Page 63 of A Matter of Trust

She had her game face on, unreadable apart from the sudden flutter of lashes quickly controlled. ‘About?’

He leaned forward to place the mug down. How was he going to explain this without blurting it out baldly?

Shame still made his tongue clumsy. ‘Do you remember when I told Mum and Dad I didn’t want to work the farm?’

Becca rolled her eyes and suddenly the resemblance to Gabby was there, more in expression than features. ‘Grace nearly went ballistic.’

‘We came from a long line of farmers and I was the only son. Going into medicine involved an immense sacrifice on their part. The knowledge there’d be no-one to carry on after umpteen generations.’

‘She’s happy about you being a doctor.’

‘It took a long while for her to come around, but it made the pressure greater.’

‘What did your father think? I never quite figured it out.’

‘He was caught between a rock and a hard place. If he encouraged me it would upset Grace, if he didn’t, he’d betray all he believed in as a father. He was disappointed, of course. I think he hoped one of my children might be interested in farming as a career. Not that it’s easy these days.’

‘I don’t think Gabby and Edward are interested, but that might change. You could have more children.’

The blow hit deep in Morgan’s gut. This was why he had to be upfront. Her assumptions were painful and he tended to hit back. A clearer understanding had to be the first priority. Then, they could work out the best way of doing things without having to bring in the lawyers.

Her eyes narrowed. ‘What does this have to do with the children and us leaving?’

Placing his hands on his thighs he forced himself to say the words that would start things rolling. ‘It ties in with what happened after the accident. When Brittany died.’

He didn’t need to be looking at her to hear the indrawn breath but she didn’t speak.

‘After that night, I had a … a crisis of faith. I’d asked my parents to sacrifice the future of the farm, and I couldn’t save a girl’s life when it mattered. She was young and pretty, and a genuinely nice person. It didn’t seem fair. I thought if I was going to ask my parents to give up any hope of me farming, if a young woman was going to die when I should have been able to save her, I needed to do better.’

‘It wasn’t your fault, Morgan. The coroner’s report said the brain damage was too much. If she’d lived she would have been …’ She stumbled to a halt, not saying the words trembling on her lips.

Dan’s brain damage must have been tough enough to deal with. The bright and sparkling Brittany lingering on in a vegetative state would have broken the town’s heart. It would have been worse than her tragic death.

‘I know it all, in my head. Looking back. At the time it felt like a massive failure on my part. I imagined if I’d been better, studied more, I could have changed the outcome. I threw myself into my studies, working way too hard and not achieving anything. I couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep. I ended up failing two subjects and just scraping through the others.’

There was a cathartic pleasure in letting it all out. If he and Becca hadn’t broken up, maybe he would have been able to talk it through. She’d always been his sounding board when he couldn’t share with his parents. Maybe things wouldn’t have got to the stage where his parents needed to pick him up off the floor and force him to seek medical help. She was gripping the mug, but her eyes were on him, wide and full of sympathy. He’d missed her in those months before his collapse. He’d missed her every single day since. He hadn’t registered she’d been his best friend as well as lover until he’d lost it all.

Her brow creased. ‘Was that in the same month the twins were born?’

‘Mum came down to see you after you called her. I knew nothing about it at the time. She told me recently.’ He’d managed to get the full story from her, hoping he wouldn’t have to expose his weakness to Becca. It was no use. Only the whole truth mattered now. ‘What she found was a mess. The apartment was a mess, but I was more so. I could scarcely function. It was a breakdown, caused by stress and a bit of PTSD from my involvement in the aftermath of the accident.’

‘Oh, Morgan, if only I’d known.’ Her hand reached out to touch his knee and he flinched automatically. She instantly withdrew and he struggled to control his immediate urge to grab her hand and hold it.

‘You had enough on your plate. If I’d been healthy enough to have been told the truth it might have worked out differently. They all ganged up on me—Mum, the doctors, my tutor at uni. I had a couple of nights in hospital on suicide watch.’ He regretted his honesty when she winced.

‘I didn’t try anything. They were overreacting.’

‘Were they?’ She sounded doubtful but with her family history, it was probably normal.

‘They released me into Mum’s care and Dad came along for a holiday on the coast. Total relaxation. I was bombed out on medication. Even if I’d wanted to think, my brain would have rolled over and played dead.’

Her mouth quirked at the wry humour, but her eyes still had a deep sorrow he’d hoped never to see.

‘I knew you’d had a baby. We ran into Jeanette and Tory on holiday and she mentioned you’d given birth and gone to Brisbane. Mum pretended not to know anything when I asked.’

‘Jeanette wouldn’t have known they were twins straight away unless she was talking to someone at the hospital. I think Doctor Farrell was worried about Edward being frail so he told the staff to keep quiet.’ She smiled crookedly. ‘No point trumpeting about twins if they didn’t survive.’

Guilt swamped him. He’d been so self-absorbed he’d let himself fall into depression and been unable to focus on anything but his own health for years.

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