English Rose for the Sicilian Doc

‘It’s kind of you to make excuses for me. I’m a scientist so I should be able to understand these things.’ She clasped her hands together tightly on her lap. ‘It’s...something he inherited from me?’

The question seemed to matter to her. ‘Blue-green colour-blindness is carried on the X chromosome so...yes, almost certainly. Is there anyone in your family who’s colour-blind?’

‘Not that I know of. My mother was adopted at birth, though, and she was never interested in finding her biological parents. I suppose she could have passed it to me, and then...’ She broke off. ‘I hope you don’t mind all these questions.’

‘Questions are what I’m here for. I can’t give you a proper clinical judgement, that’s Dr Garfagnini’s speciality, but I can tell you about my own personal experience.’

Even if his personal experience was making this more difficult than he’d expected. The line between doctor and patient—or patient’s mother in this case—had suddenly become a little more fuzzy than usual, and Matteo felt his own heart bleeding into the mix. But Rose had the one thing that pressed all his alarm buttons, telling him to back off now and stop thinking about how much he liked being in her company, and how intrigued he was to find out more about her. She had a child.

* * *

Alec, her ex-husband, would have known this all along. If there was something the matter with anything, then he would have taken it for granted that it was Rose’s fault. Even after more than four years of separation, it still grated to find that he would have been right and that this was one more way in which she’d failed William.

But for William’s sake, if not her own, she should calm down. Attaching a value judgement to something like this would only make him feel not good enough. She couldn’t do anything about her genes, but not good enough was something she could choose not to pass on to him.

She owed Matteo an explanation, though. He’d been more than kind, and she wanted to give him an explanation, which was strange, because usually she’d move heaven and earth rather than talk about this.

‘My marriage broke up before William was born, and I worry that...’ She shrugged miserably. ‘I can’t help worrying that somehow all the stress might have affected him. And I really should have noticed this before.’

He nodded, as if somehow he understood completely. It was a giddy feeling, and Rose reminded herself that he probably nodded in that exact way with all his patients.

‘You’re a scientist, you know that stress can’t change genetic make-up. But I suppose that any amount of good sense can’t stop a mother from worrying about her child.’

She couldn’t help smiling at him. ‘No. That’s right.’

‘And my colour-blindness wasn’t confirmed until I was William’s age. Even though my parents knew it was a possibility because two of my mother’s brothers are colour-blind.’

Rose nodded. ‘Thank you. I hear what you’re saying.’

‘But you don’t accept it?’

‘Give me time. I’m not sure that I can excuse myself so easily just yet.’

Matteo smiled, leaning back in his chair. ‘Fair enough. This is all very new. It may take a while before you can understand exactly which colours William can and can’t see. He’s probably already developed a lot of coping strategies, which may mask his inability to distinguish one colour from another.’

‘What kind of coping strategy?’

‘Well, for instance I talk about red and green traffic lights, but what I really mean is the one at the top and the one at the bottom. I know they’re red and green because people have told me, and so I refer to them in a way they’ll understand.’

‘How did you know about William? I mean, if you couldn’t see the colour of the cars...’

Matteo laughed. ‘I cheated. The receptionist told me.’

‘Do you see things as textures?’ He looked surprised at the question and Rose explained. ‘I had a student who was colour-blind a couple of years ago. He had a real knack with the data from ground-penetrating radar, and I got him involved in an ultrasound survey that the university was doing of some caves in the area. He really excelled with it, and he told me that it was because he saw things in terms of texture.’

‘We all see texture. But I use shape and texture a lot more in defining objects, because that’s what’s available to me. I can’t tell the difference between pink and purple on histological slides, so I got through that module at medical school by learning different cell shapes. The coloured stain is intended to highlight what’s there, but just looking at that can sometimes obscure other things.’

‘Which is why you’re a radiologist?’ Rose imagined that he was very good at what he did. He had that quiet assurance about him.

‘Partly, perhaps. Although actually it fascinates me.’

She laughed. ‘My mistake again. William’s options aren’t defined by his colour blindness.’

When she looked into the dark brown of his gaze, almost anything seemed possible. But if William’s future was all about options, hers wasn’t. It was about staying on course, looking after her son, and trying to make some contribution through the work that she loved. Matteo was a kind man, and he was gorgeous, but he wasn’t an option.

* * *

They’d talked for half an hour, and when William had tired of his game and come to squeeze himself onto Rose’s chair, she’d explained what colour-blindness was in response to his questions. Despite her initial reaction, Rose had been so positive about it all, telling her son that he was special, that his next questions seemed almost inevitable.

‘We’ve got super powers, then?’

‘Not yet.’ She flashed Matteo a smile, bending towards William with a stage-whisper. ‘Maybe when you grow up.’

William turned to Matteo, then back to his mother. ‘He’s got super powers?’ Matteo tried not to smile, since the observation had been behind his hand and clearly intended for his mother’s ears only.

‘Maybe. You never know. Best not to mention it, it might be a secret.’

William nodded sagely, and Rose looked at her watch.

‘We should go. We’ve taken too much of your time already, and I really appreciate it.’

And he should let her go. Right now, before the lines became any more blurred. He got to his feet, and William walked over to him and placed the blue car in his hand, whispering loudly that he wouldn’t tell anyone about the super powers.

Rose shot him a smile and picked up her bag, looking inside to make sure that William hadn’t deposited anything from his office in there. He almost wished that the boy had, because Rose would undoubtedly make a point of returning it, even if it did mean a trip all the way back to the hospital.

‘Would you like to see our lab? On the way out?’ She’d mentioned how most university archaeology departments would give their eye teeth for some of the imaging technology that the hospital boasted, and he suddenly felt like showing off a little.

‘Yes, I’d love to.’ She grinned. ‘Although you’d better check my handbag on the way out.’

‘That’s okay. You’ll never get a CT scanner in there.’

‘I suppose not. Anyway, you need it a lot more than I do.’

He led her down the corridor, quiet now that most of the department was on their way home. The night shift would be using one of the labs, but the other would be empty.

As he opened the door, she bent and took hold of William’s hand. She took a couple of steps into the room, looking around carefully.

‘Very impressive.’ Her gaze lit on the two large screens over the operating table. ‘So these screens tell you everything that’s going on?’

Matteo nodded. ‘Yes. We do a very wide range of procedures here. We can treat fibroids, unblock clogged arteries, perform angioplasty. There are some cancers that we can treat, and that list is growing. We often work with clinicians and surgeons from other disciplines.’

She looked up at him. ‘So maybe one day no one will need to be cut open by a surgeon.’

‘That’s more science fiction than medical fact at the moment. Although we do have help from robotic technology.’ He grinned, gesturing towards the robotic arm that duplicated his own precise movements on a much smaller scale.

‘But you make the decisions. If I were on that table, I think I’d feel a lot more confident if it wasn’t a robot in charge.’

She seemed to make everything so human, so personal. Or perhaps he was the one that was making everything personal, and if that was the case then he should stop it.