Sydney Harbour Hospital: Ava's Re-Awakening

‘Give him some time,’ Ava said. ‘He would have been building himself up for this surgery, and to have it cancelled at the last minute—’

‘But cancellations happen all the time and you don’t see couples breaking up over it,’ Evie interrupted. ‘He said that now he knows a bit how the patients feel when we cancel them at the last minute.’

‘Ooh, are we going to get a new, compassionate Finn?’ Ava was pleased to see Evie smile. A cheerful person, Ava found that a little dose of humour helped in most situations.

Most, not all.

‘Finn compassionate?’ Evie rolled her eyes, and then sat quietly as she finished her drink. Ava sat in silence too, a comfortable silence that was perhaps needed by Evie before she headed back out there, but after a moment or two in their own worlds it was time to resume appearances, to play their parts. Evie drained her drink and stood. ‘Thanks so much, Ava.’

‘Any time,’ Ava said.

‘Oh.’ Evie suddenly remembered. ‘That gorgeous husband of yours comes back today, doesn’t he?’

‘This morning.’ Ava nodded. ‘He’s heading straight in to work. That’s James.’

‘Well, you can see him tonight,’ Evie said. ‘He’s the luckiest guy in the world, isn’t he? Married to a sex therapist …’

Ava grinned. ‘Again, I’d be patronising you if I laughed, if you had any idea of the amount of times I hear that each day …’

She was sick of hearing it.

So too must James be.

The assumption that they must have most amazing sex life and wonderful relationship was a pressure in itself. As if people thought her job followed her home, as if the smiling, cheerful, practical Ava, who was open to discuss everything, who managed to deal with the most sensitive subjects with barely a blink, translated to the Ava at home.

Finn would never say such a thing, Ava thought as she saw Evie out.

Or maybe he would, she mused—nervous, embarrassed, new to a wheelchair, maybe Finn would crack the same old jokes if she offered her help.

She stood alone in her office and looked out the window at the glittering view and wondered if she could stand to leave it, not so much the view but her work here. She didn’t want to start over at another hospital or open a private practice. Because SHH was so cutting-edge she got the patients in her office that she was most interested in helping. It was no doubt the same reason James would remain here, but how hard would it be to work in the same hospital, to see your ex-husband most days?

Ex-husband.

There, she’d said it and she didn’t like how it sounded.

More than that, she didn’t want to be James’s ex-wife.

CHAPTER TWO

‘LOVELY flowers.’ Elise was a bit flustered but George was friendlier this time. ‘From your husband?’

‘They are.’ Ava smiled. ‘Come in, take a seat.’

She had been seeing them for a few months now. For George and Elise it was a complicated process and not as simple as writing a prescription. George had been in an accident at work last year, an appalling accident where he’d seen a colleague die. It wasn’t just George’s physical injuries that had caused him pain. Over and over he had relived the moment of the accident and the depression and anxiety had been all-engulfing. He’d seen his GP but the medication for the depression had affected his libido, which had increased his anxiety, and by the time they had arrived at Ava’s, the pair had all but given up, not just on their sex life but on themselves.

She was seeing them monthly as a couple and George was also having one-on-one counselling with Ava, but more about the accident and the flashbacks he was getting and his appalling guilt that the colleague who had died had been so much younger than him.

‘How have you two been?’ Ava asked.

‘We’re doing fine,’ George said, handing over a folder. ‘I’ve done my homework.’

Ava grinned and checked off their sheets. Her methods were a bit flaky at times, and with some couples she made things a bit more fun. With George and Elise she had them playing Scrabble, taking walks, doing little quizzes to find out more about each other, just little things, and she looked through the sheets.

‘Elise?’ She saw the woman’s worried expression as she handed over a folder. She looked as if she was about to start to cry. ‘Elise, the homework’s for fun …’

‘It’s not that.’ She was really flustered, Ava realised. ‘You know you said we weren’t to …’ She could hardly say it.

‘I suggested that you didn’t try to have sex.’

To take the pressure off George Ava had suggested a sex ban, kissing and holding hands only—which apparently they hadn’t done for decades.

‘Oh, we haven’t,’ Elise assured her.

‘Okay.’

‘We did get a bit carried away, though,’ George admitted.

Quite a bit carried away, it turned out! By the time their hour was up, they were all smiling. ‘I’ll see you again next month and, George, you in two weeks,’ she said to the couple. ‘And follow the rules this time.’

She grinned at her own success. Okay, they had a long way to go, but they were both determined to get there, and with a couple as lovely as them, they would, Ava was quite sure.

‘Ava?’ She heard a knock at the same time she heard her name, Elise and George had left the door open. She felt her stomach tighten at the sound of her husband’s voice, and she turned round.

‘James.’ There he stood, tall, strong, gorgeous and different. His light brown hair, which usually fell rumpled and messy, now had a modern cut, and usually his chin was crying out for a razor, but he was clean-shaven today. Generally James wore jeans and a T-shirt or jumper, depending on the season. His patients, he’d explain, had more on their minds than whether or not the doctor was wearing a suit—but now and then he donned one and when he did, he quite simply took her breath away.

He wasn’t wearing a suit today but, dressed in grey linen trousers and a black fitted shirt, he was a mixture between the two versions of James she adored and it almost killed her to see it. James never bought himself new clothes; they simply didn’t interest him. Her heart stopped in her chest for a moment, seeing him in new attire, wondering who had bought them for him, or who James had bought them to impress. She had a horrible glimpse into her future if they both worked at SHH, watching the man she loved and knew so well change before her eyes.

‘You’ve lost weight,’ she said, because he had. He was a big man, and had never been that overweight, but he’d lost a lot and now stood broad, lean and toned.

‘A bit.’ He shrugged.

‘How was your flight?’ How stilted and formal she sounded when really she wanted to run to him, to rest her head on his chest, to welcome him home, to say how much she had missed him, except she greeted him like a colleague and clearly it was noticed, because he didn’t even answer the question, just shot her a slightly incredulous look that that was all she had to say after his three months away.

‘I’ll see you tonight,’ James said instead, and then as he turned to go, he stopped. ‘Ava, we need to talk.’

He’d been saying that for months—no, years—as more and more she’d shut him out, only this time it was a different conversation to be had. ‘I know we do.’

‘I’ll speak to you tonight.’ He didn’t come over and kiss her, he just turned and walked away and headed out to work, to involve himself in his patients. Only it wasn’t his familiar scent that lingered. Instead she smelt cologne. Ava wished she had patients scheduled this morning, that she could think about someone else’s problems instead of her own.

Instead, she was giving a lecture.

She had her little case packed, filled with aids that would make the student nurses laugh at first, but she would push through it, hoping to get her message across, hoping that one day in the future her words would be recalled and a sensitive, informed word might be had by one of them to a patient, that there was help available.

Except she felt a fraud as she stood there, this cheerful, laughing, sexual dysfunction specialist married to the gorgeous James.

She couldn’t remember the last time that they had slept together and wasn’t stupid enough to think in the three months he’d been away, in the years they’d been away from each other physically, that James wouldn’t have seen someone else.

Someone he liked enough to lose weight for, to tone up for, to buy new clothes for and splash on cologne for—it wasn’t the James she knew. She knew that she’d lost him long ago.