Second Chance with the Single Mom Read online

  ‘Sorry, I didn’t hear you.’

  ‘I want Anya to be happy and fulfilled. That’s the only expectation I’m not giving up on.’

  He should have known that, without having to ask. Raina was a good doctor, and she never gave up on anyone. How could she be expected to give up on her own daughter?

  Alistair started to walk again, and their route took them onto the main road, which ran along the bank of the Thames. He motioned Raina towards the crossing, noticing that her lips were moving and wondering if she was saying anything of any importance. He decided not to ask. He’d save the I didn’t hear for when he knew it was needed.

  The wide pavement on the other side of the road was bordered by the river, and Alistair looked for a quiet place that they might sit. His head was buzzing, and he’d made his way towards a bench, standing in the shadow of Cleopatra’s Needle, before he realised where they were.

  ‘I have half an hour. Can you meet me on the bench by the river?’

  One or the other of them had brought coffee then, too. They had been young doctors working long shifts and they’d needed the caffeine and the fresh air almost as much as they’d needed the love that had been in each other’s eyes.

  It was too late to move now. Raina had sat down next to him, sipping the last dregs of her coffee. He shifted around on the bench so that he was facing her.

  ‘We’re hoping to involve parents very closely in this project. Would that be a problem for you time-wise?’

  Raina shook her head. ‘I’ve taken a few years off work to care for Anya. She’s my only priority, and I can spend as much time as it takes to make this a success.’

  She’d had such a promising career, and Raina had put that all on hold. It didn’t much surprise Alistair, but he felt shamed by it. He wondered whether he would have thought twice about doing the same.

  ‘Can you tell me a little about your daughter?’

  ‘Well, as I said, Anya’s three years old. And she’s beautiful...’ Raina smiled suddenly. ‘She’s becoming so curious about the world. Look...’

  She took her phone from her pocket, flipping through photos. Alistair was about to tell her that he didn’t need to see photographs when Raina held out the phone.

  A little girl, with dark curls and brown eyes, smiling gleefully as she inspected sea shells on a beach. She was so like Raina that it almost hurt to look, but in that moment he knew that if things had been different, and this had been his and Raina’s child, he would have given up everything for the little girl as well.

  The temptation to tell her right now that she and her daughter had a place on the pilot scheme almost overwhelmed him. But there was a process, and all applications had to go through the assessment procedures.

  ‘And you’ve completed your application?’

  ‘Yes, and all the supporting documents are there too. I’ve spoken with Anya’s consultant about it, and he thinks that it’s a way forward for her. The kind of prosthetics you’re producing aren’t widely available yet and when I showed him your website he agreed that The Watchlight Trust’s patient-led approach made your scheme a very good option for Anya.’

  She pulled the large manila envelope with his name on it out of her bag, opening it and taking out a folder and handing it to him. The application was neatly bound together with typed pages, which no doubt gave all the details about her daughter’s injury and her medical needs. But the front page gave little doubt about what Raina thought was most important. This photograph showed the little girl with crayons and a drawing pad. Raina’s whole focus was on what she could do, and her potential to do more.

  Suddenly he realised that Raina had been speaking...

  ‘Sorry...what was that?’ It was tempting to just smile and nod when he didn’t hear something, and ninety per cent of the time that worked well. But the other ten per cent of the time it wasn’t what people were looking for in an answer.

  ‘I just said...that I want to thank you. For talking to me about Anya.’

  ‘You’re welcome.’ He went back to flipping through the papers. He’d learned that most people responded well when he told them about his deafness, but something stopped him this time. Maybe Raina’s attitude, so positive despite all she’d been through. His own problems didn’t matter.

  He went to look up at her and jumped suddenly as he heard the sound of rushing water coming from the road behind him. Before he knew what he was doing he stretched out his hand to shield Raina.

  Then he realised that the sound was coming from the river. Staring at it, trying to marry the sound with what he saw, he jumped again as he felt Raina touch his arm lightly.

  ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘Yeah... I should be getting back to the office, though.’ He didn’t have that much to do there, and a small voice at the back of his head was telling him that this wasn’t the first time he’d retreated into his work to avoid a difficult conversation with Raina. Alistair dismissed it, taking one last swig from his coffee cup.

  ‘As I’m heading up the project, there’s a clear conflict of interest here, and I want to make sure that everything’s entirely above board. So I’m going to give your application to my co-director Gabriel DeMarco for assessment. He’ll be getting back to you within a week.’

  ‘Thank you, Alistair. You’ve been very kind.’

  He wanted to tell Raina that he once would have done anything for her, and in the last half-hour he’d realised that nothing had changed. But that was beyond inappropriate. He trusted Gabriel to do the right thing, and that he’d handle Raina’s application fairly. He had to step back now.

  CHAPTER TWO

  ALISTAIR HAD GIVEN her a better reception than she deserved. But he seemed so remote, hardly hearing what she said at times.

  What had Raina expected? That the divorce and all that had led up to it would just melt away? A person could forget a lot in five years. Not that much, though.

  ‘What’s going on? Over there...?’ He didn’t react to her question but when Raina pointed towards a group of people that was forming by the stone parapet at the side of the pavement, he turned to look.

  ‘We should go and see. Perhaps someone’s hurt.’ Raina got to her feet, looping her bag over her shoulder.

  When they’d first been married, it would have taken just an exchange of glances. Young doctors who wanted to save the world, and who would rush towards any potential emergency, believing that together they were indestructible. It wasn’t like Alistair to hesitate.

  Raina wasn’t going to wait for him to sum the situation up, though. She ran over to the knot of people that had formed.

  ‘I’m a doctor. Is anyone hurt?’ No one turned and the wall of backs prevented her from seeing what had happened. Then she felt an arm around her shoulder. Alistair the rock. Pushing through the crowd and taking her with him.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ A woman was holding a child of about two years old, gesturing frantically towards the deep granite parapet between the pavement and the river. She took no notice of Alistair’s question, but a man replied.

  ‘A kid’s climbed over the barrier...’

  Quite how he’d managed to do that wasn’t clear, but when Raina leaned over she could see a boy of around six clinging to the other side. He began to slip, his feet scrabbling for a hold, and the woman screamed.

  ‘Hold on, sweetheart... Please...someone help him.’

  Raina felt, rather than saw, Alistair thrust the envelope with her grant application back into her hands. Climbing across the deep coping stones on the top of the parapet, he slid carefully down the other side, making his way across to the boy.

  ‘Give me a leg up, will you?’ Raina turned to the man standing next to her and suddenly Alistair seemed to remember that she existed, and looked up.

  ‘Stay there, Raina. Anya needs you home tonight.’

  There had been a
time when they wouldn’t have thought twice about it. She would have been right there next to him. Now it seemed that Alistair acted alone.

  But he was right, Anya did need her to come home tonight. How many times had Raina hesitated and looked again before crossing the road, knowing that Anya couldn’t lose another parent. And the ledge that Alistair was now edging along towards the boy was too narrow for a second person to be of any use.

  He almost lost his footing, stopping to regain his hold. Suddenly Alistair looked up again, his golden-brown eyes searching for her.

  ‘Easy does it. You’re nearly there.’

  He nodded, carefully moving closer to the boy. Just as it seemed that Alistair could reach out and touch him, his mother called out to him. The boy looked up, lost his balance and toppled backwards, twisting as he fell and landing flat on his stomach in the river.

  Alistair didn’t hesitate. Kicking off his shoes, he jumped, disappearing underwater for a few heart-stopping seconds. Then he surfaced, looking around for the boy.

  He didn’t have much time. The boy had landed amongst some floating debris and the swell of the tide had washed him against a large piece of wood. He struggled weakly in the water, seeming stunned by the impact, and then was still, floating face down. He was already starting to drown and soon he’d begin to sink. If that happened it would be a miracle if Alistair found him in the murky water. Raina screamed Alistair’s name, pointing to the boy.

  He looked up, and then in the direction in which she was pointing. A few strong strokes, and Alistair had the boy, lifting him up in his arms so that his head was clear of the water. The child started to choke and fight, but Alistair held onto him.

  ‘He’s choking... He’s going to drown...’ The boy’s mother was behind her, clinging to her other child, her eyes fixed on her son.

  ‘My colleague’s a strong swimmer and he’s a doctor.’ Raina tried to calm the woman down. ‘And if he’s choking that means he’s breathing.’ The instinctive drowning response was a silent struggle, one that often didn’t alarm onlookers.

  Raina looked around, trying to see how Alistair could get out of the water. The wash from boats travelling up and down the river was swelling against him, and he and the boy were in danger of being thrown against the river wall.

  ‘Hey!’ A pleasure boat was moored at a jetty nearby and she shouted at the top of her voice to the people on board. ‘Hey, there’s someone in the water...’

  There was a scuffle of confusion on board the boat, and then a man ran to the railing, carrying a lifebelt. Throwing it into the water with as much force as he could, it landed with a splash, and Alistair started to swim towards it.

  Raina ran for the jetty, clambering down the angled wooden ramp that led down to the craft. A man blocked her path.

  ‘I’m a doctor. Let me through.’ The man nodded, taking her arm and guiding her to where the boy was being lifted up onto the deck and laid down on a folded fire blanket. Alistair was still in the water and she barely had time to glance in his direction before the child claimed her attention.

  A policeman had arrived on the scene and was shepherding the boy’s mother towards them. The boy started to cry when he saw her, reaching for her. ‘It’s all right, Jamie. Let the doctor take a look at you.’ The woman took hold of his hand.

  He’d had a shock, and he’d obviously swallowed some water, which wasn’t good. But he was breathing and seemed alert, despite the bump on the back of his head. Raina examined him as well as she could, and then sat back on her heels, looking up at the policeman.

  ‘He seems okay, but he’ll need to be checked over at the hospital.’ The policeman nodded, taking his radio from its clip and speaking into it.

  ‘Will he be all right?’ Jamie’s mother caught hold of her sleeve, an imploring look in her eyes. Raina had seen that look so many times before, but hadn’t really understood the agony behind it until she’d become a mother to Anya.

  ‘He’s breathing, and he’s safe.’ Raina started with the good news. ‘But I want that bump on his head looked at. The doctors will be checking to see if there’s any water in his lungs, and they’ll have to clean any cuts very carefully to avoid infection.’

  ‘Thank you, Doctor.’ Jamie’s mother held his hand while Raina wrapped blankets around him that the pleasure boat’s crew had brought. She could hear the sound of a siren, and it seemed that they were in luck and the ambulance would be here soon.

  As soon as she’d handed over to the ambulance crew, Raina looked for Alistair. She found him, sitting further along the deck, his arms resting on his knees and his head bowed. Someone had brought him a blanket and it lay draped across his shoulders. As Raina reached to pull it around him, he looked up.

  There had been a time when she’d lived for the smile that flickered across his face and the golden heat of his eyes. Right now that time seemed much closer than she’d thought it would ever be again.

  ‘Hi, there. Are you all right?’

  ‘I’m okay. How’s the boy?’

  Raina glanced across, and saw Jamie clinging to his mother, responding to the ambulance crew’s questions. ‘He doesn’t seem too much the worse for wear. But he needs to be seen at the hospital.’

  Alistair nodded. He knew that Jamie was at risk from all kinds of infections from the dirty water, and that dry drowning could occur hours after a child was pulled from the water and seemed fully recovered from the experience. Not to mention the possibility of a concussion.

  ‘The ambulance crew are dealing with it?’ He was cupping his hand over his ear as if checking exactly how much he could hear.

  ‘Yes, they’ve got everything under control. They know exactly what the situation is and what the doctors need to look for. Is there something wrong with your ears?’

  He shook his head. Something was wrong and it was more than just being wet through and covered in grime from the river. Raina wanted to reach out and hug him for his bravery, and then find out what the matter was and make it right. Instead, she pulled a paper handkerchief from her bag, dabbing at a small cut beside his left eye.

  ‘Don’t, Raina.’ His tone wasn’t unkind but he shied away from her impatiently. ‘It’s all right...’

  ‘So Jamie’s at risk of infection from the dirty water but you’re not. What are you, Dr Invincible?’

  Raina bit her lip. That joke belonged to a time when they had been married. It didn’t sound half as apt now they were divorced. But seeing him like this... It awakened every protective instinct she had and it was killing her that Alistair wouldn’t take any help from her.

  It was Alistair all over, though. When things had got tough when she’d become pregnant and then lost the baby, he’d shut down. When all Raina had wanted him to do was to share his feelings, when she’d wanted him to feel the same wild grief as she had, he’d pushed her away.

  She swallowed hard. That had been then, and this was now. She was a doctor, and she had someone who might be hurt sitting right in front of her. That justified her professional concern.

  Suddenly she could think clearly again. Put all the little pieces of the puzzle together to make a place to start. She turned her head away from him, speaking clearly.

  ‘You can’t hear, can you?’

  ‘What was that?’ Alistair frowned impatiently.

  ‘I said...’ She faced him squarely. ‘You can’t hear. Can you, Alistair?’

  * * *

  So much for thinking that he’d been doing a pretty good job in covering up. If he hadn’t been wet through and shivering from the shock of seeing young Jamie plunge into the water when he’d just been a hair’s breadth away from reaching him, Alistair might have been able to brush the question off. But right now he wanted someone to know.

  Not just someone. He could have told the man who’d helped him out of the water and gone to fetch the blanket, but he’d had no inclination to d
o so. He wanted Raina to know. He wanted that sweet, dark-eyed concern that made his heart lurch.

  ‘It’s...it’s not a result of being in the water. It’s a pre-existing condition.’ Maybe if he kept this professional, he could ignore the tingle in his fingertips. The urge to have Raina kiss away all of his aches and pains, and all of the fears for a future that was anything but silent but which contained too much white noise to make any sense of what he did hear.

  She gave him a searching look. ‘And I’d be right in saying you’ve seen someone about this?’

  ‘Yes, you would.’ However much he wanted her to stop caring, he felt it warm him. ‘I went to get it checked out as soon as it happened.’

  He could almost see the cogs turning in Raina’s brain. As they did so, a look of determination crept across her face. ‘It’s none of my business...’

  Then he’d make it her business. The urge to tell her was fast overcoming the feeling that he didn’t want to betray what seemed to him to be a weakness.

  ‘It’s SSHL.’

  ‘When did this happen?’

  ‘Almost exactly two months ago. I felt a bit of pressure in my ear and thought I might have a cold. Then I heard a pop, and realised I was completely deaf in my left ear. My hearing’s impaired in my right ear but it’s not as bad. I’ve had all the tests and there’s nothing else wrong...’ Just that he was deaf. That was wrong with him, although no one could see it.

  ‘So you’re a textbook case for sudden sensorineural hearing loss.’

  Alistair nodded. ‘It improved a little during the first month, but I’m reckoning that what I have now is...pretty much what I’ll always have going forward. I’ll be getting a hearing aid soon, and that might help a bit with directionality.’

  Raina nodded. ‘You have tinnitus?’

  ‘Yeah. That seems to be improving.’ Alistair wasn’t sure whether it was or not. It was probably just wishful thinking, born of the loss he felt over the thought that he might never be able to appreciate silence again, because of the high-pitched ringing in his ears. That, combined with the faraway bubbling sound and the occasional ticking that seemed to come from about two inches behind his right ear, turned silence into an almost unbearable clamour.