Page 2 of Lessons in Love at the Cornish Country Hospital

‘I’ve got a Labrador, a Basset Hound and a bump that people keep telling me already makes me look like I’m full term, and we’re all wedged onto a three-seater sofa.’ Danni raised her eyebrows. ‘How do you fancy your chances?’

‘Not very highly.’ Charlie grinned and dropped a kiss on her forehead, furrowing his brow as he pulled away. ‘You look worn out.’

‘It was a tough shift. There was an accident on a building site in Port Tremellien. One of the contractors crashed a dumper truck into a wall, but he was airlifted to another hospital. Some of his colleagues working nearby were brought in to us, with what appeared to be minor injuries, but the surveyor who’d been working on site suddenly developed a thunderclap headache and it turned out she had a brain aneurysm that had burst. They took her into surgery and she’s in ITU now, but she’s really poorly. I called to see how she was doing and the nurse who answered told me that they’d asked her husband to bring their baby in, just in case it’s his last chance. I keep thinking that when she left for work this morning, she must have taken it for granted she’d be seeing her family later. But now she might never get to hold her baby again.’

‘Oh sweetheart.’ Charlie was clearly prepared to take his chances, and he gave Brenda, their Basset Hound, a gentle shove, encouraging her to move further along the sofa, much to the disgust of their Labrador, Maggie, who got jostled in the process. Wrapping his arms around Danni, he didn’t need to say anything else. Their jobs were so different, and yet from the moment they’d met, he’d seemed to understand that sometimes it was impossible for her to separate her work from her home life as easily as other people did. Working as a doctor in A&E was the only job she’d ever really wanted to do, but it came with an emotional cost that just seemed to be rising now that she was pregnant. All of her feelings were much closer to the surface, but never more so than today, with the new mother who might now be separated from her child forever.

‘I know I’m being silly, but I had to go to the toilet and cry when they took her up to surgery.’

‘You’re not being silly, you’re being the wonderful, caring person who everyone loves, although no one more than me.’ Charlie kissed her gently, and some of the tension she’d been carrying in her spine seemed to ease. Their baby would be so lucky to have a father like him. He was the kindest man she’d ever met, and bedtime stories for their son would be an endless adventure, given that Charlie had written more than ten bestselling children’s books. More than that, he made Danni feel safe and loved, in a way she’d never been before, and she knew he’d give that gift to their child too. She really wanted to enjoy this phase of their life together, and all the excitement that came with it, but the anxiety just wouldn’t stop building up inside her.

Her brother Joe had spotted it early on, which was the downside of having a consultant psychiatrist for a sibling.

‘It’s because of Mum and Dad, you know that don’t you?’ When he’d asked the question, months before, she’d tried to make light of it, joking about psychiatrists always blaming the parents. But he hadn’t let it go. Losing their father, the one parent they’d been able to rely on, suddenly, and at such a young age, had made them both aware that stability could be whipped away in a split second, and that life didn’t come with a guarantee. Being dispatched to separate boarding schools by their disinterested mother had done nothing to ease those fears, and it meant they hadn’t even been able to cling to one another. Joe was right, deep down she knew that. So, even if her job hadn’t reminded her on a daily basis how fragile life could be, the anxiety would still have dogged her because of that.

‘Have you given any more thought to stopping work a bit earlier, or reducing your hours? I’m worried about you.’ Charlie pushed a strand of hair away from her face, as Maggie tried worming her way between them, pushing behind him to get closer to Danni. She’d become more and more protective as thepregnancy had progressed, and she acted like Danni’s shadow whenever she got the chance.

‘We’re so short-staffed at the moment, I just couldn’t. Anyway, I’m fine physically; my midwife says things are going well, even if the baby is a tiny bit on the small side. My blood pressure has also been really good at every check-up and, if work was too much, that wouldn’t be the case. I’ve even managed to give up my borderline addiction to camembert, so I get a gold star for that.’ Danni smiled, but then she shook her head. ‘I don’t think too much time to think would do me any favours anyway.’

‘This baby is going to love you, and you’re going to be the most wonderful mother he could possibly have asked for. You do know that, don’t you?’ Charlie held her gaze until she nodded. He understood her fears only too well, never tiring of reassuring her, but the uneasiness was like out-of-control ivy, creeping into all the places that should have been filled with excitement instead. The midwife had said the extra checks were just a precaution, but they fed into Danni’s fears that everything she’d ever wanted might still somehow get snatched away.

‘Just promise me nothing’s going to go wrong.’ Even as she asked him to say it, she knew it wasn’t fair, but she trusted Charlie more than anyone else on earth and she needed to hear those words from him.

‘I promise. We’re about to start the most amazing adventure and there’s no one else I’d want to share it with.’ As he pulled her towards him again, she breathed out at last. Charlie had promised it was going to be okay, and she just had to keep pushing down the fear until the nagging sensation that something awful was about to happen finally went away.

2

Wendy Donahue was about to break a promise. To herself. She’d sworn she wouldn’t look at Chloe’s Instagram feed again, but seeing what her ex-husband’s new girlfriend was up to was a habit she just didn’t seem able to break. Like most addicts, she knew what she was doing was bad for her, but the lure was just too strong.

There was a new video and Wendy’s fingers twitched as she tried to talk herself out of clicking on it. Chloe would look perfect, like she always did. Even at more than four months into her pregnancy, it was impossible to tell that she was expecting a baby. By that stage in both of her pregnancies, Wendy had been retaining more water than a camel, and had developed melasma – a pattern of brown spots that had covered her cheeks, nose and forehead making her feel horribly unattractive. Chloe was doing that thing pregnant women were supposed to do – but which Wendy never had. She was glowing.

Pressing the screen, the video started to play and Wendy’s jaw clenched involuntarily. Chloe was miming a song about best friends, and suddenly both of Wendy’s daughters walked into the room too. All three of them had matching hairstyles, andgiven the length and colour, they must have been wearing wigs. They were such good quality, it would have been impossible to tell that the glossy blonde locks weren’t entirely natural. The effect it had was to make the three of them look like sisters. They were lip synching the words to the song, and by the end both girls were leaning in close to Chloe, their heads on her shoulders. All of a sudden, it was like someone had their hands around Wendy’s throat and were squeezing as tightly as they could. Whoever said jealousy was an ugly emotion had it spot on.

The words that Chloe had written beneath the post did nothing to ease Wendy’s discomfort.

Being best friends with my stepdaughters is a dream come true, but very soon we’re going to be The Donahues – party of five – and we’ll all have a new best friend to love. #Family #Daughters #BestFriends #Love

Wendy had to fight the urge to scream. She wanted to stand face-to-face with her ex-husband Mike and ask him what the hell he thought he was playing at. For years she’d begged him to consider adding to their family, to have the third child she’d dreamt of, but he’d always shut her down, making the same joke.

‘We’ve got Alice and Zara, so we’ve already done the A to Z of parenting.’ And he’d known exactly what to say to her to stop her harking after the third child that her arms had somehow felt empty without. ‘We’ve got so much to look forward to and, when the girls are out there, following their own dreams, it’ll be time for you and me to follow ours. We can do Route 66 like we always said we would, or just decide to spend a month touring Australia and New Zealand. If we have another child we might never be able to afford to put ourselves first, this way I’ll finally get the chance to spend quality time with you.’

He’d had the spiel word perfect, and the look on his face had convinced her that he really meant it. For so long she hadn’t felt like his priority, and it had made her feel more and more unlovable. She’d been desperate to believe that the only thing standing in the way of him showing her the love she craved was lack of time. She didn’t want all the dark thoughts she’d had about not being good enough for him to be the real reason she always felt like she was at the bottom of his list. Except it turned out he’d had plenty of time all along, for other women. A whole string of them, stretching back years, to long before they’d made the decision that they definitely didn’t want another child and Wendy had undergone a tubal ligation to make sure it never happened. They’d talked about Mike having a vasectomy, but there’d always been some excuse. He was the major wage earner who ran his own business, so he couldn’t risk taking extended time off work if something went wrong. He’d claimed their GP had told him that the chances of complications were far higher for him than they were for her. Even though she’d known it wasn’t true, she’d gone along with it, telling herself it didn’t matter which of them had the op. All that mattered was their future together, the one he’d painted such a clear picture of.

Only now hewasgetting the third baby she’d always longed for. Maybe after that there’d be a fourth, or even a fifth. None of that was Chloe’s fault, Wendy knew that, but it didn’t make it any easier to like her. She’d already split up with Mike by the time he met Chloe. The end of their marriage had finally come when he’d been caught with his trousers and pants around his ankles, taking the instruction to love thy neighbour far too literally. The woman’s husband, Jeff, had been the one to catch them in the act, in the middle of a barbecue he and his wife were hosting, at the house next door to where Mike and Wendy had raised their girls. After that, it had been like someone had set a bomb off in their lives. Jeff had launched an all-out assaulton social media in an attempt to blacken Mike’s name, but all it had served to do was pile the humiliation on for Wendy. At first, Mike had begged for forgiveness, but within forty-eight hours he was packing his bags and claiming to be broken-hearted that he’d fallen in love with Julia, their former neighbour. He’d been in tears when he’d talked about how hard he’d fought against his feelings for her, and how he’d never meant to hurt Wendy. His relationship with the new love of his life had lasted less than six months, by which time Wendy had discovered that Julia was just one in a long list of women who Mike hadn’t been able to resist ‘falling in love with’.

All of which meant that despising Chloe was as pointless as it was unfair, and yet hatred seemed to boil inside Wendy every time she looked at the younger woman’s perfect face. The fact that her daughters seemed every bit as captivated by Mike’s girlfriend as he was, twisted the knife even deeper.

‘She’s not even their stepmum, just their father’s latest fling.’ Wendy said the words out loud, torturing herself by watching the video again. Chloe was beaming with happiness as she performed perfectly choreographed dance moves to the song she was lip synching. When Wendy had confronted Mike after their daughters had found out about his new baby from a friend, instead of from him, he’d tried to wheedle out of taking responsibility. According to Mike, he’d just been waiting for the right moment, but clearly it had never arrived, despite him telling Wendy it would be better coming from him. She wished now that she’d told them herself, as soon as Mike had shared the news with her, she should never have trusted him to keep to his word.

He hadn’t handled telling Wendy much better; blurting it out when she’d called him to ask whether he wanted to contribute to driving lessons for their youngest daughter. Hearing him say he was going to be a father again had been like a punch to the gut.He was having a child with Chloe, the girl he’d met when he’d taken Zara to an open evening at the college where she taught, and who was just five years older than Alice. To make matters worse, Zara had later signed up to study art at the same college, and Chloe was now one of her teachers. Wendy had been in bed with gastric flu and a scarily high temperature, on the night Mike claimed to have met ‘the love of his life’. That had hurt enough, but it was the affection that the girls had quickly developed for Chloe that had really floored her, and she had no idea how to get over it, or whether she ever would. This wasn’t the life she’d wanted, and she’d put up with a less than happy marriage partly in the hope that it might be better in the future, but mainly because she’d wanted to keep her family together at all costs. She didn’t want to share her daughters, least of all with a woman who was much closer to their age than she was to Wendy’s.

‘What are you doing?’ Gary’s voice behind her made Wendy jump, guilt at being caught looking at Chloe’s Instagram account making the heat rise up her neck. She couldn’t blame this on a hot flush though, he knew her far too well. ‘Are you looking at Chloe’s videos again?’

‘Only because the latest one has the girls in it.’ Wendy’s scalp prickled, indignation at Chloe using her daughters as fodder on social media mingling with defensiveness at being caught in the act. ‘I’ve told Mike over and over again that I don’t want them all over the internet for any pervert to see.’

‘The thing is, Wend, Alice is twenty-one, and Zara is almost eighteen, so I don’t think it’s up to you any more.’ His tone was gentle, and she bit her lip. He was right, as always, and sometimes she found it hard to believe he didn’t lose his patience with her. She’d been a neurotic mess when they’d first met at the age of fourteen, and she still was almost forty years later, but for completely different reasons. Getting back in touch with him after so long, and finding out that she still had strongfeelings for the first boy she’d ever had a crush on, had been as unexpected as it was wonderful. It had been one of the upsides of having to move back to Port Kara from Port Tremellien.

‘I know. I just wish they didn’t do all those videos together.’ Wendy reached out a hand, pulling Gary down next to her on the sofa. She needed one of his cuddles; they always made things better. ‘I know I should be grateful that they’re happy spending time at their dad’s, but I hate that they have a whole other life with a family I’m not part of. I’m an awful person, aren’t I?’

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