Their Double Baby Gift

‘Okay. I’ll take a look at your findings once we’ve dealt with Mrs Merchant.’

He led her over to his patient’s cubicle and, once inside, explained her symptoms and the results of her tests so far. Then he stepped back. ‘I’ll step outside.’ And closed the curtain behind him, listening as Dr Bailey conducted her examination. He heard her ask to listen to the patient’s chest, heard her check the range of movement and finally warning Mrs Merchant that she was about to press on the front of her chest...

‘Ow! That hurts!’ His patient cried out.

‘Here?’

‘Yes! Dear Lordy—what do you think is causing that?’

Dr Bailey let Mrs Merchant fasten her clothing again and invited Matt back in.

Matt nodded to let her know he’d heard what had happened and to deliver the diagnosis. ‘I think you may have costochondritis.’

‘What’s that when it’s at home?’

‘It’s an inflammation of the cartilage that joins your ribs to your breastbone. It’s a very painful condition.’

‘I know it is. I can feel it!’

‘We’ll just check your bloods first, but I think we can safely say we need to get you on some anti-inflammatories. I’ll be back in a moment.’

They left Mrs Merchant and headed over to the doctors’ station. Dr Bailey handed him her notes from the guy with carpal tunnel syndrome. He’d also got a non-displaced break in his scaphoid, the small bone at the base of his thumb, and she’d given him a splint to wear and prescribed painkillers in case it got worse. Simple enough. Direct, effective, and she hadn’t wasted resources on tests that he hadn’t needed. Exactly what he’d wanted to see.

‘That’s excellent. You can discharge him.’ He handed back the file, expecting her to walk away from him and get on with her work, but she lingered, as if wanting to ask him something. ‘Anything else?’

‘Yes...’ She looked around her, lowering her voice. ‘Jen’s locker.’

He straightened, felt his chin lifting. He was defensive because he hadn’t got around to sorting it out yet. He’d felt that by doing so he would finally be wiping away the existence of his wife here. Seeing it still there each morning was reassuring. He could almost pretend that she was about to walk in through the door at any moment.

‘Yes?’

‘If you need someone to help sort it...when you feel ready... I’d like to offer to help.’

Jen’s locker.

It was one last tiny island of his wife. Coming back home to the house from Costa Rica had been bad enough. There had been a whole houseful of her possessions to sort through. At first he’d not wanted to get rid of anything, thinking that Lily would want to know all about her mother when she got older. But seeing his wife’s clothes draped over radiators and the shower rail in the bathroom had got too much, and he’d conducted a vast cleaning frenzy, taking bags of her stuff to local charity shops but keeping small things like jewellery, the odd knick-knack that Jen had loved, just in case Lily wanted them when she grew up.

Items that were precious—her wedding ring, her engagement ring, a clay pot she’d once tried to make at a pottery class. The pot had gone drastically wrong, and looked as if a four-year-old had tried to make it, but it didn’t matter that it was ugly and misshapen. His wife’s hands had made it—her fingers had deftly tried to mould the clay—and he’d been unable to throw it out. He knew that one day Lily would hold it in her hands and imagine her mother’s fingers in the same places.

There were still photos of Jen at the house. He’d not made a clean sweep and erased her completely. She was still there. Her paint choices on the walls. Her silly magnets on the fridge. Her perfume in the bathroom.

Getting rid of her things had been painful, and when he’d come to work at the London Grace he’d forgotten that she would have a locker here. That was going to be very difficult. Touching the things she’d used and worn every day. Things that were as familiar to her as they would be new to him.

He knew he had to do it. At some point. It had been there too long already and everyone else had been too polite to mention it. Not that Dr Bailey was being impolite. Just concerned. And he understood that. She was right. It was maudlin to think that keeping a dead woman’s locker undisturbed somehow kept her alive.

‘Yes. I’ll...get round to it later today.’

Her mouth dropped open. ‘Oh! I didn’t mean to force you to do it straight away. I—’

‘It’s fine. I should have done it a long time ago.’

‘I’ll help, if you need it.’

‘I should be fine doing it myself. Thank you, Dr Bailey.’

He hadn’t meant to be so dismissive of her. She was only offering to help him do a task he’d been shirking for too long now. But the tone in his voice had risen because she’d reminded him that he was afraid to tackle it on his own. Worried about what he might find in there. Something uniquely personal, perhaps. Some keepsake that would strike another blow to his heart when it was already so weakened.

She nodded, blushing at his tone, and though he liked the way the soft rosy colour in her cheeks somehow made her eyes sparkle that little bit more, he felt guilty as she walked away with that look of hurt in her eyes.

Had he meant to be so acerbic? Could he not have reined that in? After all, he’d become a master at doing that lately. Putting a tight leash on his emotions. It was easier, after all, to pretend that things didn’t hurt. When you were on your own it was easier, anyway.

He briefly wondered who was there for Dr Bailey. Surely she wasn’t as alone as his wife had made out? For a start, there had to be a father to her baby. Where was he? Jen had mentioned he was some low-life who had adhered to the adage Treat them mean, keep them keen. Though, thank the Lord, Dr Bailey had had enough self-respect to walk away from someone like that!

Matt sucked in a breath. Was he ready to do this? Was he prepared? There could be anything in that locker. Jen had been like a magpie at home, storing away anything that caught her eye, that she thought was cute. He might open the door and have tons of things fall out. She’d never been one for neatly folding stuff and putting it away properly.

Hopefully it wouldn’t take too long.

* * *

He didn’t know how long he’d been standing there, staring at the locker. It was just a bit of metal. Adorned with all the Hollywood heartthrobs that she’d liked to swoon over and gently tease him about. But it was her name on the door that seemed to be stopping him—Dr Jennifer Galloway.

It was like the entry to a forbidden land. A doorway to a world he wasn’t ready to face. He kept trying to tell himself that he was being stupid. It was just a locker—it probably just held some clothes, or a pair of shoes and a hairbrush or something, but for some reason his brain and his heart were telling him that this was something he wasn’t ready for—getting rid of the last vestiges of his wife at work.

‘Can I help?’

He almost jumped at her voice. Turned to see Brooke standing in the doorway, watching him. And, though he’d been abrupt with her the last time they’d spoken, she appeared to be speaking to him with all the gentle patience of a mother to a child. No retribution. No blame. No hurt. Just a genuine desire to help him out.

Matt nodded and beckoned her in. ‘I don’t know what’s stopping me.’

‘What stops any of us but the fear of getting hurt?’

He gazed back at the locker. ‘I’m a soldier.’

‘You’re a husband.’ She leaned against the lockers and he glanced over at her. ‘Being a soldier doesn’t stop you from being human. From feeling.’

‘I guess both of us have been confronted by things we didn’t want to do today.’

She nodded. ‘Have you a key?’

He pulled it from his pocket. So small. So insignificant. All he had to do was insert it into the lock.

A heavy sigh escaped him and he closed his eyes, trying to build up the courage to do what had to be done. But he just couldn’t bring himself to do it. What if he opened her locker and it held her scent? Flowers and a summer’s day? It would hit him like an avalanche, burying him and smothering him, away from all that was light. He wasn’t ready. But he wanted to do it. Wanted to get it over with. Maybe if he just...

Fingers enveloped his and he opened his eyes to see Dr Bailey taking the key and inserting it into the lock. She turned it, and they both heard the clank of the metal lever.

Blue eyes peered into his soul. ‘Open it.’

He didn’t want to think about what he’d felt when her hand had wrapped around his. Didn’t want to analyse the fact that his heart had begun to gallop, his pulse had soared and his mouth had gone as dry as centuries-old dust.