Читать книгу How To Mend A Broken Heart - Amy Andrews - Страница 7

‘MUM, we’re home,’ Fletch called as he opened the door, checking behind him to see if Tess was following or still standing in the hallway like a stunned mullet.

He wasn’t sure why he’d said what he’d said. Except it was the truth. He just hadn’t realised it until right that moment. He’d kidded himself that it was to check up on her but now he knew it was more.

That there was part of him, no matter how hard he’d tried to move on, that just hadn’t.

He walked into the apartment, throwing his keys on the hallstand. ‘Mother?’

A voice came from the direction of the bathroom. ‘I’m in here, darling, there’s no need to shout.’ Jean appeared a moment later with a spray pack in one hand and a mop in the other.

‘Mum, you don’t have to clean the apartment,’ Fletch said, trying to keep the exasperation and relief out of his voice as he unburdened her of her load.

He didn’t like to leave his mother alone for too long these days. She seemed so frail and unsteady on her feet and he worried she might fall and injure herself while he was out.

Especially if she was mopping floors.

‘I have a cleaning lady for that.’

‘Nonsense, darling, I have to make myself useful somehow. Now, is Tess working late or shall I put something on for tea for her tonight?’

Tess stepped out of the shadow of the entranceway where she’d been frozen since Jean had entered the room. Jean, who had once been a towering Amazon of a woman and was now white-haired and stooped and looked like a puff of wind would blow her over.

She sucked in a breath at the absurd urge to cry. ‘No, Jean, I’m here.’

Jean looked over her son’s shoulder and smiled. ‘Oh, Tess! There you are!’ She hurried forward and pulled Tess into an effusive hug. ‘Goodness, you’re getting so skinny,’ Jean tutted, pulling back to look at her daughter-in-law. ‘And your hair! Did you have that done today? I love it!’

Tess swallowed hard at the shimmer of moisture in Jean’s eyes as her mother-in-law wrapped her in another hug. She shut her eyes as she was sucked into a bizarre time warp where the last decade and all its horrible events just didn’t exist. She held tight to Jean’s bony shoulders.

Her mother-in-law had become an old woman while she’d been away. Guilt clawed at her.

‘How about a cuppa?’ Jean said, finally letting Tess go.

‘Great idea, Mum,’ Fletch agreed. ‘Why don’t you take Tess through and I’ll get the tea?’

Jean smiled and nodded. She turned to go then stopped, her smile dying as a look of confusion clouded her gaze. She looked at her son blankly.

‘Over there,’ Fletch murmured gently as he pointed to the corner of the open-plan living space where a leather three-piece suite, a coffee table and a large-screen television formed a lounge area.

Jean’s gaze followed the direction of Fletch’s finger. It took a moment or two for the set-up to register. ‘Of course.’ She shook her head. ‘Come on, Tess. Tell me all about work today.’

Tess moved off with Jean but not before her gaze locked with Fletch’s. She saw his despair and felt an answering flicker. No wonder Fletch had looked tired earlier—this had to be killing him.

Jean patted the cushion beside her and asked, ‘How was the unit today, dear? Busy as usual?’

Tess sat beside Jean, bringing her thoughts back to order. ‘I …’ She glanced at Fletch for direction.

Since moving to England Tess had changed her speciality to geriatrics so nursing Alzheimer’s patients was part and parcel of what she did every day. But each patient was individual and responded differently to having their misstatements corrected.

He nodded his head encouragingly, which didn’t really tell her very much. ‘I didn’t go to work today,’ she sidestepped. ‘It was my day off and I had … some business to attend to.’

‘Ah, well, no doubt Fletch will know. Fletch?’

‘It wasn’t too bad, Mum,’ Fletch said as he placed a tray with three steaming mugs on the coffee table and apportioned them. He sat on the nearby single-seater. ‘Still a lot of kids with the last of the winter bugs getting themselves into a pickle.’

Tess picked up her mug and absently blew on it. So they were validating Jean’s false sense of reality? At this stage of her disease it was probably all that was left to do. Too many dementia patients became confused and distressed when confronted with their memory loss, and to what end? They were too far gone to realise what was happening to them.

Jean sighed and looked from one to the other. ‘I’m so proud of both of you. It can’t be easy going to work each day looking after such sick little kiddies.’

Tess squeezed Jean’s hand in response. What else could she do? She and Fletch hadn’t worked at St Rita’s Paediatric Intensive Care Unit together for ten years. Not since Ryan had died there. In fact, she hadn’t been able to return to that field of practice at all, hence her move to the other end of the spectrum altogether.

Fletch changed the subject to the weather and they let Jean lead from there, navigating a maze of patchwork conversation—some lucid, some not so lucid. They got on to the spectacular view from the floor-to-ceiling glass doors, with Jean teasing Fletch about his fancy apartment. ‘I can’t believe you two got this thing. What happened to that gorgeous little cottage you were renovating?’

Fletch smiled at his mother. ‘We sold it. Too much hard work.’

‘Oh, pish,’ Jean said, swatting her hand through the air. ‘As if you’re afraid of hard work.’

Tess swallowed a lump as Jean, despite the dementia, looked at her son the way she always had, like he could hang the moon. Fletch’s father had died when he and his sister, Trish, had both been very young and Fletch had been the man of the house for a long time.

‘Gosh, Tess,’ Jean remarked, shaking her head. ‘Look how skinny you are! And where did that lovely tan go? I can’t believe how quickly that gorgeous tan of yours has faded. It hasn’t been that long since you’ve been back from Bora Bora.’

Fletch felt the bleakness inside ratchet up another notch. The tan had gone to England and never come back!

Jean held up an imperious finger. ‘Hold on a moment.’ And she scurried off towards the direction she’d originally come from.

Tess felt exhausted with jet-lag and trying to keep up with Jean’s meandering conversation and rapid-fire subject changes. But not as exhausted as Fletch looked. ‘What medication is she on?’ she asked.

Fletch rattled off a series of the most up-to-date dementia pills on the market. He shrugged. ‘They’ve held it at bay for many years but—’

Jean bustled back in, interrupting them. ‘Here it is,’ she said, brandishing a book of some description. When she sat down and opened it Tess realised it was a photo album. The one she’d put together all those years ago after their return from Bora Bora.

Fletch frowned as a hundred memories flooded his mind. He shook his head slightly at Tess’s questioning look. He’d had no idea his mother had this album. It, along with all the others, had been stored in one of the many boxes that he’d packed their marriage into after he and Tess had separated and she’d run away to the other side of the world.

Maybe when he’d asked his mother to get rid of it all just prior to his move to Canada, she’d decided to keep a few souvenirs? He hadn’t really cared at the time how she’d made it disappear, just that it had. God knew, he hadn’t been able to bear the thought of going through it all himself, deciding what to keep and what to discard.

Getting rid of it all, holus bolus, had been a much easier option.

And yet here was a part of it, turning up like the proverbial bad penny. A full Technicolor reminder of how happy they’d been.

‘See, now look at you here,’ Jean said, pointing to Tess in a bikini on the beach. ‘Brown as a berry!’

Tessa stared at the photograph, shocked by the sudden yank back into the past. She’d taken three photos from the ruins of their marriage—all of Ryan. Not that she’d been able to bear to look at them. They lived at the back of a cupboard she never opened.

But it had been a long time since she’d seen ones of Fletch and herself.

A stranger stared back at her. Yes, she was very tanned. She was also deliriously happy, obviously in love and blissfully unaware of the giant black hole hovering in her future. In fact, the woman in the photograph looked nothing like the woman she was today.

And it had nothing to do with the tan.

For a fleeting second, Tess wished she could jump into the photo, like Mary Poppins had jumped into that pavement painting, and give herself a good shake.

If only she’d known then what she knew now.

If only …

‘I think this is my favourite one,’ Jean said, flipping to one of Fletch, towel wrapped around his waist, elbows on the balcony railing, looking back over his shoulder and laughing into the camera, crystal waters behind him.

Tessa stilled as she remembered she’d been fresh from the shower and naked when she’d taken that picture and the series of intimate photos that had followed—ones that had not made it into this album! She remembered making him lie on the bed and loosen his towel, snapping shots of every glorious inch of his body.

Then he’d grappled the camera from her and returned the favour, asking her to pose for him and taking a set of photos a professional photographer would have been proud of. To this day the one on her stomach, looking over her shoulder with her hair flowing down her back, the sheet ruched around her bottom revealing only the slight rise of one cheek, was the best picture ever taken of her.

She remembered being so turned on by their nude photo session they’d made love for hours afterwards, rolling and sighing and moaning to the gentle swish of the waves.

She glanced at Fletch—did he remember?

His gaze locked with hers, turning almost silver as heat flashed like a solar flare. It dropped to her mouth and she watched as his throat bobbed.

‘It’s my favourite too,’ Fletch murmured.

Oh, yeah, he remembered.

Tess sat through the rest of the album, desperately trying to claw back some control of her brain. Bora Bora was in the past—a long time in the past. She hadn’t come here to take a walk down memory lane, although she guessed to a degree that had been inevitable. Neither had she come to rekindle the sexual attraction that, prior to Ryan’s death, had always raged like an inferno between them.

She’d come for Jean. To alleviate some anxiety and then turn around and go back to her perfectly fulfilling, asexual, far-away existence.

Jean closed the album. ‘I think you two need to go back to Bora Bora. You’re both too tense.’ She patted Tess’s hand. ‘And pale.’

Before Tess could answer, an alarm blared out and she jumped slightly at the same time Jean clutched at her chest and looked at Fletch anxiously.

‘It’s okay, Mum,’ Fletch reassured her as he reached over and turned off the alarm on the clock that was sitting on the coffee table. ‘Remember, that just means your show’s about to start.’ His mother continued to look at him blankly. ‘Wheel of Fortune,’ he prompted.

‘Oh.’ Jean sagged a little and dropped her hand to her lap. ‘Oh, yes, oh, I love that show! ’

Fletch nodded as he picked up the remote and flicked on the big sleek screen to the channel that played nonstop 1980s television shows. ‘There you go, just starting,’ he said as the game-show music rang out.

‘Tess.’ Jean bounced like a little girl on Christmas morning. ‘Do you want to watch it with me?’

Fletch watched the play of emotions mirrored in Tess’s eyes. She was obviously shocked by the many faces of Jean. ‘Actually, we’re going to go out on to the deck and have a chat,’ he said.

But his mother wasn’t listening, engrossed in the show, her invitation to Tess already forgotten. He inclined his head at Tess, indicating they move away, and she eagerly complied, following him to the kitchen.

‘Would you like something a little stronger?’ he asked as he removed the mug she’d brought with her and placed it in the sink.

Following a period after she’d moved to the UK when she’d drunk a little too often, Tessa didn’t drink much these days. But if ever she needed alcohol, it was now. Being with Jean was heartbreaking. And being with Fletch, seeing those pictures, was … disturbing.

‘Yes, please.’

Fletch pulled a bottle of chilled white wine out of the fridge and held it up. ‘All right?’

Tessa nodded. ‘Sure. Thanks.’

He poured them both a glass and handed her hers. Normally he’d clink glasses with someone in this situation but nothing was normal about right now so he took a mouthful then led the way to the deck.

Fletch, conscious of her behind him, put his arms on the railing and inhaled the late-afternoon river breeze. He took another sip of his wine then turned to face her.

‘Thank you,’ he said.

‘I’m so sorry, Fletch,’ she murmured. ‘It’s … it’s so unfair.’

Fletch’s lips twisted into a bitter smile as his mobile phone rang. ‘Since when has life ever been fair?’ he asked as he located his phone and answered it.

Tess nodded. Truer words had never been spoken.

She moved to the far side of the railing to give Fletch some privacy. She had absolutely no desire to eavesdrop on the conversation but it was hard not to when he was standing two metres from her.

It was Trish and Tess gathered Fletch’s little sister was asking after Jean. Then she heard Fletch tell her that he’d been to the cemetery and reassured her three times that he was fine. Like Jean, Trish had been a tremendous support for them after losing Ryan. She’d worried about them, about her brother particularly, like a little mother hen. Tess knew that if Trish had been able to turn back time for them, she would have.

Her name was mentioned and Tess wondered how Trish was taking the news that she was here. They’d been close once, like real sisters, but Trish was loyal to a fault and while she’d been supportive for that horrible year, she’d been angry with Tess over her desertion of Fletch.

It had hurt at the time but blood was thicker than water and it was only right that she should stand by her brother.

Fletch hung up. ‘Sorry, that was Trish.’

‘So I gathered,’ she murmured, swishing the wine in her glass absently. ‘How’s she and Doug doing these days?’

‘Great. Doug started his own computer repair business five years ago. It’s thriving. Trish gave up the child-care centre a few years ago to work full time taking care of the books side of things and managing the job schedule. They have Christopher, he’s almost two. And she’s seven months pregnant with number two.’

Tess stilled, the swirl of the wine coming to a halt. She glanced at Fletch. Trish had a child? A little boy. A little boy only a few months older than Ryan had been when he’d died?

And another on the way?

She and Fletch had been trying for another baby just prior to Ryan’s accident.

The ache that was never far from her heart intensified. In a split second she both envied and despised her ex-sister-in-law with shocking intensity.

Fletch watched Tess’s face as a string of emotions chased across the taut face, which seemed suddenly paler. ‘She always wanted babies, Tess,’ he said gently.

Tess breathed in raggedly. She nodded her head vigorously. ‘Of course.’ Trish had absolutely doted on Ryan. ‘That’s great,’ she said, forcing words past the husky lump lodged in her larynx. ‘So, you’re an uncle, huh?’

Fletch nodded. ‘Yes.’

Of sorts. He hadn’t had a lot to do with his nephew given how often he was out of the country. But he was a dear little boy who adored him. And if it was hard at times to hold his wriggly little body and not think of Ryan, not see the similarities between the two cousins, then he erected another layer around his heart and sucked it up.

Tess heard the grimness in his response and knew that it couldn’t have been easy for him. She hesitated for a moment, went to take a step towards him until a shout of ‘Buy a vowel!’ coming from the lounge area halted the reflex before her foot had even moved.

She smiled at him as the sound of Jean’s excited clapping drifted out. ‘How’s Jean with him?’

Fletch felt his answering smile die. ‘She doesn’t remember him most days. It’s hard for Trish. Especially as Mum’s been living with them since just before Christopher was born.’

Tess frowned. ‘How come she’s living with you now? I don’t mean to tell you how to manage Jean’s condition but I don’t think changing her living arrangements at this stage in her disease is such a good thing, Fletch.’

‘Trish had problems with her first pregnancy. She went into early labour at twenty-four weeks. They managed to stop it and get the pregnancy through to thirty-four weeks. A month ago she went into early labour again with this one. Which they also managed to stop. But given her history and her age, her obstetrician ordered bed rest and no stress for the remainder of the pregnancy.’

‘Ah,’ Tess murmured. ‘Not very easy when you’re looking after a toddler and your high-needs mother.’

Fletch grimaced. ‘No.’ He rubbed the back of his neck. ‘Trish tried day respite but the unfamiliar setting distressed Mum, made her anxious, which flowed on into the nights. Mum stopped sleeping and she started to wander. She had a couple of falls.’

‘Oh, no,’ Tess gasped.

Fletch shrugged. ‘Lucky she has bones made of concrete.’

Tess laughed, remembering the time that Jean had slipped and fallen down a flight of stairs with not even a bruise to show for it. Fletch smiled at her laugh. It was as familiar to him as his own and yet not something he’d heard for a very long time.

Another thing he’d missed with surprising ferocity.

‘We got a day nurse in but the same thing happened. An unfamiliar face just aggravated the situation. So … I took a leave of absence from Calgary and came home to step in and do my bit. Look after Mum until after the baby’s born.’

Tess understood the conundrum he and Trish faced. The familiar was important to dementia patients, who clung to their repertoire of the familiar even as it shrank at an alarming rate around them. But, still, uprooting yourself from the other side of the world was a big ask.

Although she guessed not for Fletch. He’d always been very family orientated, always taken care of his responsibilities.

‘It’s a good thing you’re doing,’ she said softly.

He looked at her. ‘It’s family, Tess. Family sticks together.’

Tess shied from the intensity of his silver-green eyes. Was there an accusation there? Sure, she’d asked for the divorce but he hadn’t exactly put up a fight. In fact, he’d been pretty relieved as far as she could recall. Did he really blame her for wanting to get as far away from it all as possible?

She took a deep breath. She wasn’t going to go there. She was finishing her drink. She was going back to her hotel room.

Tomorrow she was getting on a plane.

‘So you’re not working, then?’

Fletch shook his head. He looked into his drink. ‘That was the plan but St Rita’s approached me with an interesting proposition and I’ve accepted a temporary contract …’

Tess blinked as the information sat like a lead sinker in her brain. ‘St Rita’s? In the … PICU?’

Fletch glanced up into her huge amber eyes, flashing their incredulity like a lighthouse beacon. ‘In both the adult and kids’ ICUs. They want someone to head up a study on the application of hypothermia in acute brain injury. They’ve asked me. I didn’t come here to work but … how could I refuse? It’s a marvellous opportunity.’

Tess was quiet for a moment while she processed the startling information. ‘Oh.’

She knew that since their separation and his move to Canada, Fletch had become an authority—some might call it an obsession—on cold-water drowning, undertaking several world-renowned studies. In fact, he was probably one of the world’s foremost experts on the subject. She’d read everything he’d ever published from the impressive studies to journal articles and every paper he’d ever given at a conference or a symposium.

None of them had brought Ryan back.

‘It’s part time, only a few hours a day with no real clinical role. I can do a lot of the work from home, which is perfect, leaves me a lot of time for Mum.’

Tess nodded. It sounded ideal. She just wished she could understand how he could go back there. She knew, although she didn’t pretend to comprehend, why he’d chosen that particular field of research but how he could handle the subject matter was beyond her. And how he could enter St Rita’s without breaking down she’d never know.

Her eyes sought his. She remembered how he’d told his mother earlier about the kids with the last of the winter bugs. She’d thought he’d been fobbing Jean off but obviously not. ‘You’ve … you’ve been into the PICU?’

Their gazes locked. ‘Yes. Several times. In fact, I called in there on my way to the cemetery.’

Tess let out a shaky breath. ‘Right …’

What did she say now? How was it? Have you been into room two? Did it bring back memories? Was Ryan’s presence still there or had it been erased by years of other children and hospital antiseptic?

Instead, she said nothing because she really didn’t want to know.

Fletch’s stare didn’t waver. ‘It wasn’t easy, Tess.’

She looked away. Had he thought it would be? Did he expect her sympathy? An embrace? Applause? Some kind of a shared moment where everything was suddenly all right because he’d confronted some ghosts?

A surge of emotions knotted in her belly and she knew she had to leave. Get out. Far away from Fletch and all that reminded her of that dark, dark time.

Denial had been working for her just fine.

She just wanted to go to bed and sleep off the jet-lag and not have to think about any of it.

‘Well,’ she said, downing the contents of her glass in one long swallow. ‘It looks like you have everything worked out.’

‘Tess.’

She ignored the reproach in his voice. ‘I’ve gotta go.’ She placed the wine glass on the table and headed for the door.

‘Tess,’ he said, catching her arm lightly as she brushed past him.

Tess stopped. ‘Let me go,’ she said, staring straight ahead.

‘Tess, please, stay for a while.’

She squeezed her eyes shut. ‘Fletch.’

‘I want to talk to you, Tess.’

‘I think we’re all talked out.’

‘It’s about Mum.’ He felt her arm strain against his hand. ‘Please, Tess, just hear me out. For Jean.’

Tess sighed, and her muscles relaxed, knowing she was defeated.

Damn it.

And damn him.