrol station and a pub. A war memorial marked the start of the more intensive commercial area that was, surprisingly, big enough to warrant a decent-sized supermarket amongst cafés and quirky-looking second-hand shops and, on the other side of town before the buildings changed from shops to houses, Olivia spotted the fire station, where an ambulance was parked alongside the fire truck.

She pulled in to stop and stretch her legs after the drive, which had taken a fair bit of concentration—especially that last winding stretch through a gorge. She needed a moment to take a deep breath, too, before she followed the yellow road sign that indicated she would have to turn right off the main road to find the local hospital. Her heels tapped on the paved footpath as she walked a few steps to have a closer look at what seemed to be a deserted emergency response station. Were there people in there, she wondered, or were the firies and ambulance officers here all volunteers who would only come in if needed? She was pretty sure that would be the case. Government funding didn’t run to luxuries like paid staff for emergency services in every small town in the back of beyond. It was astonishing, in fact, that Cutler’s Creek still had its own hospital.

There was an equally deserted rugby field and clubrooms between the fire station and the first of the small wooden villas that were homes to the local people who weren’t farmers. Smoke curled from a chimney or two but no other signs of life. The place was dead. Eerily so, compared to Auckland’s bustling inner-city streets. Oh, wait…someone was coming towards Olivia now, on the other side of the road, walking a big, black dog. A middle-aged woman, wearing gumboots and a long, oilskin raincoat, who gave Olivia a hard stare as she went past. Even the dog seemed to be staring at her and it made Olivia feel suddenly even more of a fish out of water. Why had she chosen to wear a tailored pencil skirt and its matching jacket today? Had she really thought that swapping her stilettos for shoes with a lower heel were enough of a nod to country casual?

She turned her back on the woman and lifted her gaze for a moment before she got back into the rental car. She had to admit that the scenery was quite extraordinary with that imposing skyline of snow-peaked mountains looming over the town. On top of being an object of such curiosity for a local, the natural grandeur around Olivia was making her feel rather small and insignificant.

Vulnerable, even? No. She got back into the car and took the next right-hand turn. She had every right to defend herself and she was here to take the bull by the horns, so to speak. Vulnerable people didn’t do that kind of thing, did they?

The houses in this new street had big gardens. Some had empty sections beside the houses and there were animals in them. Goats on chains, a pig, a pony wearing a canvas coat to protect it from the weather. The pony Olivia had had as a child had never needed a canvas coat like that. It had lived in a warm stable, as pampered as Olivia had been herself in that exclusive, private boarding school an hour’s drive out of London. She hadn’t thought of that beloved pony for years and the memory, closely followed by the feeling of loss, was unwelcome—a bit like being poked with a sharp stick.

There was an older man working in a garden as Olivia turned into the grounds of Cutler’s Creek Community Hospital but he stopped for a long moment to lean on his long-handled hoe and watch her drive slowly past.

‘What?’ Olivia muttered aloud. ‘Do you never get unannounced visitors here?’

He was wearing gumboots, too. If he turned up on an Auckland street in that footwear, he’d get stared at, as well. Or maybe not. The bigger the city, the harder you had to work to get noticed. Her mother, Janice, had taught her that. She’d been very proud of how much notice Olivia had always garnered. Prizes in her school subjects and in the show-jumping ring at weekends or holidays, top marks at medical school, a career choice in a field as prestigious as plastic surgery and, most recently, for making such a good choice for a life partner in Patrick.

But she hadn’t enjoyed the spotlight of being noticed for her own achievements any more than for being her famous mother’s daughter. You got stared at when you were under any kind of spotlight and—like this place—the stares always had an element of judgement about them.

How different was this old, sprawling, wooden building that looked like an oversized villa from the gleaming modern structure that was the private hospital Olivia had been working in only yesterday? There were several parking slots designated for visitors near the front door of the hospital so she took one of them. A quick check of her lipstick in the mirror on the back of the sun flap and Olivia took another deep breath and slammed the car door shut behind her. She might be beginning to have doubts about the wisdom of doing this but she was here now so she might as well get it over with.

The grey-haired, bespectacled woman coming out from behind the desk in the large foyer looked as surprised to see Olivia as the gardener and the dog walker had but at least she wasn’t wearing gumboots.

‘Can I help you?’ she asked.

‘I hope so,’ Olivia answered. ‘I’m here to see Dr Donaldson. Don Donaldson.’

The woman blinked. ‘Do you have an appointment?’

Olivia raised her eyebrows, summoning every ounce of confidence she could. ‘Do I need one?’

‘Ah…’ The woman’s gaze flicked over Olivia’s suit. ‘Are you a drug rep?’

A good part of Olivia’s confidence was starting to ebb away. Did she look like a drug company representative who was here to peddle her company’s drugs or medical products? A salesperson?

‘My name,’ she said coolly, ‘is—’

‘Olivia.’ The deep voice coming from behind her was astonished. ‘It has to be.’