An Unexpected Bonus

‘Yes—another boy. Both well. I was so busy I didn’t have time to tell you. It was a lovely delivery—on the kitchen table.’

Her mother smiled. ‘So I gather. That’ll make mealtimes interesting for them. How about a glass of wine?’

‘What a good idea.’

Jo took the proffered glass and followed her mother into the sitting room, dropping into the comfy sofa and resting her head back against the high cushion. It was more comfortable than her own little annexe at the other end of the house where she usually spent her time after work, but tonight her mother had cooked for them and obviously felt a little lonely.

So did Jo so that was fine. Since her father had died they’d found companionship and support in each other, and without her, as she’d told Ed, she wouldn’t have been able to cope with bringing Laura up and keeping her career—

‘It would have been your father’s sixtieth birthday today,’ her mother said quietly into the silence.

Jo’s eyes flew open. ‘Oh, Mum, I’m sorry, I forgot,’ she said, filled with remorse.

‘He was going to retire—funny how you make all these plans and the decisions get taken away from you and changed. I can’t believe it’s nearly four years since he died.’

‘Or nearly thirteen since I had Laura. He really adored her.’

‘Yes. They were great friends.’

Jo swirled her wine round and peered through it at the lights. ‘You must miss him.’

‘I do—every day, but life goes on.’ She sat quietly for a moment, her teeth worrying the inside of her lip, then she met Jo’s eyes. ‘Maurice wants me to go to dinner at the weekend. I said I’d think about it.’

Jo thought of Maurice Parker, the senior partner who was due to retire soon and whose place Ed would fill, and wondered what her father would have thought. They’d been colleagues and friends for years—would he have minded? Would Maurice’s wife have minded, after all the suffering she’d gone through before she died? Would she even have known what was going on?

It was as if her mother read her mind. ‘He had such a difficult time with Betty—Alzheimer’s is such a cruel disease,’ she said. ‘She didn’t know him, you know, not for the last three years. Your father used to say she’d be the death of him.’

‘He aged, certainly. He looks much better now in the last couple of years without all the strain of her illness to weigh him down.’

‘Awful, what love and loyalty can do to you. Must check the carrots and put the broccoli on.’

Jo let her go, sipped her wine and thought about her father. He’d always seemed so fit until the heart attack that killed him. There’d been no warning, no time to prepare. One minute he’d been there, the next he’d gone. Her mother had been devastated, and Laura too. Jo had been so busy propping them both up she’d hardly had time to grieve, and by the time she’d lifted her head above water again it had seemed too late, a little contrived.

She had grieved, though, in the privacy of her own room, shedding huge, silent tears for the man who’d been so fair and so kind to her all her life.

He’d been her best friend, a rock when Laura had been born, and without his support she wouldn’t have been able to train. True, her mother had looked after the baby, but it had been her father who’d encouraged her and supported her financially, bought her a car and paid the running expenses and paid for everything Laura had needed.

They’d turned one end of the house into a separate annexe, giving Jo and her baby privacy but easy access for babysitting, and with their help she’d built herself a career of which she was proud.

Then suddenly, without warning, he’d gone, leaving Maurice, and James Kalbraier, to cope with the practice. Maurice had cut down his hours, taken on another doctor, Mary Brady, and concentrated on nursing Betty for the last few years of her life.

And now Jo’s mother was talking about going out to dinner with Maurice.

Jo considered the idea, and decided it was a good one. They’d both loved their spouses, but they were gone and Maurice and Rebecca were still alive.

Yes. It would do them both good to get out. Who knows, they might—

‘Supper!’

‘Coming!’

She took her wine glass through into the kitchen and put it down by the sink. ‘Mmm, smells good. Have you called Laura?’

‘Well, I did yell, but she’s got that music on so loud…’

‘I’ll get her,’ Jo said with a grin, and ran upstairs. She banged on the door which was vibrating gently with the music her daughter was listening to, and opened it a crack. ‘Supper, darling.’

‘OK.’ The noise vanished, and the silence was deafening.

‘You really shouldn’t have it on so loud,’ she began, but Laura laughed and skipped past her, flitting down the stairs and running through to her grandmother’s kitchen, ignoring the predictable lecture.

‘Hi, Grannie, what’s for supper—? Oh, yum! Can I help?’

Jo smiled and followed her through more slowly. She wasn’t a bad kid—just a little loud, with questionable taste in friends. She supposed she could send Laura to the independent school her mother kept offering to pay for, but that would mean travelling to school, no convenient buses and after-school homework clubs, and her friends would be scattered far and wide.

This way, questionable though some of them might be, they were nearby, and when Jo was working that was very important.

‘We’ve got a panto rehearsal tonight,’ Laura reminded her as she joined them at the table. ‘Will you test me on my lines?’

Jo laughed humourlessly. ‘Just so long as you don’t try and test me—I haven’t had time to look at them since before Christmas.’

‘Mother! Roz will skin you alive!’

‘Don’t I know it! I’ll try and have a quick scan through after supper—perhaps Grannie will test you.’

‘Of course I will, darling. How’s it going?’

Jo laughed. ‘It was awful before Christmas. We’ll see if anyone has spent the last couple of weeks learning their lines or if they’ve all switched off and forgotten what little they did know. I suspect the latter.’

‘Based on personal experience?’ her mother said sagely, and Jo gave a rueful chuckle.

‘You guessed. Oh, well, there’s time.’

‘Have they got anyone else for the chorus yet?’ Laura asked, tucking into her casserole with huge enthusiasm.

‘I don’t know.’

‘You ought to ask Dr What’s-his-name—what is his name? The new guy?’

‘Latimer—Ed Latimer. I doubt if he’d be interested.’

‘You could ask,’ she suggested round a forkful of carrots.

She could—but she didn’t want to. She didn’t want Ed Latimer any nearer her than he had to be, for any more time than was absolutely necessary. He was too disturbing, too masculine. Too male. Just—too much.

She finished her meal in silence, listening with half an ear to Laura and her mother chattering, then she loaded the dishwasher and excused herself for a quick shower before the rehearsal. The water was warm and silky and sensuous, sliding over her naked skin and making her aware of herself in a way she’d almost forgotten.

Her mind turned to Ed again, and she closed her eyes and moaned softly. Why? She’d spent years fending off flirts, and none of them had even so much as ruffled the surface of her peaceful existence.