The Doctor's Mistress. Lilian Darcy

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      ‘And what about you?’ he asked. ‘You and—?’

      ‘Chris and I are divorced,’ she came in quickly. For some reason, it was important to get this across very clearly. Important for whom? Byron? Or herself?

      ‘I’d heard, I think.’ He nodded.

      Their pizza arrived, giving Hayley the excuse—she suddenly needed it—to pull her hand away. She felt disloyal to Chris, touching another man’s hand and enjoying the sensation so much. It was crazy. Chris had been the one to leave. He had wanted to ‘find himself’. He hadn’t been able to ‘handle being a father’. She’d ‘sprung it on him’.

      His problem. All of it.

      She had seen some signs, on her recent trip to Melbourne, that Chris was growing up at last. Maybe he had ‘found himself’ now. He’d started a self-defence school the previous year, called the Cee-Jay International Tae Kwon Do Academy, and was working hard to recruit students. If he kept it up, the school would provide him with a decent income. He still couldn’t manage his accounts or his taxes, but she didn’t mind helping him out with those from time to time. She didn’t want to see him fail. Which meant she still cared. Enough to—?

      ‘Yes, it’s tough,’ Byron said.

      She jumped at his words, and realised she’d been miles away, hardly tasting the salt of the ham and melted cheese and the juicy sweetness of the pineapple. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

      ‘I get the impression that the break-up wasn’t your idea,’ he clarified.

      ‘Uh, no. No, it wasn’t. I’m...stubborn. I don’t like to let things go, or admit defeat before I’ve given it everything I’ve got. And I have Max’s needs to consider.’

      He nodded and didn’t pursue it, which she was relieved about. Why had she told him all that?

      ‘I’m not brilliant company tonight, am I?’ he said instead.

      ‘I wasn’t expecting you to be.’

      ‘Thanks for that.’ He pressed his palms against his eyes and let out a gust of breath. ‘When something like this happens—I mean, I miss Elizabeth badly enough at the best of times, but when something like this happens...’

      ‘I know.’ She nodded.

      Although she didn’t, of course. Not truly. A divorce wasn’t the same thing as a death. The pain was focused in different places.

      ‘I’ve stopped looking for it to go away,’ he said. ‘I used to try and measure it. I’d think, It’s less today than it was a month ago. I’m healing. But I’ve stopped doing that. Because it’s not linear, is it?’

      ‘No.’ That she could agree with, in full understanding. ‘Not at all.’

      ‘It goes up and down like—like share prices on a stock-exchange index or something.’

      ‘Bad today,’ she guessed, and out came her hand again, reaching across to his.

      ‘Pretty bad,’ he confirmed, and returned her touch for the second time. ‘Four years! Some people have married again after four years.’

      He shook his head.

      ‘Do you think you’ll ever remarry?’ It should have been an intrusive question, but somehow it wasn’t.

      Byron shook his head again. ‘No, I don’t expect so. Just can’t imagine that I could ever find that...that totality again. Bits of it, maybe. The physical part. Or the friendship. But not the whole of it, not the certainty of it, not in one person. Not the same.’

      ‘No, it wouldn’t be the same,’ she agreed, out of that same tenderness she’d felt for him before.

      ‘I’ve had it, though. I’ve been lucky. A lot of people don’t even get it once.’

      ‘No...’

      Their hands separated and they each ate a little more pizza in silence.

      Hayley thought, He’s romanticising. But who wouldn’t, after what he’s lost? He obviously did love her very much, and now that she’s gone, he’s forgotten the tensions they must have had, the disagreements, the disillusionments. Everybody has them!

      It was one of the things which made her wonder—uncomfortably—if she and Chris could still have a future together. She understood him, she cared about him, he was Max’s father. What more did she want?

      ‘I’ve been away from her long enough,’ Byron was saying, and for a second Hayley thought he was still talking about Elizabeth. ‘I don’t want her to wake up when I’m not there.’

      Oh, he meant Tori, of course!

      ‘Nor Mum, for that matter,’ he said. ‘I’m hoping my aunt and uncle will come down from Harpoon Bay to see her tomorrow.’ He pushed back his chair. ‘Unfortunately my younger sister lives in London now.’

      ‘You haven’t finished your pizza.’

      He waved it away. ‘Take it home with you, if you want.’

      She asked for a box, and when they got back to the hospital she hunted up one of the nurses in the high-dependency unit and said, ‘Can you...kind of...remind Dr Black to finish this off during the night?’ She didn’t have to ask to know that he wasn’t planning to go home before morning. ‘Heat it up in the microwave for him even? Put it on a plate and shove it into his hands?’

      ‘Not looking after himself properly?’ the nurse guessed.

      Hayley cannoned into the man himself in the doorway to this section of the unit. He’d checked that Tori was still asleep, and was about to cross the corridor to see his mother.

      ‘Still here?’ he said.

      ‘Your pizza’s in the fridge,’ she answered drily, earning his rusty laugh.

      ‘I thought it was your pizza,’ he said.

      ‘No, it’s definitely yours. I’m not all that fond of ham and pineapple.’ She added, before he could ask, ‘That was what we always used to get when we all went out after swim meets, remember? Mr Hazelwood didn’t used to give us a choice, or he said we’d have been there all night, making up our minds. I saw his point!’

      ‘And you never said you didn’t like it?’

      ‘I wasn’t going to be the only nuisance.’

      ‘You were always too nice!’

      ‘So were you. You used to wait before you took the last piece.’

      ‘Not very noble of me, since I knew Mum would have a second dinner waiting at home.’

      ‘You mean she didn’t know about the pizza?’

      ‘Hey, I was growing!’

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