The cold pierces to her very marrow, and it has nothing to do with the weather. How could she forget? Eleanor’s truth-telling had set Anna free of obligation to her sister, but instead there was something new. When Tolly hears who she is, they will be finished. She cannot imagine he would allow another Mortimer sister to break his heart yet again.
Tolly is here, miraculously here. But nothing has changed. They cannot be together. They never will be. And ironically, in this moment, she knows her wish clearer than ever before. She wants him. She wants the man she has already thrown away once. She would be prepared to turn her life upside down to have him. Hell, she would even start medicine all over again. Or maybe not. But with Tolly’s money, surely there would be a way through. A couple of years in Canada, perhaps? Or an endowment at a US university hospital?
She raises her chin. This has to be faced. Now is the time for her to pull up her big girl panties. Tolly has a right to know whom he is talking to, whom he is courting before they go any further.
“I’m Dr Anna Mortimer. My older sister, Eleanor, read History at Oxford.”
She watches the shock spread across his face, the confusion in his warm brown eyes, an old sadness surfacing.
“I know,” she takes a big sigh, sensing the end of everything. “I should have said something sooner. I’m sorry. But I was having such a lovely time, I didn’t want it to end. In fairness to me, I didn’t know what she had done to you.”
Silence. She has lost him.
“I understand,” she says. “I hope you find everything you want.” She dare not reach out, dare not touch him.
She takes one last look at him, drinking him in from top to toe, then she steps around him and heads into work.
As the Staff Only door closes behind her, she takes a deep breath. It was always too good to be true, she tells herself. It was never meant to be. Then she pushes all thoughts of Tolly away, buries them as deeply as she can. She will let them out tonight in the safety of her home but for now she has to function. She has to pay attention. A mistake here can leave someone crippled. Or dead.
When she feels steady enough, she heads off to grab some scrubs. And to find some dry shoes. She has no list today, James briefs her. Instead, they will both be doing emergencies and walk-ins.
She doesn’t see James again until lunch when they meet in the queue. As they shuffle forwards, she carefully asks him how he is doing.
“Not great,” he admits.
Anna realises she should be upbeat and encouraging, reassuring him there will be many more opportunities for love, that the right woman is right around the corner. But she cannot do it. Instead, she sighs. “I’ve always thought love is dangerous for doctors. Maybe we should all live our lives alone.”
James turns his attention from selecting a salad back to Anna. “That’s a level of despondency I’ve yet to achieve. Why are you so miserable?”
Anna drops a ham-and-cheese baguette on to her tray and moves forwards to the hot drinks section. She orders a latte, pays, and waits for James to finish up. Together, they make their way to a table. They have to pile the detritus from a previous customer onto a tray and push it to one side before they take their seats.
James pins her with his steely gaze. It doesn’t really work because everyone knows he has the heart of a teddy bear, but it is a sign he is expecting her to be honest.
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s just … Look how many of us ended up pulled apart by the pandemic. It was hardest on those with loved ones. Look what happened to Doctor Coren. He was a great consultant and he could have done another ten years in the NHS, yet he chose to take early retirement. I saw how he was during the pandemic. He was so terrified of infecting his family, he was sleeping in his garden shed at one point. It burnt him out.”
James leans closer. “The pandemic was hard, yes. And it was especially hard on those with families. But that’s not why Dr Coren took early retirement.”
“Isn’t it?” Anna furrows her brow. “He told me he’d had enough. That it was time to put his family first for a change.”
James takes a forkful of his pasta salad and chews. Anna watches his Adam’s apple bobble as he swallows. Then he says, “That’s true but it’s also not the whole story.”
“No?”
James looks at her. “It’s not for general consumption, Anna, but his wife was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s.”
“Oh!” There is nothing more she needs to hear. She well-understands the impacts of the disease.
“He could spend the last years of her memories working apart from her or he could be with her whilst she still knew him. Everyone always assumes they’ll get to spend time with their partners when they retire, but he knew that wasn’t going to happen. By the time he retired, she would probably be in the last stages of dementia if she wasn’t already dead. He figured better to have a poorer retirement and make the most of the time they have.”
“Why didn’t he tell us, though?” she asks. She had thought they were friends, that they had bonded over their Operation Smile trips.
James’s pale eyes linger on hers. “Would you?” he asks. “Would you want to see the pity in everyone’s eyes? Instead, he had a good send-off. Everyone was happy for him, even slightly envious. Do you think the atmosphere would have been the same if they’d known?”
Anna could guarantee the atmosphere would have been different. Still, she is upset he hadn’t trusted her with the truth.
“How come he told you?”
