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“I don’t have a funny face.”
“Check out your baby photos.” She took Rosie’s hand. “I’m going to stop being overprotective. I can’t promise to get it right overnight, but I can promise to work on it. Moving forward if you ever want to talk to me as a friend, I’ll be here, but no more advice from me. Turns out I’m not great at it anyway. Apart from the inhaler thing. I’m totally great at that, so still no talking.”
“You’re a great sister. And a great doctor.”
“I am not either.”
Rosie pressed her hand to her chest. She felt a flutter of fear. There was nothing, nothing, more frightening than not being able to breathe. “This is—there’s a good hospital here, right?”
“You’re not going to need a hospital.” Her sister was calm. Rock solid. “I’m here, and you’re fine.”
“Distract me.”
“Distract you? Okay—well, you wanted me to open up to you, so this is me opening up. I always wanted to be a doctor, you know that. Right through school. Right through medical school, I thought I was doing the only thing I could do. This was me. It was a vocation.” Katie had her eyes fixed on Rosie’s chest, watching the rise and fall. “Until it wasn’t. I don’t even know what happened. Slowly, without me even noticing, my love for the job started to drain away. Nothing dramatic. A drop at a time. A slow hemorrhage of enthusiasm. I didn’t even notice. I told myself I was tired. Stressed. So what? Show me a doctor who isn’t tired and stressed. I didn’t give it a second thought.” She paused. “How’s your chest? Are you doing okay?”
Rosie nodded. She couldn’t remember ever hearing Katie talk to her like this before. She waved a hand to urge her to carry on.
“Two months ago, there was an incident at work. It was—upsetting. Usually we try to detach, it’s a requirement of the job, but none of us did so well that night. I don’t need to give you the details—”
“Give me the details.” If her sister had dealt with it firsthand, the least she could do was hear about it secondhand. She needed to understand. And she didn’t want to think about her breathing.
Katie hesitated and then started talking and every word she spoke increased Rosie’s respect for her sister. How did you handle something like that and not be affected? Did Katie really think it was possible to stay detached?
“He attacked you.”
“It was understandable.”
“And frightening.”
Katie rubbed her fingers over her forehead. “Yes, and frightening.”
“Did you get support?”
“Not until last week, when I finally saw a doctor. Who signed me off sick. Yes,” she said, and gave a wry smile, “I’m actually on sick leave. I’m officially sick, which would be a useful explanation for the way I’ve been behaving. And now you’re going to ask me why I didn’t tell you before. I’m not sure why, except that you’re proud that I’m a doctor. I thought you might think less of me.”
“I’m your sister. I love you. How could I think less of you?” Rosie leaned forward and wrapped her arms around her sister.
“Oh—that’s nice. Does this mean I’m forgiven? Don’t give me sympathy. I’m better if I just—”
“It’s okay, Katie. It’s okay to feel shitty after something like that.”
“I’m fine, really, I don’t—”
“It’s okay.” Rosie hugged tighter and felt her sister sag against her.
“I’m not okay. I’m not okay.” Finally Katie cracked. Tears flowed out of her, and she cried, great jerking, broken sobs that tore through Rosie like a knife. Her sister had never, ever, cried on her before. Her own cheeks were wet and she realized she was crying, too. She didn’t know what to say—what could she possibly say?—so she simply held her sister and murmured meaningless words of comfort.
Eventually the crying stopped and Katie slumped against her. “And now I have a headache. And I didn’t even drink to get it.”
Rosie gave a choked laugh. “We could fix that.”
Katie sniffed and pulled away. “Bet you preferred me in my role as smother mother.”
Smother mother.
Despite everything, Rosie laughed. “Not true. I feel as if I finally know you a little. And it explains a lot about how you’ve been the last few weeks.”
Katie blew her nose and flopped down next to Rosie on the sofa. “I have some big decisions to make. And I have no idea what to do. Here’s the learning point from this sorry tale. You think there’s some magic decision fairy that makes every choice a clear one, but there isn’t. We’re all muddling our way through, doing the best we can. We make decisions based on many factors, and sometimes that can lead to one hell of a mess. My life is an example.” She looked at Rosie. “Yours might be, too, but that’
