Chapter Twelve
‘WHO ARE YOU here to see, Dominic?’ May was updating the whiteboard. ‘The surgeons are—’
‘I’m actually here to see Rachel,’ Dominic cut in.
He had given her a few days’ space, so as not to cloud their conversation about Christopher with the other issues surrounding their relationship, but he could no longer hold back.
Now Dominic wanted to cloud the issue. It was time. They belonged together. There could be no doubt.
‘Rachel Walker,’ he elaborated when May frowned.
‘But Rachel’s not here.’
‘When’s she back on?’
‘She’s not,’ May said, and carried on writing on the whiteboard. ‘Rachel left last week.’
‘What do you mean, she left?’
‘Just that.’
May wasn’t exactly forthcoming.
‘It was supposed to be a three-month trial, but it wasn’t working out, so she left before the end of it and headed back to Sheffield.’
‘May, I really need to speak to her. Can you give me her mobile phone number?’
‘I’m not about to give you one of my nurses’ contact details.’ May gave him a rather scornful look. ‘I’m not the keeper of your little black book, Dominic. It would be a full-time job, that’s for sure.’
‘May...’ Dominic was appalled that Rachel had gone and was way past caring about keeping secrets. ‘Rachel is my ex-wife.’
‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph!’ May put down the whiteboard marker. ‘Are you sure?’
‘I think I’d know.’
‘But you never let on.’
‘Rachel didn’t want me to,’ Dominic said. ‘Anyway, it was years ago.’
‘Yet you’re standing here asking for her number.’
‘Because I have to speak to her.’
May was kinder then, but still adamant. ‘Dominic, I won’t be giving you her phone number. If she’d wanted you to have it you would have it.’
* * *
Rachel exited the train station at Sheffield and returned to her life without Dominic.
There was blossom on the trees, and everything looked gorgeous and green as the taxi carried her back to her dad’s.
She wore the same summery dress she’d had on when she’d last seen Dominic, but despite the attire, and the familiar sights of home, tears kept stinging her eyes and she wondered what on earth she’d done.
Since that night, talking with Dominic, she’d been like a leaking tap—only her tears weren’t all about Christopher.
He’d told her in bed that morning that he wanted to work rather than to have a relationship. He’d outright said that he didn’t want both. And even at their most intimate, holding each other and crying about their son, Dominic hadn’t wanted to talk about them.
She had to accept it. Because she could not go through it again and again.
Rachel felt like a failure as she paid the taxi driver and hauled out her case. She was thirty-two years old and moving back in with her dad. Well, just for a couple of weeks, until she found somewhere of her own.
As she walked up the garden path she saw the front door open.
‘Dad!’ She barely recognised him. His beard was gone, his scruffy grey hair was freshly cut, and he was wearing, of all things—
‘What are you doing in a lilac jumper?’
‘It’s blue,’ her dad insisted.
‘It isn’t,’ Rachel said as she hugged him, and then pulled back when she saw his lady friend coming out of the kitchen. ‘Oh, hi, Moira,’ she said, when what she really wanted to ask was, What have you done to my dad?
Rachel did not want to be back living at her dad’s. And now she couldn’t even hide herself away in the kitchen, as Moira seemed to have that under control.
‘Dinner won’t be long,’ Moira said as Rachel took a seat in the very tidy lounge on a sofa that had new cushions.
Clearly it wasn’t just her dad that Moira was sprucing up!
Moira lived here, Rachel realised. Or if she didn’t quite live here fully yet, she soon would.
For dinner they were no longer formally seated at the dining table, but squashed on the sofa in the lounge, eating spaghetti bolognaise from trays on their laps.
And when they’d finished eating it was Moira who went to take the plates.
‘I’ll do it,’ her dad said, and stood up, no doubt to micro-manage the stacking of the dishwasher.
‘Sit down, Dave,’ Moira said. ‘I’ll do it.’
And when her dad sat down, and allowed someone else to stack his precious dishwasher, Rachel knew just how serious the two of them were. On top of that, he patted Moira’s bottom as she walked past.
Oh, God—Rachel could not bear the thought of them in bed together!
‘I’ll probably stay at Nicola’s,’ Rachel said, mentioning a friend oh, so casually. ‘I’ll just borrow my old room for a couple of nights.’
‘No rush,’ Dave said as Moira came back in.
And as they watched a replay of a dancing show on TV, Rachel found out that he and Moira were thinking of taking up ballroom dancing!
The whole world was moving on and having relationships and falling in love and having babies. All except for her.
Rachel could feel the sting of tears at the back of her eyes.
‘Our Phil’s dropping in,’ Dave said during the adverts. ‘He’s bringing over the gender-reveal cake, but he’s taping it up so we can’t peek. We’re going to have a little party here.’
How did her dad even know what a gender-reveal cake was? Things really were changing here...
But she knew her dad loved nothing more than a little party, with all the family present, so Rachel pushed out a smile. ‘When?’
‘Tomorrow. If it’s a boy, it’s going to be called Robin, but if it’s a girl—’
‘Don’t start, Dave...’ Moira sighed.
‘Pixie!’ her dad said, in the most scathing of tones. ‘I’ve lived too long—I really have. Eleven grandchildren and one of them called Pixie!’
‘You have twelve grandchildren,’ Rachel said, her voice shaking.
It was only the fact that she now knew her dad had cried about Christopher that made her brave enough to raise it.
‘You have twelve—but, oh, that’s right... We don’t speak about Christopher.’
‘Because I don’t want to upset you.’
‘Has seeing Dominic stirred things up?’ Moira asked.
Rachel pursed her lips at the intrusive question. Clearly Moira had been told all about it. But even as she did that, tears were trickling down her face, and there was nowhere to go, nowhere to hide except her old bedroom, and somehow the thought of that just made things worse.
‘Come on, love,’ Dad said. ‘Don’t go upsetting yourself.’
‘I think you need to tell her, Dave,’ Moira said.
‘Moira!’ he warned.
Rachel looked up. ‘Tell me what?’
‘It’s nothing,’ he said. ‘It was years ago.’
But Moira was insistent. ‘She still needs to know.’
‘Very well,’ Dave said. ‘Dominic called me.’
‘When?’ Rachel asked, and her heart soared with hope.
But of course it was a false alarm.
‘A couple of years after you broke up.’
‘Oh.’ She sagged back in the seat.
‘You know how he insisted that he’d pay me back for...’ He swallowed. ‘For Christopher’s funeral. I always said there was no need. I was more than glad to take the strain off the two of you...’
Somewhere in the recesses of her mind, lost in that appalling time, there was a memory of that. Her dad saying he would take care of things and Dominic swallowing his pride, insisting it was to be just a loan.
‘When?’ Rachel croaked. ‘When did he pay you back?’
‘He’d send some money every month until he’d paid me back. It was just something he felt he had to do. I didn’t want to go worrying you with talk about it.’
It made her feel very small to realise that her assumption that Dominic had walked off without a backward glance could not be further from the truth.
He had told her that he’d put himself through med school, and now she was finding out that on top of that he’d been paying her dad back—doing what little he had been able for their son.
‘He called to thank me for the loan and he wanted to know how you were...said that he was studying to be a doctor...’
‘What else did he say?’
‘Nothing much.’ Her dad shrugged. ‘He just wanted to know how you were.’
‘Dave!’ Moira said again. ‘Tell her about the other time. Two years ago.’
Rachel turned and looked at her father, and despite the new jumper and the fresh haircut, she could see the strain on his features, and she noticed that he was clinging on to Moira’s hand.
‘Your dad told me a few things after you were here the last time. Well, I dragged it out of him,’ said Moira.
‘What?’
‘I think he’d been drinking,’ said her dad.
‘Dominic?’ Rachel frowned, because Dominic didn’t drink—well, not much—but it would seem that one night two years ago he had.
‘It was his thirtieth birthday and he was all mawkish. Said he wanted to get in touch and find out for himself how you were. He wanted your phone number.’
‘And?’ Rachel said.
‘He said he’d tried to find you on social media and the like.’
‘What did you say?’
‘That perhaps there was a reason you didn’t want to be found,’ her dad said.
‘I told him you had started seeing someone... Gordon. That you were back on track and for the first time in years you actually seemed happy. I said that if he cared about you—if he really cared about you—then it would be better for all concerned for him to leave well alone.’
Rachel hadn’t known it was possible to feel so cross, and yet so relieved, so bewildered, and yet so clear-headed, all at the same time. Dominic—arrogant, confident, alley cat Dominic—had struggled too.
‘Why the hell didn’t you tell me?’
‘Because I didn’t want to bring up old hurts,’ her dad snapped. ‘That man caused you no end of problems...’
‘I loved that man, though,’ Rachel choked.
The doorbell went. No doubt it was Phil with the cake.
Her dad, glad of the reprieve, jumped up to get it while Rachel sat silent, with tears coursing down her cheeks.
‘He meant well,’ Moira said. ‘It’s been eating him up.’
‘I know he meant well.’ Rachel felt her anger towards her father fading. He’d been the one who’d had to deal with the fallout of their divorce after all, and she could understand his desire to protect her.
‘I’m sorry for your loss, Rachel,’ Moira said.
‘Thank you,’ Rachel responded politely, and then tried to pull back from discussing it further with Moira. ‘It was years ago, though...’