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That would be why the idea hadn’t occurred to him. He couldn’t remember either of his parents reading to him. Ever. They’d always been too busy.
‘How about your mum?’
‘What?’ he asked sharply, before checking himself.
‘Did your mum read to you, too? Is that why you thought to put the chair and the books in here?’
He peered at her closely but there was nothing in her expression but innocence and interest. Slowly the tense feeling receded.
She hadn’t meant anything by it—how could she have? She didn’t know the first thing about his parents, and he intended to keep it that way.
‘I don’t recall,’ he lied. ‘She probably did. But it was the interior decorator who did this room.’
He didn’t want his parents to have anything to do with his daughter. He didn’t want them to create the same lack of self-worth in their grandchild as they had in him throughout his childhood. He’d been lucky to have that one teacher who had seen what was going on and taken a young Max under his wing. He wouldn’t be a surgeon—a top surgeon, no less—without that one gentle, guiding hand.
‘Oh, right, of course.’ Evie accepted his explanation without question, and he felt simultaneously relieved and guilty.
‘So, what are they like?’ she asked.
‘Who?’
‘Your parents. Are they in the medical profession like you? Is that where you got such skills from? And the way you care so much for your patients?’
‘No, it wasn’t.’ He just about held back the bitterness from his tone.
Of all people, his parents could have been his teachers, his heroes. They had expected him to follow them into a surgical career, and they’d certainly pushed him on the academic side. But they had never shown him a caring or loving side. He sometimes wondered why they had even bothered to have a kid, but the answer was simple: it had been expected. It hadn’t been something they’d wanted.
Not that he was about to load his, or his parents’, shortcomings onto Evie. She didn’t need to know any of this.
In fact, he was beginning to realise that they didn’t really know anything about each other at all. Evie was the mother of his baby and yet they might as well have been strangers. Maybe, if they were really serious about being friends for the sake of their daughter then he should actually start talking to her, asking about her life and her family. He had to admit, he was interested.
Max observed in silence as she watched her daughter, her eyes filled with affection. Her innate love for Imogen was beyond doubt. It made him feel...good, just to see it. Almost subconsciously, she skimmed her lower abdomen with her hand and he knew immediately what was going through her mind. He’d seen it time and again with his patients over the years.
‘You’re going to be fine,’ he said quietly. Convincingly.
She shot him an unconvincing smile in return.
‘I hope so. Thanks to Annie. Just as long as my body doesn’t reject the new kidney.’
‘You can’t afford to think that way, Evie. You have to stay mentally strong. Be positive.’
‘I know.’ She bobbed her head but the way her shoulders hunched told a different story. ‘But let’s be fair, Max, we’re effectively trying to disguise a foreign organ from my body. My PRA levels were high enough to warrant plasmapheresis. If my body spots it, it’ll really attack it.’
‘You know it’s more complicated than that,’ Max began, then stopped. Even doctors were allowed to get scared; it wouldn’t help to simply censor everything Evie said.
He searched for something more constructive to say. To help her. But everything that came to mind didn’t encapsulate what he wanted to tell her. He’d dropped pat phrases to patients and their families throughout his career, given them words of comfort whilst being sure not to make promises he couldn’t fulfil. Promising to do everything he could for a patient wasn’t the same as promising them that everything would be okay, because he would do everything he could but the outcome would never be exactly the same because every patient was different.
He had no way of knowing how Evie’s body would react to the transplant. He couldn’t say what the future held. Yet right now, for the first time in his life, he had to hold himself back from pulling Evie into his arms and promising her that everything was going to be okay.
He’d never wanted to believe it so much in his life.
Max cradled Imogen closer, grateful for occupying his hands and the inadvertent barrier she created between himself and Evie.
‘All I can promise you is that you’re in good hands. Arabella Goodwin is one of the best nephrologists in her field,’ he declared brightly. ‘All the tests and pre-op care she has carried out, the method she has selected for the transplant itself, the balance of immuno-suppressants, they’re all to maximise your chance of success.’
‘I know that.’ Evie nodded and bit her lip. ‘Logically, as a doctor, I know it. But as a patient, I hate not being the one in control.’
He could relate to that.
