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Later they had agreed that her reaction had probably been caused by her burgeoning hormones. There was certainly no other reason for her to have acted so ridiculously, she had acknowledged.
Blake had been thrilled by her news, doubly so when they learned she could be carrying twins.
‘It will mean you putting your career plans on hold,’ he had warned her, watching her.
‘Mmm,’ she had agreed, laughing. ‘Looks as if I never was destined to get that degree.’
* * *
‘I’ll push them,’ Anya told Rory firmly.
‘Are you sure we’re not going to spoil your image, turning up en masse like this?’ Philippa teased Blake. The hospital car park was already almost full.
It had been a unanimous decision by the senior staff that this opening of the combined children’s surgical and pys-chiatric ward they had all campaigned so hard for should be attended, not by a mass of local dignitaries, but by those who had done the most to make the ward’s opening possible: the staff and their families and those who had done the most to raise the money for it.
The ward was in many ways Blake’s baby, the idea born originally out of the success of the Fast Response Accident Unit where they had combined surgical and counselling procedures in an innovative, ground-breaking venture.
Semi-reluctantly the authorities had given in to Blake’s badgering for a similar unit for children, with the proviso that they must raise half the money themselves.
On Monday the ward would open official
ly to its first patients, but today it was empty of beds, and was being used to celebrate the fact that against all the odds they had managed to bring it into existence.
It was worth all those cold, wet Saturdays spent in town with her collecting tin, all those car boot sales, all those fund-raising lunches and other events to see what their efforts had achieved.
The walls of the ward had been painted with bright murals, their design a gift from a talented local artist. The work itself had been done by groups of local children of varying ages, all of whom would be here this afternoon proudly showing their families their handiwork.
The walls of Blake’s consulting-room were painted a warm, soft yellow. Philippa’s smile faded temporarily as she reflected on the pain that would fill this room as his young patients relived their various traumas.
There was a gymnasium filled with equipment donated by local firms, and—Richard Humphries’ pride and joy—a swimming-pool to help children suffering from paralysis and other forms of limb weakness, the entire cost of which had been donated by one single person.
Philippa glanced over her shoulder. Anya was talking to one of her friends, at the same time fiddling importantly with the twins’ clothes and safety harnesses while the friend watched slightly enviously. Encouragingly, the twins’ birth had seemed to give Anya the confidence she had previously lacked, bringing her out of the shell she sometimes retreated into.
Philippa looked round for Blake to check that the boys were with him. It was perhaps natural that now that they were growing up that they should attach themselves more to Blake than they did to her.
She had wondered at one time if Blake ever felt constricted or that his skills were not being put to their best use here in a small country hospital, but when she had tentatively suggested it to him he had shaken his head.
‘Moving to a larger hospital would ultimately mean teaching instead of practising, and that isn’t what I want. My career is important to me, but you and the children and the life we have built together here are far more important …’
‘You could take us with you …’ she had told him.
‘To a city environment where I would spend almost as many hours travelling as I do working? No, that isn’t what I want …’
Their time together had deepened her love for Blake and his love for her had given her a fertile soil to flourish and grow in; to mature and become far more at ease with herself.
Love, she had discovered, the right kind of love, did not constrain and impoverish, but instead conferred freedom and independence, enriching every aspect of her life.
Smiling to herself, she walked over to where Blake was standing talking to someone, slipping her hand through his arm as he turned towards her and drew her slightly closer while he introduced her to his companion. She listened to their conversation with half an ear while she studied the other guests, her attention suddenly caught by a familiar face.
Quietly she watched as she saw Joel turn towards his wife. His arm rested easily on his son’s shoulders, and his wife’s mouth was curled into a smile as she spoke to him. Their daughter, taller than her mother, laughed at whatever it was her mother had said.
As though he was suddenly aware of her scrutiny, Joel turned his head and looked at her.
Briefly their eyes met and then disengaged. She had no regrets about what they had shared, at least not for herself. From the desolation and despair which had been, in its different ways, Andrew’s cruel legacy to them both, she knew she had come through a stronger, more emotionally balanced woman.
It had after all been a major turning point in her life, a recognition of her right to express herself sexually as a woman. What she had shared with Joel had unlocked the door which had allowed her to step confidently into her new life with Blake.
Without the knowledge of her sexual response to Joel, she might have hesitated, unsure if what she was experiencing wasn’t merely a throwback to her teenage crush.
