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Her eyes are bright. ‘Thank you for saying that.’
I hope Millie can find it in her heart to be kind to this girl. Compassion’s not her strongest suit: it’s hard to show kindness when you’ve never experienced it yourself. And for some reason my wife is fixated on the woman on the other side of our housing chain: Stacey Porter.
I don’t know what it is about her that presses Millie’s buttons, but every time my wife mentions her name, I get nervous.
chapter 15
millie
I hear voices coming from the kitchen as soon as I walk into the house.
Annoyed, I hang my keys neatly on the hook, and put my sunglasses back in their case on the hall console.
Tom knows I’ve been on my feet in theatre for close to thirty hours. I’ve rehearsed for today’s procedure – the separation of eighteen-month-old conjoined twins – for close to four months: the surgery has been on my calendar for weeks now. I don’t normally operate on paediatric patients, but the team handling the separation were unable to find a paediatric cardiac surgeon sufficiently skilled to take on the case. Successful separation of twins with a thoraco-omphalopagus connection is extremely rare for obvious reasons: you can’t divide a heart in two the way you can a liver. The girls shared a connection at the atrium, the upper chamber of the heart, close to several vital veins. The chance both babies would die during surgery was almost one hundred percent: no rational surgeon wants to take on those odds.
Which is why the team came to me.
I used cardiac CT and MRI scans from both before and after the twins were born to create a 3D printed model of their heart, which allowed me to examine the shared structures and meticulously plan how to separate them. I spent weeks experimenting with different options until I found the 0.001 percent chance that’d give both girls a shot.
I rarely get nervous about my cases, but for some reason this one got to me. It’s why I needed the therapy of drifting through a stranger’s house after successfully keeping my addiction in check for so long.
But my efforts paid off. The girls didn’t die onmytable.
We’re only a few hours out, but Hope and Faith are in separate ICU cots.
As a surgeon, I’m used to long hours and lack of sleep, but the fierce concentration required for today’s surgery has left me drained. I’ve been running on adrenaline and caffeine for two days. The last thing I need now is to have to deal with Meddie and her teenage friends.
I made the assumption it’s my daughter and her posse in the kitchen because of the high-pitched laughter drifting down the hall … but it’s Harper Conway I find sitting at my marble island.
‘Harper came round to take a few measurements,’ Tom says, the tips of his ears pinking slightly. ‘She wants to order curtains so they’re ready when they move in.’
We have custom-made whitewashed plantation blinds in every room, and UV filters on the panoramic doors to the terrace. I can’t abide the fuss of curtains. They remind me of my mother.
‘I hope you don’t mind me just dropping in, Millie,’ Harper says. ‘Only Tom did say the other night that if I wanted to stop by—’
‘It’s fine,’ I say.
‘And I was just passing, and I thought, it won’t take five minutes.’
To judge from the cold coffeemugs and empty packet of Hobnobs on the kitchen island, she’s been here a lot longer than five minutes.
‘Did you get what you wanted?’ I ask.
‘Your hubby’s been ever so kind,’ Harper says. ‘I’m sorry to be such a bother.’
‘No bother at all,’ Tom says, equably.
There’s a gift bag perched on one of the island stools next to him, with wisps of pale blue tissue paper poking out of the top. Harper sees me notice it.
‘Kyle and me get a lot of freebies because of our vlog,’ she says, a little too quickly. ‘It’s just a shirt. Kyle will never wear it, he hates anything formal. He’s more a T-shirt kind of man.’
Tom opens the bag to show me. ‘Wasn’t that kind?’ he says.
‘Very.’
She doesn’t linger now I’m here, and Tom walks her to the front door. Their goodbyes take longer than strictly necessary: I’ve ground my coffee beans and pressed a carafe of Colombian bold roast by the time my husband returns.
‘Lipstick,’ I say.
