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CHAPTER SIX

GIFTS WERE STARTING to pile up in Ella’s room.

While the big pink bear was the frontrunner in the popularity stakes, everybody who looked after Ella was enjoying the growing stack of bright picture books and the toys, especially the board with the animal pictures and the buttons that made the appropriate noise for the animal when Ella pushed it. Her attempts to imitate the noises made them all laugh.

And Rafael had a new audience on which to try out his own animal noises.

‘This is a lion, Ella. Rrrroahhh... You’ll hear them when we take you to the zoo one day. You might even hear them at home. And this is a monkey. Eeek, eeek, eeek.’

The noises made both Ella and Abbie grin but they had yet to hear their little girl giggle again. What would it take?

‘You don’t have to bring a present every time you come, Rafe. You’re spoiling her.’

‘I want her to look forward to seeing me.’ But Rafael put the bag he was carrying today on the floor and leaned on the edge of the cot, watching as Abbie caught the small, waving arms and pushed them gently into the sleeves of her sleep suit.

‘Mum-mum-mum,’ Ella crowed.

‘That’s me.’ Abbie snapped some fastenings closed. ‘Mama. Can you say papa?’

Ella stared up at her, her eyes round.

‘Papa?’ she repeated encouragingly.

Ella grinned. ‘Mum-mum-mum.’

‘I think that’s the only word she knows.’ Rafael was also smiling but Abbie could sense his disappointment. She tried to distract him.

‘She’s pretty good at “no.” You should have heard her at lunchtime when I tried to persuade her to eat some carrots.’

‘She doesn’t like carrots?’

‘Not yet. Same with pumpkin.’

‘Maybe it’s the colour she doesn’t like.’

‘Hmm... You could be right.’ Abbie smiled and caught Rafael’s gaze. ‘It does clash with pink, doesn’t it?’

His answering smile was swift and, for a heartbeat, things felt good. There were more of these moments now, when it felt like there was a real connection between them again. The time they’d spent in the park together had been a good starting point but, even with more time with both of them here with Ella and more moments when they were in tune with each other, that distance between them didn’t appear to be shrinking.

Ella was the driving force behind Abbie’s motivation for trying to repair her marriage. She desperately wanted her daughter to grow up with a loving father in her life. For them all to make a real family. But the connection had to there between her parents, too. It had to be more than physical and it had to be strong enough to last the distance. While they were reaching out tentatively to see if they could find and build on that kind of connection, sadly it was Ella who was making things harder.

Oh, she loved the presents. And she loved seeing her daddy and having a cuddle. As long as she wasn’t tired. Or sore. Or hungry. Or had a dirty nappy or anything else that was making life a little less joyful. At those times, she only wanted Abbie.

Mum-mum-mum.

As the days passed it was obvious that Rafael was feeling excluded. It wasn’t just an Italian’s pride that was being dented. Any father would feel disheartened by the preference that Ella made crystal clear when it was needed. And it wasn’t something that Abbie could fix, was it? Rafael hadn’t been there for such a long time. A quarter of Ella’s life. Was it any wonder that the baby saw him as a visitor in her life? That she expected her mother to provide everything from food to comfort?

Abbie glanced at her watch. Any minute now and the nurse would arrive with Ella’s night-time bottle. And Rafael was here. She should let him feed her.

Maybe it was the biggest olive branch she could offer?

She couldn’t put it into words but when she picked Ella up and offered her to Rafe as the nurse came in with the bottle of warm milk, she could see that he understood how significant this was. The way his gaze held hers with a flash of surprise and then gratitude and then a flood of warmth that felt like pure love was enough to bring a huge lump to her throat.

Rafael sat down in the armchair with Ella in his arms. She was happy enough to lie there until she caught sight of the bottle. The hungry whimper was followed by her head craning so far sideways Abbie feared for her neck.

‘Mum-mum-mum...’ Small arms were reaching out for her.

Rafael chased her mouth with the teat of the bottle but Ella was having none of it. She arched her body into a stiff bow and her face went an alarming shade of red.

Abbie had to force herself not to scoop Ella out of her father’s arms. ‘Try again,’ she said above the noise Ella was starting to make. ‘She’ll get used to the idea of you feeding her in a minute.’

But Rafael shook his head. ‘I can’t bear to hear her this unhappy. You do it, Abbie.’ He stood up and all but shoved Ella into her arms.

It felt like defeat. Worse, even when Ella settled and started sucking hungrily, the joy of doing this was somehow diminished. Abbie could feel Rafael’s gaze on her, and she could feel his despair. And there seemed to be something accusing in the gaze Ella had fixed on her, too. She felt like the meat in a sandwich. All she was trying to do was stick the layers back together. Why was it so difficult?

‘I’m sorry,’ she said quietly to Rafael.

He gave one of those eloquent shrugs. ‘It’s not your fault. Fiorella is a baby. All she knows is what she wants to make her happy.’

But Abbie knew what she wanted to make her happy, too. And it seemed as far away as ever.

‘I...um...thought I might come home tomorrow. After work.’

Rafael went very still. Oh, help...

‘Just to see if I find a suitable dress and shoes and things or whether I’ll need to go shopping. For the wedding on Saturday?’

‘Ah... Of course.’

‘I thought you might like to be here with Ella while I’m gone. If you’re free about five o’clock, you could feed her her dinner.’

A faintly incredulous huff escaped Rafael but Abbie ignored it. ‘If I’m not here, she might be happy to let you feed her. And food is different from a bottle. She lets nursing staff feed her sometimes. We can only keep trying, can’t we?’

A sigh this time. ‘Si...’ Rafael’s expression was unreadable. ‘This is true.’

* * *

‘She’s doing well, isn’t she, Mr de Luca?’

‘She certainly is.’ Rafael stroked the hair of the little Afghan girl, Anoosheh, and smiled at her. It had been nearly two weeks since her massive surgery and the swelling was going down nicely.

‘She’s learning English fast,’ his registrar put in. ‘Can you say hello to Mr de Luca, Anoosheh?’

‘’Ello,’ Anoosheh said obligingly. ‘I am ’appy to see you, Dock-a-dor.’ The words were an effort to produce and then her face twisted into an odd expression.

‘She’s trying to smile,’ the nurse told them. ‘It’s still hard.’

‘Keep trying,’ Rafael told his small patient. ‘Soon you will be lighting up the world with your smile.’

They all had to keep trying, didn’t they?

Even when it didn’t seem to be working.

The parts of his life were all there and, if you took each one on its own, there wasn’t anything obvious that was broken.

Work was fine. Little Anoosheh was a triumph and one that was being followed closely enough by the media for Rafael’s reputation to be growing rather too fast for his liking. Only this morning he’d had to pass a request to appear on a television talk show over to Ethan—who probably passed it to Declan. Far better that the charity projects of the Hunter Clinic got some good publicity than that he became the poster boy for reconstructive plastic surgery.

Ella was fine, too. Doing better each day. The three-month mark when her bone marrow could be checked again was rapidly approaching and if the results were good, her central line could be removed and she would be allowed home. Even better, his precious daughter was happy and she had no trouble lighting up the world with her smile.

There had been no objections when he’d been the one to feed her the other evening and he’d done it again last night because it seemed that Abbie did need a new dress for Leo and Lizzie’s upcoming wedding and it had given her a chance to hit the high street.

Yes. The wheels of his life were turning perfectly well.

It was when Rafael’s ward rounds took him to visit Lucy, the little girl who’d been in the car crash, that he realised what was bothering him so much.

Lucy’s grandmother was beside the bed, holding a drink that Lucy was sipping through a straw. She watched as Rafael checked the chart and then gently examined the little girl’s face.

‘Can you open your mouth a little for me, chicken? Does that still hurt?’

‘Mmm.’

‘It will get a little better each day. But only if you keep trying.’ Rafael covered her right eye with one hand and then held up his other hand. ‘How many fingers can you see?’

‘Free.’ The word had to come out without her mouth moving.

‘Good girl.’ Rafael smiled at the grandmother. ‘The vision’s improving.’

She nodded. ‘Mrs de Luca had a specialist from the eye department come in this morning. They think it’s going to be fine. And the orthopaedic surgeon is happy with her arms and the movement she’s got in her fingers. Mrs de Luca took some of the stitches out of her face this morning, too. It’s looking a bit better, isn’t it?’

Rafael could hear the doubt in the woman’s voice. ‘If you’d seen Lucy when she came into Theatre, you would know that what Mrs de Luca did is just amazing. Lucy will need more surgery later but, eventually, I suspect you’re going to have to look carefully to see any lasting damage.’ His reassurance was sincere. The pride he felt in Abbie’s work even more heartfelt.

‘She’s your wife, isn’t she? Mrs de Luca?’

‘She is.’

In name only, however. The taunting whisper stayed with Rafael as he finished his round of the surgical ward.

The wheels of his life might be turning perfectly well but the cogs weren’t fitting together properly so the wheels weren’t turning together. Was it only coincidence that working together to operate on Lucy had been the only time they’d been that close professionally since she’d returned?

She should be here now, sharing this ward round. Sharing the pleasure in the little girl’s excellent progress. But she’d been here before him today and she was in Theatre this afternoon. Creating a new ear for the patient she’d seen on the morning of that first outpatient clinic together. The one that had led to Leo and Ethan ordering them to put their personal issues aside and work together properly again. But they weren’t, were they? Even this patient they’d worked so hard on together was now being followed up on at different times.

His time with Ella was wonderful but she would only allow him to do things for her when Abbie wasn’t there.

There was nothing wrong with his home either, except that the only time Abbie had gone there had been when he had been here, looking after Ella.

How could they possibly put things right when they were beginning to shape their lives into completely separate wheels? It wouldn’t matter how smoothly they turned, it wouldn’t be any kind of a marriage and he wouldn’t blame Abbie for deciding it wasn’t good enough.

Somehow he had to get the cogs to fit inside each other. To show Abbie that, by doing so, the ‘machine’ of them being together would be stronger. Able to do so much more. Could last for ever, like a beautifully crafted clock.

But marriage wasn’t a machine, was it? He was thinking about this all the wrong way. And maybe it was that kind of thinking that had caused their problems right from the start.

Waiting by the lift when he’d left his junior staff to follow up on any new orders for his patients, Rafael couldn’t shake off the disturbing undercurrent his analogy of timepieces had left him with.

You couldn’t divorce emotion from things that happened to people. He was too good at standing back and seeing the big picture without the emotional layers. The way he had when it had come to making that decision about Ella’s experimental treatment. Perhaps the way he had when he’d voiced that ‘all or nothing’ ultimatum about their marriage? When he looked at the big picture, he saw it in terms of benefit versus suffering for the individual involved from a clinical perspective.

Abbie was the opposite. She saw the same big picture, but her scales weighed the emotions of everybody involved and not just the patient at the centre of the decision to be made. And the results she came up with were very different sometimes.

But not wrong.

Rafael knew that. He also knew that he’d made things much worse while Abbie and Ella had been away in New York. He’d buried himself in his work and when he had thought about his family, the fear that he would never see his daughter again had been easily shrouded in anger and then resentment towards Abbie. He’d been cool and clipped in any communication. No wonder it had trailed away into impersonal emails and text messages.

But how did you go about changing something that was a part of your personality? How could you learn to feel the things that someone like Abbie could feel?

By finding someone to teach you?

The lift doors slid open in front of him but, instead of stepping in, Rafael turned swiftly and headed for the stairs.

* * *

Abbie knew it was Rafael coming into the theatre without even having to turn her head.

What she didn’t know was why he had come in. The surgery for the grade-three microtia on seven-year-old Annabelle was well under way. Rib cartilage had been harvested and Abbie was sculpting the new ear. She had to look up for a second as Rafael stepped closer, however. Had something happened to Ella?

The eye contact was reassuring. ‘Don’t let me interrupt,’ Rafael said. ‘I just had the urge to come and watch an artist at work.’

Abbie blinked. ‘Really? What brought this on?’

‘I was checking Lucy. Admiring your needlework. And then I remembered you were doing this today and it’s been a long time since I’ve watched the procedure. Do you mind?’

‘No, of course not.’ Hardly. He had been admiring her work? Wanted to watch ‘an artist’? How could anyone object to such a professional accolade?

It put the pressure on a little more, though. Not that Abbie hadn’t been doing her best before but now she was determined to make this perfect.

‘This is Annabelle,’ she told Rafael. ‘She’s been waiting a long time for this surgery but I needed her to be old enough to have sufficient rib cartilage to harvest.’

‘She could have had the surgery much younger with a Medpor reconstruction, couldn’t she?’

Was Rafael criticising her choice? Abbie couldn’t help sounding a little defensive.

‘Using an artificial framework means that the ear can’t match the other one perfectly. It also doesn’t grow with the child. This creates an ear that’s alive. One that’s going to last a lifetime.’

‘But not many surgeons are gifted enough to do it well. Annabelle is lucky to have found you.’

There was a murmur of agreement from the rest of the team. Abbie shook off the praise. ‘I think she chose me because I said I’d put an earring in to match her other ear so it’ll be there when the bandage comes off for the first time next week.’

Happy with the shape of the outer ear she had carved from the cartilage, Abbie turned her attention to the peanut-shaped deformity that had been Annabelle’s right ear until now. She could use the lower part for the ear lobe. The tiny gold stud earring was bathed in disinfectant and waiting in a kidney dish nearby.

Rafael was watching her examination of the deformed ear tissue.

‘She must have been teased a lot at school.’

‘Yes. She’s kept it covered pretty well with her hair but she was very self-conscious about it. Her mother said they had all sorts of problems when she was expected to do swimming at school.’

‘Has it affected her badly, do you think?’

‘Well, she’s very shy. Hard to say whether she would have been more outgoing without the deformity but I’m sure it’s contributed. It would have become progressively more of an issue as she got older, of course.’

‘Si... It would be torture for a teenage girl to look so different.’

‘Mmm. That’s why I favour the rib graft method. She’ll need a bit more surgery to refine things down the track but by the time Annabelle’s interested in boys, her ear will look and feel as if it’s always been there.’

This was weird. She might have expected a keen interest from Rafael but Abbie would never have picked that it would focus on the emotional side of the surgery and its aftermath. Why wasn’t he asking about the dimensions of the suture material she was using? Or the technique for elevating a skin flap to preserve all the hair follicles so that Annabelle wouldn’t be left with a bald patch?

‘She has conduction deafness, I assume?’

‘Yes. There’s no ear canal or eardrum on this side.’ That was more like it. A clinical query.

‘Is that causing problems for her? Or her family?’

‘Doesn’t seem to be.’ He was doing it again. Looking past the clinical picture and considering the bigger, emotional picture. Something was going on in his head, Abbie realised. He was making a deliberate effort. To connect with her way of thinking about patients, perhaps?

Whatever it was, she liked it.

‘They’re under the care of an audiologist to make sure they look after the good side.’ Abbie was peering through the magnifying lenses she wore to make tiny stitches that attached the ear lobe to the new part she had crafted. ‘I think they’re all more concerned about the cosmetic side of it all at the moment, though.’

She checked again that the lobe was at exactly the same level as Annabelle’s other ear.

‘Looking good.’ Her registrar nodded. ‘You ready for the earring?’

Abbie grinned. ‘Let’s do it.’

Even when the surgery was completed, the pressure dressing in place and protected with the plastic cup that was taped on, Rafael didn’t seem inclined to talk about anything clinical.

‘Were you happy with Lucy’s progress?’

‘She’s doing well, isn’t she?’ Abbie stripped off her mask and gloves. ‘I’ll be happier when she can eat again, though. She’s lost quite a lot of weight.’

‘I’ve arranged for a physiotherapist who specialises in maxillofacial injuries to start working with her. Her grandmother’s keen to help, too.’

‘It’s great that she’s got the family support there.’ But Abbie sighed as she pulled off her gown. ‘Her mother’s still in ICU. It’s not looking hopeful.’

‘And the father?’

‘Not in the picture.’ Abbie balled up the gown and threw it in the bin. ‘Hasn’t been since she was a baby.’

A broken family. The kind that Abbie didn’t want for Ella. Or for herself or Rafael, for that matter. She forced a smile to her lips.

‘On a more positive note, I found a gorgeous dress and shoes for the wedding tomorrow. Did you get your suit cleaned?’

‘I have to pick it up at the dry-cleaner’s after work.’

‘But you’ll come and see Ella later?’

‘Of course.’

The smile was genuine this time. ‘We’ll look forward to that.’

‘Me also. And tomorrow...the wedding? It will be another date for us, perhaps?’

The hopeful expression in Rafael’s eyes almost undid Abbie completely. If they weren’t still standing in Theatre, with staff busy around them cleaning up after Annabelle had been taken to Recovery, she might have thrown her arms around his neck. Stood on tiptoe to provide reassurance with a kiss.

But all she could do was smile. And offer a quiet word that was only for Rafael.

‘Absolutely.’