14. Marlowe
CHAPTER 14
Marlowe
D r Marcus Elliott may just be my new favourite person.
He is patient, unflappable and reassuring, but his attraction lies mainly in the air of competence that streams out of him in waves, even from across the Atlantic and through my computer screen.
Yes, I can confirm that Dr Elliott is an insanely experienced paediatric cardiothoracic surgeon based at Duke Children’s Hospital in North Carolina, and he will be leading the team that takes on Tabby’s operation.
It’s happening.
OH MY GOD, IT’S HAPPENING!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Sorry.
It’s just that the relief of knowing, after so many months and years of worrying about this operation, of having it hanging over me, that my daughter’s chance at a normal life will come at the hands of such an intensely skilled, experienced team is a rush the likes of which I’ve never, ever had.
The knowledge that this valve replacement is necessary has overshadowed every single day of my life for the past couple of years.
In recent months, that dark shadow has morphed into a ticking time bomb that colours every moment I have with my daughter and robs me of my sleep and my sanity.
Sometimes, when Tabby’s sleeping, I’ll sit on the edge of her bed with my hand on her chest, feeling and listening to her little heart beating.
It does the best it can, but without a right-sized pulmonary valve, it’s not enough, and it’s falling more short every single day.
Dr Elliott and his team have a plan to end her suffering: to laparoscopically replace the valve with minimal invasion and the least risk to Tabby.
My vocabulary around heart stuff is pretty good these days, but he speaks to me in plain English, laying out our journey and his plan.
This initial meeting is heavy on information exchange and the lining up of our ducks in a nice, neat row.
We discuss my daughter’s medical history, her recent blue spells, or tet spells as the professionals call them, and her medication.
He already has the full details of her previous operations from Great Ormond Street.
‘I know this must all seem very overwhelming,’ Dr Elliott tells me.
His silver hair is neatly side-parted, and his smile is patient.
He’s a good kind of older—experienced rather than doddery.
I’d put him at late fifties.
‘But my team pioneered this kind of procedure in children. We see kids from all over the world with Tetralogy of Fallot. Without wanting to downplay the extreme importance of what we do, it’s our bread and butter.
Tabby will be in excellent hands.
’
I nod. It’s exactly what I needed to hear, but it’s still scary as fuck.
A transatlantic trip.
A new, strange hospital and medical team.
A major operation on the most important organ in her body.
‘I know,’ I say weakly.
‘In terms of timing, I’m hoping we can do it during the school holidays, but my job is in the UK.
How long do you think she’ll need to be in hospital?
’
He purses his lips in thought.
‘I would say the absolute minimum would be eight days. I’d be more comfortable with two weeks.
I realise this is an extremely costly procedure in its own right, but if you could secure flat beds for the flight home, that would help with her discomfort.
’
I scoff internally, because what the hell is another few grand when I’m already forking out six figures for this?
The costs keep getting higher and higher.
Dr Elliott continues, oblivious to my spiralling.
‘A timeline that tight would require us to complete as much of the preparation as possible remotely at GOSH. All final pre-op tests would be carried out on the day you arrive, with surgery scheduled for the next day. You’re looking at three to five days of observation, either in or outside of the ICU, depending on how Tabby’s body responds to her new valve, and then another few days of short-stay monitoring.
How does that sound?
’
I’m nodding, I realise, and it’s an attempt to persuade myself as much as this kind man that this is doable.
That Tabs and I can handle it.
‘Yep. Mmm-hmm.’
‘I know it sounds like a tight timeline,’ he says.
‘She’s welcome to stay longer, depending on your budget and your demands back in London.
Just remember this, Miss Winters.
Tabby isn’t systemically ill.
She’s missing one crucial piece of equipment.
And when we’ve switched that out, the effect on her entire system will be nothing short of miraculous.
Yes, there’s a recovery period, but, barring any complications, we’d expect to see an immediate improvement in your daughter’s cardiopulmonary function.
That means higher sats and much improved exercise tolerance, for starters.
’
He smiles at me, and I can feel the reassurance of it through my screen.
‘What that means in practice is that she’ll be doing cartwheels and dancing her little socks off before you know it.
’
T abby isn’t systemically ill.
Dr Elliott’s words stay with me for a long time after our call.
He’s right, of course.
It’s just that the crucial piece of equipment she’s missing is so fucking critical to her survival that it’s always been hard to think beyond that.
But now I begin to allow myself to do just that.
After our call finishes, I collapse on the sofa, and I dream about a version of my little girl with rosy cheeks and boundless energy.
I see her turn cartwheel after cartwheel across the grassy area in our local park.
I imagine myself picking up a flushed, sweaty, overexcited little thing from ballet or street dance or whatever dance classes she decides she wants to do.
She loves to dance so much—I bet she’ll want to do them all.
I shut my eyes and visualise her heart beating and her beautiful new valve pumping all that glorious blood into her lungs for oxygenation.
And I know, somewhere somatic and visceral, deep inside or even beyond my body, that my brave, beautiful daughter will get her life force energy back.
That she’ll have everything she needs to live a full and magnificent life.
P utting into place these tentative, terrifying, exhilarating plans for our US trip is one of my top priorities during this week off before I start my unique role at Sullivan Construction next Monday.
The twenty-five grand Brendan paid for my audition facilitated this call with Dr Elliott.
The operation itself will require a horrifyingly large deposit, but I get a hundred grand sign-on bonus next week, so that will cover it.
I’m still reeling from how easy things become when you have money to throw at them.
A consultation with one of the top surgeons in the world when it comes to my daughter’s condition.
No problem. Scheduling an operation for the surgery that will change her life with the minimum of invasion.
Done.
Is this how it is?
Is this how Brendan feels every single day?
That doors open and everyone says yes and the road rises up to meet you on every fucking thing?
God knows, it’s heady and it’s addictive and it feels so, so wrong.
I have fought for months and months for a grant that would fund this exact trip.
I have spent so many evenings after work doing research and writing out applications and lobbying every relevant individual, from MPs to doctors to governors of Great Ormond Street, and peanuts.
Peanuts.
But I spread my legs for a filthy-rich guy and immediately it’s open sesame .
The money rolls in. The hospitals roll over.
And I get what I’ve wanted for Tabby all along.
A few short weeks ago, taking a job with Seraph felt like the hardest thing I could do, the highest hilltop on which to sacrifice myself for my daughter.
Now it feels like the easiest.
It wasn’t even awful!
That’s what I can’t get my head around.
I’m supposed to be making the ultimate sacrifice for the ultimate cause, and instead the orgasms are flowing as abundantly as the money, and I can’t get my head around it.
I’m under no illusion that Brendan will go easy on me, but I had a fantastic night with a hot, generous and disgracefully skilled lover, and for some reason, I feel more guilty than relieved.
And don’t get me started on the money.
My very pleasant chat just now concluded with Dr Elliott’s assurance that one of the hospital concierges will be in touch to help me with everything from getting travel clearance from GOSH and liaising with Duke’s international patient services department to organising medical visas and supplemental oxygen on our flight should Tabby need it.
Like I said. Open sesame.
I sold my body and instantly jumped all sorts of queues, and I’d do it a million times over, because it got me exactly what I needed.
But I can’t let myself get used to it.
This money—and this job—goes away as soon as I’ve paid for this trip and stashed away some savings so Tabby’s ongoing medical care isn’t purely dependent on the overstretched folks at Great Ormond Street.
The empowerment it’s giving me is temporary, as is my ability to book business-class flights, and the decadent workwear shopping trip Brendan has insisted on for my first day, and any orgasms he sees fit to throw my way.
None of it’s real. None of it’s permanent.
The life that people like Brendan live is not for me, and it will serve me to keep that in mind as he dazzles me with this tantalising glimpse of a parallel universe.
What’s real is Tabby securing a new “piece of equipment” in the safest possible way so that she can live a normal, active life.
And who knows, the orgasms may not even be a thing.
He made it very clear that he was pitching me.
He pitched me.
He closed me.
Just like he said he would.
It’s entirely likely that, from here on in, he’ll just use me and reward me very handsomely for the privilege.
Maybe it’s a good thing.
I’ve always thought (or hoped, rather) that I was the kind of person who didn’t believe in the end justifying the means.
It turns out I am so that person it’s not even funny.
But at the very least, it seems indecent that I should enjoy the means any more than I have to.
Brendan Sullivan is a means to an end for me, and I am for him the latest in what sounds like a long list of endless acquisitions: the newest and shiniest toy to which he’s treated himself.
He told me he has ADHD, just like he told me he’d bought himself a fucking catamaran.
How long until I lose my lustre?
I’m sure I’ll be a fun novelty for him the first few times, a new gimmick to stave off the boredom of his dreaded Zoom calls.
But I know from Athena and from the gossip columns that this guy has a different woman in his bed every night.
He probably enjoys the hunt as much as its spoils.
I’m not convinced he’s thought through how quickly it’ll get monotonous for him to have the same willing dead cert lined up for him every single day at the office.
If I didn’t already have a firm expiration date for this job, I suspect he’d produce one fairly bloody quickly.
After we came around from our orgasm stupor the other night, he was surprisingly businesslike.
Not unfriendly at all, but brisk and efficient.
He helped me get my hooker dress back on and handed me a glass of water as he told me with a grin and a wink that the job was mine if I wanted it.
There were no lingering looks, but neither was he at all awkward, and I realised that what had just gone down was nothing more or less than a straightforward transaction completed to mutual satisfaction.
I suppose from his perspective the sex was just a slightly more structured version of what was an everyday occurrence for him, but I’ll readily admit that, after he’d put me in a black cab with a perfunctory kiss on the cheek and handed over a wad of notes to the driver, I sat and stewed the entire way home.
I’d achieved my goal.
Secured Tabby’s future.
But I’d enjoyed the process far too thoroughly, and I wasn’t sure what to make of that at all.
The next morning, when Athena called me for a debrief so lengthy and detailed it had her declaring she might never be able to look Brendan in the eye again, she warned me not to catch feelings.
I mean, I get where she’s coming from.
I’m massively out of practice, and I don’t have casual sex, especially not with guys that loaded and attractive and eligible.
I won’t lie. A shameful, secret part of me is turned on every time I think about how hot it was when his head was between my legs or how deeply he fucked me.
And that same part is partially terrified and partially titillated by how it will be next Monday when I rock up for my first day on the job.
Like, will it be awkward seeing him for the first time after we’ve fucked?
No. No, I can’t imagine a guy like Brendan being awkward about sex at all.
Should I wear underwear?
Will he touch me immediately?
Will he push me straight to my knees?
Should I pre-empt him and just get straight on my knees anyway?
After all, Athena said she went down on Gabe within minutes of arriving at his office.
She totally blindsided the poor guy with some kinky priest fantasy.
I am not Athena, and I have no clue what to expect, except that anything and everything is fair game.
But honestly, her concern made me laugh.
I don’t have feelings for Brendan Sullivan.
What I do have is many, many feelings about him, and what he represents.
Possibility.
Power.
Pleasure, it seems, judging from my slutty performance the other night.
And definitely danger.
Danger that he’ll get bored, that he’ll chew me up and spit me out before I’ve assembled the funds I need, and, more than anything, that he and his heady, hedonistic existence will suck me into a whirlwind of excess and luxury and debauchery.
He’s taking the morning off on Monday so he can take me to Selfridges and get me kitted out, for goodness’ sake.
Like I said, I’d do well to remember that none of it is real.
Keep your head down, Marls, and your eye on the prize.
There’s only one prize.
And, no matter what every other person out there with a vagina seems to think, it is not Brendan Sullivan.