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But she’d had to accept the fact that she wasn’t that kind of person. When it had come down to it, she’d been afraid that she would end up resenting him for making the ultimatum and so, in the end, she’d chosen her snakes.
So how was she the right kind of person to help Brady teach Jake anything about self-sacrificing love?
Besides, there was no question that Jake would hate her inserting herself into their lives. Into his life.
But how could she refuse when Brady was asking so desperately? When he was clinging to her as though she was his life raft in his own personal storm? When she could feel his wet tears soaking into her cotton tee?
‘It’s okay, sweetheart. I’ll help you as much as I can.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
JAKE HAMMERED THE punchbag, over and over and over again. Anything to get rid of this suffocating emotion which had come over him in that visitor centre when he’d watched Flávia with his nephew. When he’d heard Brady taking to her, spilling his heart to her, connecting with her, in a way Brady hadn’t done, even once, in their ten months together.
He’d left the gallery partway through Brady’s confession, intent on coming in and setting the record straight. Telling his nephew that he would never have avoided conversation about Helen if he’d realised that Brady wanted to talk about his mother.
But as he’d stood in the doorway and watched Flávia cradle the little boy in her arms, he had frozen. A thousand self-recriminations chasing through his head.
What the hell did he even say to the boy?
The simple fact was that he should have known that Brady would want—need—to talk about his mother. He hadn’t avoided the topic purely out of respect for Brady’s space—the kid was only seven. No, he’d used that as an excuse to help himself avoid conversation which might include things as complicated, as icky, as feelings.
Helen had been right in that their own parents hadn’t prepared them for or taught them about love. But she had been wrong thinking that he had the capacity to learn it now.
So what use was he to Brady?
He, who had never failed at anything in his life before?
And so, he’d stood there at the door, watching a relative stranger give his nephew the kind of love and comfort he himself had no idea how to show. He’d tried to force his legs to move, to carry him inside, to say any one of the caring things that tripped easily off his tongue when dealing with frightened cancer patients and their even more terrified families. But his body and brain had refused to work. He’d been immobile. Numb. Until suddenly, he’d found himself moving again. Only, he hadn’t been heading into the room with his nephew; instead, he’d been halfway across the hospital grounds, calling Patricia to let her know where to collect Brady for their usual afternoon session, whilst he’d thrown himself into his next operation.
Ironic how residents and colleagues thanked him for his quiet, efficient teaching style, whilst the one person he couldn’t teach, or even talk to, was a seven-year-old kid who needed him most.
And so, after the operation, he’d wound up here, in the gym complex within the hospital guest accommodations. People were out there in the main area, on treadmills, or rowing machines, or whatever,
but in this small side room, with the boxing equipment, he felt as though he was in his own little world. He could belt seven shades out of a punchbag and hope to hell he could simultaneously beat some sense into himself.
He kept seeing Flávia’s face, hearing her words, but it wasn’t her whom he was mad with. It was himself. And his own inabilities.
Of all the people with whom to have left her infinitely precious son, Helen had chosen him. Not for the first time, Jake seriously doubted the rationale of his sister’s decision.
Who would ever have considered him, so famously detached for all his life, to take up the role of a surrogate father?
Surely, even his parents—Brady’s grandparents—would have been a better choice?
In spite of everything.
Jake slammed his gloved fists into the bag again.
He was going to mess it all up. Mess Brady up. He didn’t have a clue how to care for the boy properly; today had taught him that much. He’d been too quick to accept all the explanations that people had given him. Whether it was to blame Brady’s wild actions on the fact that his mother had died ten months ago, or to blame his refusal to communicate with others on a genuine physical and mental inability to do so.
Flávia had come along, and in one afternoon she’d turned all of that on its head.
She’d shown him a bright, engaged and engaging seven-year-old. A normal kid who was obviously grieving over the death of his mother, but who wasn’t irreparably damaged.
She had seen all that. And he’d seen nothing. So he had to ask himself if that would still be the case in another year—in six months, even—of Brady being in his care.
Again and again, he slammed his fists into the bag. But none of it did any good. None of it changed anything. Until, suddenly something lifted. And he knew, in that instant, that he was no longer alone. Flávia had walked into the gym.
Jake stopped. Not turning around. Just waiting.
