“The dream …” I said. “It was stupid. It was about what happened before, the night I met her, except it wasn’t at all. She got herself out of that car, and out of the river, too. I wasn’t the one rescuing her. She knew it. She said it.”
“But maybe now,” Mum said, “there is something more you should do. And maybe you’ve failed her some other way.”
“Geez, Mum,” I said. “Thanks. You’re meant to be soothing.”
“What’s the point of being soothing if you need to hear the truth?” she asked.
“Fair point,” I conceded.
She stood up and said, “I’ll finish this in bed, then.” And spoiled the whole tough-love act by squeezing my hand, bending down to kiss me, and saying, “Love you, baby boy. You dreamt it because you needed to, that’s all. Now you can go do the right thing.”
Which was all very well, but what was the right thing? It wasn’t exactly noble to agree to have sex with a woman you’d been dying to get your hands on since the night you’d met her. Especially if she offered it up with no strings attached.
Which she had, so what was my problem?
I was a pretty simple fella. I identified the issue, and I solved it. I found out what I had to do, and I did it. I didn’t have nearly enough subtlety for this. This would be nothing but complication, whatever Daisy said.
That was a no, then. Again.
37
Courting
Daisy
Work was good. Well, not good, not with three codes tonight, and none of them surviving. Not when I was holding the hand of a woman losing the pregnancy she’d longed for, and had nothing comforting to say except that I was here to help. On the other hand, setting up a five-month-old infant presenting with croup on a nebulizer and seeing her little chest, which had been heaving with the effort to draw breath, start to relax? Seeing her mum’s face crumple with relief when, two hours later, the baby was able to feed again? That was good, and so was the fella who’d been brought in after a smash on a rural road at six this morning and told me, “Nah, no worries. Box of birds, except for this wee splinter of mine. Ask the doc to save it for me, would you, darling? Otherwise, the missus isn’t going to believe it.” The “splinter” being a fence post stuck all the way through his shoulder. There was no stoic in the world like a farmer.
The bad, the sad, the mad, and the glad … by morning, I’d seen it all. As usual. I was back in my competent place, if not my happy place.
I wasn’t any worse off than before, anyway, I thought as I was changing out of my scrubs and back into my loose trousers and T-shirt. It was two weeks, that was all, and Gray would be out of my life and I’d be out of his. Also, how embarrassing would it have been when my clumsy attempt at normality went pear-shaped? I’d be spared that, anyway.
I took my bra off, because I was going straight home, and the tag had been scratching at a sensitive spot on my back all night long, driving me mad, shrugged into my cardigan, which would provide temporary modesty, and rang up Security to ask for an escort to my car. My friend Ruby, who’d done the shift with me and was now shoving her feet into her clogs, asked, “Got ex trouble, have you? Sucks. Where are all the good blokes, I’d like to know?”
“Dunno,” I said. “And something like that.” And then, since I was trying to be more open in my life now—with, as we know, mixed results—added, “It’s my sister’s ex. You know, from Mount Zion.”
Ruby said, “Oh. I thought they stayed up there, though. Other than your sisters, of course. What’s the point of a closed community if you go buggering off all the time, terrorizing the rest of the world?”
“Usually they do stay there,” I said. “He probably is, too. I’m just being careful for a wee while, just in case.”
“Has she filed for a restraining order?” Ruby asked. “I’ve had to do that twice with blokes who wouldn’t leave me alone. Easy-peasy, though. It’s a form, that’s all, and a hearing.”
“We’re going to the lawyer today,” I said. “Applying for a temporary protection order instead.”