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The hush in the penthouse swirled softly around them.
‘Your parents didn’t try again?’
‘My mother died when I was...a baby. They didn’t get a chance.’
Her expression pulled tight and Louis couldn’t shake the thought that he was missing something. Before he could say anything she was already speaking.
‘I don’t know what they would have done otherwise. Jack and my father had always been very close.’
He wanted to reach out and pull her into his arms. Comfort her. But he could read her well enough to know that she didn’t want that. She might at least be looking at him, but her body was still steadfastly facing the world outside.
Strong. Resolute. Determined.
Apple Pie Alex indeed. Anyone who called her that didn’t understand her at all. They completely missed that steel core that ran right through her from that blonde head to the soles of her feet.
The matching pair to the one which he’d always prided himself ran through him.
‘So you volunteer at Rainbow House because your father does? Because you still feel responsible for not saving your brother?’
Quietness settled around them afresh before Alex finally answered.
‘I suppose that’s part of why I started. But I find it fulfilling.’
‘And it’s just you and your father?’
He wondered if her father had blamed her for not being able to save Jack. If the man had taken his grief out on his little daughter.
She narrowed her eyes at Louis. Too shrewd, he realised.
‘Yes. It’s just been the two of us ever since I was seven. And my childhood was fine, since I know that’s what you’re asking. My father loved me, in his own way, he supported me through university and with my career. We might not be as close as some families but he did lose his wife and son after all. It’s hardly unusual that he might be a little closed off.’
‘And you lost your mother and brother.’
He knew the words hit their mark. He could see her flinch. And he didn’t know if he hated himself or her father more. Whether her old man had intended to hurt her not, he’d clearly withdrawn, taking demonstrative love with him.
She didn’t need to say the words, he could read them all over her lovely face. Her father had fallen apart. Two people he’d loved most had gone. And instead of pouring that love into the one child he had left, he’d pulled away from her.
Her father might not have overtly said or done anything to hurt her, but clearly his absence of words had been almost as damaging. Certainly, Alex still felt she had something to prove to him. She was still the one fighting to keep their only area of communication alive. Fighting for Rainbow House.
At least he himself had experienced the unconditional love of his mother for the first seven years of his life. If Alex had lost her mother, and her father had known her brother’s death had been inevitable once Alex wasn’t a match, then had she ever experienced even that fraction of joy he’d had?
He doubted she’d thank him for pointing that out.
‘Is that what got you started in medicine?’
‘You mean, did the fact that I felt guilty about not being able to save Jack drive me on to try to save as many other people as I could?’
‘That isn’t what I was asking, no.’
They both knew her reaction had revealed far more than she had intended. Her lips quirked up into a rueful smile.
‘Then clearly that’s a bit of a hot button for me.’
Her quiet honesty tugged at something inside him. Louis lifted his shoulders, suddenly fighting to stay in control.
‘We all have them.’
‘Right.’ She turned around finally, her back leaning on the glass.
