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And the lawyer was happy to comply. He was obviously wanting a businesslike response and it looked like he’d decided Ben was the most likely to give it.
‘This is Barbara Carmody,’ the man said, clipped and efficient, not even looking at the little girl as he introduced her. ‘The child’s the result of an extra-marital affair between my client and Dr Koestrel’s late husband. Her mother raised her with her other two children but unfortunately her husband has finally discovered that the child isn’t his. He’s rejected her. The marriage has failed and Mrs Carmody has left for Europe.’
‘Her parents have deserted her?’ Ben said incredulously.
‘There are provisions for her care,’ the lawyer said smoothly. ‘Dr Koestrel’s late husband left funds in his will for this eventuality, and there are institutions that will take her. On Mrs Carmody’s instructions we contacted Dr Koestrel for the release of those funds but instead of releasing money she’s agreed to take on her care. So here she is. The paperwork’s all in her suitcase. If you need to contact her mother, do it through us—the address is with her papers. If you could sign the included documents and forward them to our office I’d appreciate it. If you’ll excuse me, I don’t wish to miss the return ferry. Good afternoon.’
And he turned back towards the car.
The little girl didn’t move. Neither did Ginny.
The man was about to walk away and leave the child behind.
No.
Ben strode to the car, slammed closed the car door the lawyer was attempting to open then set himself between lawyer and car while Ginny stood in stunned, white-faced silence.
The little girl didn’t move. She didn’t look at the lawyer. She didn’t look at anyone.
‘Abandoning a child’s a criminal offence,’ Ben said, quite mildly, looking from the little girl to Ginny and back again. Ginny was staring at the child as if she was seeing a ghost. ‘There must be formal proceedings…’
‘I’ll miss my ferry,’ the man said. ‘Dr Koestrel has signed the most important documents. Additional paperwork can be sent later.’
‘You can’t dump a child because you’ll miss your ferry,’ Ben said, and folded his arms, settling back, not understanding what was going on but prepared to be belligerent until he did.
‘Dr Koestrel’s agreed to take her. I’m not dumping anyone.’
‘So…what did you say? Barbara’s the result of an affair between some woman and…Ginny’s late husband? Ginny, can you explain?’
‘W-wait,’ Ginny managed. She looked helplessly at the little girl and then something seemed to firm. Shock receded a little, just a little. She took a deep breath and reached out and took the little girl’s hand.
She led her to the edge of the vines, where a veggie garden was loaded with the remains of a rich autumn harvest. Lying beside the garden was a hose. She turned it on and a stream of water shot out.
‘Barbara,’ she said, crouching with water squirting out of the hose. ‘Can you give my tomatoes a drink while we talk? Can you do that for us?
The little girl looked at the hose, at the enticing stream of water. She gave the merest hint of a smile. Whatever had been happening in this child’s life in the last few days, Ben thought, she needed time out and somehow Ginny had a sense of how to give it to her.
‘Yes,’ the girl said, and Ginny smiled and handed over the hose then faced Ben and the lawyer again.
‘James…died six months ago,’ she managed. ‘Of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.’ Then she stopped again and stared across at the little girl fiercely watering tomatoes. She looked like she could find no words.
‘So tell me about this child.’ Ben still had his arms folded. The guy in the suit with his professional detachment in the face of such a situation was making him feel ill, but he glanced at Ginny again and knew he needed to keep hold of his temper. He needed facts. ‘What’s her full name?’
‘I told you…Barbara Louise Carmody. Everything’s in the case. All her paperwork. Get out of my way, please,’ the lawyer snapped. ‘I’m leaving.’
‘Ginny…’ Ben said urgently, but Ginny wasn’t looking at him. Or at the lawyer. She was staring at the tiny, dark-eyed girl.
‘This…this little girl broke my heart,’ she whispered, and Ben suddenly figured it out. Or the bones of it. Her husband had fathered a child with someone else. She’d faced her husband’s death, and now she was coping with betrayal as well as loss.
How could anyone expect her to accept this child? he wondered incredulously. How could she even bear to look at her? But she’d reacted to her with instinctive protectiveness. At such an age, with Down’s, with a hose in her hand and plants to water, the hurtful words around the little girl would disappear.
But…she’d said she’d take her. Indefinitely?
‘Do you have her medical records in her luggage?’ Ginny asked, in a cold, dead voice.
‘Of course,’ the lawyer said smoothly. ‘I told you. Everything’s there.’
‘Did you know she’s Down’s?’ Ben demanded, and Ginny nodded.
‘Yes, I did. I’m sorry, I should be more prepared. This is fine.’ She took a deep breath, visibly hauling herself together. ‘You can go,’ she told the lawyer. ‘You’re right, the documentation can happen later. Thank you for bringing her to me. I regret I didn’t receive the emails but I’d still rather have her here now than have her spend time in an institution.’
Then she stooped down and took the little girl’s hands in hers, hose and all, and she met that long, serious gaze full on as the water sprayed sideways. And Ben saw the re-emergence of the Ginny he knew, the Ginny who faced challenges head on, his brave, funny Ginny who faced down the world.
‘I was married to your…to your father,’ she said. ‘That means I’m your stepmum. If it’s okay with you, Barbara, I’ll look after you now. You can live with me. I need help watering all my plants. I need help doing all sorts of things. We might even have fun together. I’d like that and I hope you’ll like it, too.’
CHAPTER TWO
THERE WAS NOTHING else Ben could think of to say. The lawyer climbed into his rental car and drove away. The car disappeared below the ridge, and the sound faded to nothing.
There was a long, long silence. Somewhere a plover was calling to its mate. The sea was a glistening backdrop, the soft hush-hush of the surf a whisper on the warm sea breeze.
Ginny’s world had been fragmented and was now floating in pieces, Ben thought.
He thought of her blank refusal to practise medicine. He thought of the unknown husband’s death. He thought of her accepting the responsibility for a child not hers, and he knew that fragmentation hadn’t happened today. It was the result of past history he knew little about.
He’d hardly talked to her for years. He knew nothing of what had happened to her in the interim except the bare bones she’d told his mother when she’d returned to the island, but now she was kneeling beside the tomatoes, holding Barbara, looking bereft, and he felt his heart twist as…as Ginny had made his heart twist all those years before.
But now wasn’t the time for emotion. He flipped open the child’s suitcase and searched, fast. If the medical and legal stuff wasn’t there he could still stop the lawyer from leaving the island.
But it was all there, a neat file detailing medical history, family history, lawyer’s contacts, even contacts for the pre-school she’d been going to.
She might not have been loved but she’d been cared for, Ben thought grimly.
How could a family simply desert her?
‘She has Mosaic Down’s,’ he said out loud, skimming through the medical history, and Ginny closed her eyes. She’d know what that meant, though. Mosaic Downs meant the faulty division of chromosomes had happened after fertilisation, meaning every cell wasn’t necessarily affected.
But it was still bad. Barbara had the distinct look of Down’s. Who knew what organs were affected?
Taking on a child was huge, Ben thought. Taking on a Down’s child…
Barbara had gone back to watering. She was totally occupied in directing the hose. They could talk.
They needed to talk.
‘Ginny, are you serious?’ he said urgently. ‘I can still stop him.’
‘And then what’ll happen?’ She shook herself. ‘No. I’m sorry. I’m not handling this well. I did know this was coming. I did agree to this, even if it’s happened sooner than I thought. I will look after her.’
‘No one can ask that of you,’ Ben said, and Ginny met his gaze head on. There was a long silence and then she gave a decisive nod, a gesture he remembered.
‘No,’ she said. ‘They can’t, but I will. Veronica and James did exactly what they wanted. Their selfishness was boundless but there’s no way this little one should suffer. James’s death set me free, and Barbara should be free as well, not stuck in some institution for the disabled.’ She managed to smile at the little girl—but then she felt silent again.
She was overwhelmed, Ben thought, and rightly so. Her world had just been turned on its head.
And Barbara? She was totally silent. She didn’t look upset, though. She simply stood patiently watering, waiting for what came next.
Down’s syndrome…
A man could mount arguments, Ben thought, for giving the whole human race Down’s. Yes, it took Down’s kids longer to learn things. Down’s kids seldom reached average intellectual milestones, but, on the other hand, the Down’s patients he had were friendly, selfless and desired little more than for those around them to be happy.
He walked forward and crouched beside Barbara. Ginny seemed almost incapable of speech. Maybe she’d said what she needed to say, and it was as if she didn’t know where to go from here.
‘Hi,’ Ben said to the little girl. ‘I’m Dr Ben.’
If he was right about this little one being well cared for, physically at least, then she’d be accustomed to doctors, he thought. Strange places would be associated with medical tests. Using the term ‘doctor’ might make this situation less strange.
And he was right. The little girl turned her gaze to him, but not to him personally. To his top pocket.
The arc of water went wild and no one cared.
‘Jelly bean?’ she said hopefully, and he grinned because some things were universal. Doctors’ bribes.
‘Jelly baby,’ he said, and fished a yellow jelly baby from a packet in his shirt pocket. She took it gravely and then continued gazing at him—assessing him for more?
‘Do you like jelly babies, Barbara?’ he asked, and she frowned.
‘Not…not Barbara,’ she whispered.
‘You’re not Barbara?’
‘Not Barbara,’ she said, suddenly distressed. She looked down at her pink dress, dropped the hose and grabbed a button and pulled, as if trying to see it, as if trying to reassure herself it was still there. ‘Button.’
‘Button?’ Ben repeated, and the little girl’s face reacted as if a light had been turned on.
‘Button,’ she said in huge satisfaction, and Ben thought someone, somewhere—a nanny perhaps—had decided that Barbara was far too formal for this little girl, and Button it was.
‘Your name is Button,’ Ginny whispered, and Ben saw a wash of anger pass over her face. Real anger. Anger at her late husband and the unknown Veronica? He watched as she fought it down and tried for calm. ‘Button, your mum’s sent you to me so I can look after you. Maybe watering these tomatoes can wait. Would you like to come inside and have a glass of lemonade?’
‘Yes,’ Button said, and Ginny smiled. And then she looked uncertain.
‘I have nothing,’ she faltered. ‘I really wasn’t expecting her until next month. I don’t know…’
‘Tell you what,’ Ben said, rising and dusting dirt from his knees. What was happening here was dramatic but he still had imperatives. Those imperatives had seen him take time out to try and persuade Ginny to be a doctor. That was a no go, especially now, but he still had at least twenty patients to see before he called it a day.
‘You take Button inside and give her lemonade, then go through her suitcase and see what she has. When you have it sorted, bring her down to the clinic. I can give Button a good once-over—make sure everything’s okay…’
‘I can do that.’
‘So you can,’ he said. ‘You’re a doctor. Okay, forget the once-over. But our clinic nurse, Abby, has a five-year-old and she’s a mum. If you don’t need a doctor, you might need a mum to tell you all the things you’re likely to need, to lend you any equipment you don’t have. I have a child seat in the back of my Jeep—I use the Jeep for occasional patient transport. I’ll leave it with you so you can bring Button down. I’ll have Abby organise you another—the hire car place has seats they loan out.’
‘I…Thank you.’
He hesitated, and once again he felt the surge of emotion he thought he’d long forgotten. Which was crazy. One long-ago love affair should make no difference to how he reacted to this woman now. ‘Ginny, is this okay?’ he demanded, trying to sound professionally caring—instead of personally caring. ‘Are you sure you don’t want me to ring Bob—he’s the local cop—and have him drag the lawyer from the ferry?’
She looked at him then, really looked at him, and it was as if somehow what she saw gave her strength.
‘No. I’m okay,’ she said. ‘I need to be. I don’t have a choice and neither does Button. Thank you for your help, but we’ll be fine.’
‘You will bring her to the clinic?’
She hesitated. ‘Yes,’ she conceded at last.
‘Big of you.’
She gave a faint smile. ‘Sorry. I guess I’m not up for awards for good manners right now. But I am grateful. I’ll come to the clinic when I need to. Thank you, Ben, and goodbye.’
She watched him go and she felt…desolate.
Desolate was how she’d been feeling for six months now. Or more.
Once upon a time her life had been under control. She was the indulged only daughter of wealthy, influential people. She was clever and she was sure of herself.
There’d been a tiny hiccup in her life when as a teenager she’d thought she’d fallen in love with Ben Mc-Mahon, but even then she’d been enough in control to figure it out, to bow to her parents’ dictates.
Sure, she’d thought Ben was gorgeous, but he was one of twelve kids, the son of the nanny her parents had hired to take care of her whenever they had been on the island. At seventeen she’d long outgrown the need for a nanny but she and Ben had stayed friends.
He had been her holiday romance, welcoming her with joy whenever her parents had come to the island, being her friend, sharing her first kiss, but he had been an escape from the real world, not a part of it.
His proposal that last year when they’d both finished school had been a shock, questioning whether her worlds could merge, and she’d known they couldn’t. Her father had spelled that out in no uncertain terms.
Real life was the ambition her parents had instilled in her. Real life had been the circle she’d moved in in her prestigious girls’ school.
Real life had become medicine, study, still the elite social life she’d shared with her parents’ circle, then James, marriage, moving up the professional scale…
But even before James had been diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma she’d known something had been dreadfully wrong. Or maybe she’d always known something had been wrong, she conceded. It was just that it had taken more courage than she’d had to admit it.
Then her father had died, dramatically, of a heart attack. She’d watched her mother, dry eyed at the funeral, already gathering the trappings of rich widow about her.
The night of the funeral James had had to go out. ‘Work,’ he’d said, and had kissed her perfunctorily. ‘Go to bed, babe, and have a good cry. Cry and get over it.’
Like her mother, she hadn’t cried either.
She’d thought that night…She’d known but she hadn’t wanted to face it. If she worked hard enough, she didn’t have to face it.
‘Lemonade or raspberry cordial?’ she asked Button. She sat her at the kitchen table and put lemonade in front of her and also the red cordial. Button looked at them both gravely and finally decided on red. Huge decision. Her relief at having made it almost made Ginny smile.
Almost.
