Page 36 of A Doctor's Promise
Edie just laughed lightly and carried both mugs back through to the living room.
“Take a seat,” she said, nodding towards the largest sofa.
Finn did as he was told, hoping that Edie would come and join him. She handed him his drink then took a seat on an old, worn looking armchair. The chair looked incongruous with the rest of the room, the rest of the house even, but it suited Edie.
“This was the only piece of furniture I could bring with me. My trusty chair. I’ve had it since I was a child. It was my parents’, they gave it to me when I left for London, and I love it. There is no way I was leaving this at the house. Not ifshewas going to end up sitting on it.
The room fell silent.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Finn asked, sipping his drink through the mound of cream and marshmallows. “About what happened to you?”
Edie took a moment to reply, taking a drink herself and looking out the window into the black night beyond. Finn wondered who was out there and if they could see him and Edie. What would they think? Friends? Lovers?
“I don’t think I do,” she said, turning back to him. “Can we talk about today instead?”
“I think that’s a good idea,” Finn said, steeling himself for a difficult conversation.
He had been wondering how much these feelings of loss and love and success had been affecting him. The afternoon had flown by as they had all sat at Mary’s bedside, talking to her, telling her all the things that Anna had been up to that morning. Anna sang her a few songs and, when the nurses had decided Mary was ready for some peace, the three of them had headed out to the beach. They had celebrated with fish and chips and ice cream. Anna had fallen asleep in his arms as they had walked back to the cars. He’d strapped her into the rear seat and followed Edie’s car back to her house.
Now the house was silent, the constant talking and laughing and singing had died down when Anna had gone to bed. Finn felt calmer than he had for as long as he could remember.
“Do you want to go first?” Edie prompted.
“Hey, that’s a bit of a cop out,” he said, jokingly. “You know, now I’ve had some time to think about what has happened today. Not just today, actually, this whole trial, I’m feeling more positive about it. The outcome of today’s surgery not only means that we now have a viable route to defeating this awful cancer, it also means the trial will be extended for the foreseeable future. And that’s positive because your role here will be made permanent.”
Edie raised her eyebrows, as though the thought of not staying hadn’t even crossed her mind. Finn carried on talking. Now he’d started, he didn’t want to stop in case he never worked up the courage again.
“I am relieved that it wasn’t all a failure. I am also relieved that Mary is going to make it and we got through the surgery unscathed. It was a close call, I haven’t had a chance to tell you this yet because I didn’t want to mention it in front of Anna, but we very nearly lost Mary. I never gave up, but I had come to the realisation that I was going to be a dad after the surgery, and I had already decided to formally apply to adopt Anna. Then a miracle happened, and Mary’s central nervous system came back from the brink.’
He stood up and walked over to the window, looking past his reflection to see if there was any life in the darkness.
“I think that’s what made it such a rollercoaster of emotions today. To think I was going to be a dad, then have it whipped out from under me. It brought back so many memories about my late wife and unborn child. But it’s a good thing. No! It’s an amazingly wonderful thing that we could save Mary and that Anna has her mum to go home with eventually.”
Finn felt his shoulders drop. Edie was listening patiently; he could see her nodding in the reflection in the window. But even through the darkness he could see her eyes fill with tears.
“Edie,” he said, turning back to the room. “I love you. I think I knew I loved you from the moment I barged in on you in the family room. I won’t deign to say that’s why I was so rude to you then, but…” he shrugged. “That’s why I was so rude to you then.”
They both laughed.
“You broke through my wall. I’ve said that before. But you not only broke through a chink of it, you tore it down with the force of a bulldozer. In a better way than I have just made that sound.”
Finn stopped for a moment, his words getting stuck in his throat.
“But.” He saw her smile falter and hated causing her to feel pain. “I need to tell you something. I saw how much you wanted Anna, I did too. But something you said to me, about us having a little family of our own? It struck a chord.”
He walked over to where she was sitting, her hot chocolate long forgotten in the mug she was clutching so tightly he thought she might crush it.
“I need to tell you that I can’t have children. Not anymore. After what happened to me, I made sure that it would never happen again. I don’t regret what I did. Back then it may have been a decision that would alter my life forever, but I never took it lightly. I could never see myself being able to take the pain of death again, not until my own anyway! But you? You deserve to be with someone who can give you a family of your own. You’re young. You said it was something you want. So…” Finn could feel the emotion thick in his throat. “So I’m going to leave, and let you have the life you deserve.”
Edie watched as Finn stepped backwards and fell onto the sofa behind him. As though he could no longer hold himself upright. His body seemed to take up half the space it normally did. As though the words that just left his body took part of him with them.
Edie put down her cold drink and went to sit next to him. She felt the warmth from him, smelt his familiar spicy, musky scent. She looked closely at his forlorn face, the tiny lines around his eyes, the scattering of stubble on his chin and cheeks. He was beautiful. He was truthful. He was saving lives. He was a human being with feelings, but he had just put her first, and that may have been the only time a man had truly done that for her. She knew what she had to do.
Edie took a deep breath and started her story.
“When I started university, Robert, my ex-husband, showed me what it could feel like to be wanted. I had never really been confident enough at school to be part of the crowd of kids who had constant boyfriends, or friends even. I had my best friends, and really that was all I needed. But you know what it’s like when you’re a teenager. I wanted to be part of that gang. And that’s what Robert offered me. The chance to be popular.
He was always hanging around in large groups of people, being the centre of attention. I held back but enjoyed basking in his periphery. If that makes me as bad as him then maybe I deserved what happened.
