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‘Do you mind translating that?’ she asked, bewildered.
His jaw clenched. ‘That’s outrageous!’
She accepted the more polite, shortened version, noticing with a shiver that he suddenly seemed even taller and more physically intimidating in the small room.
‘What’s the doctor’s number?’
Her eyes flew wide in alarm. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’
He flashed her a look as he pulled his phone from his pocket. ‘What do you think? Should I call him out? Or, better still, I’ll tell him you need a second opinion—except you haven’t even had a first—’
Feeling her temper spurt at the implied criticism, she cut him off, her voice cold but controlled. ‘For the recordheis asheand this isn’t your call to make in any sense of the word.’
She could see him almost literally bite back a sharp retort as her words sank in. Instead he threw her a look that simply seethed with frustration.
She struggled not to empathise with how he must be feeling, but she couldn’t afford to allow herself to soften towards him or show him any weakness, or very soon it could be Rio telling her when she could see her daughter.
This horrifying image hardened her resolve.
Rio already had a child, she just had Ellie.
‘You may have been a parent longer than me.’ She saw his blank expression and tacked on sarcastically, ‘Or had you already forgotten?’
He didn’t respond verbally to that barb, but at least she’d got some reaction. She supposed it wassomethingthat he could clearly feel guilt, always supposing she wasn’t misreading the reason for the dark bands of colour across his high cheekbones.
‘ButI’vebeen doing this for two years now,’ she added with quiet dignity. No point explaining that sometimes she still didn’t feel as though she knew what she was doing. She was not about to tell him about her insecurities; it would feel a lot like handing more ammunition to someone who already had a gun aimed at your head.
A frown flickered across her face at the over-dramatic analogy—shereallyhad to lower the levels of paranoia. On the other hand she really couldn’t see a downside to Rio thinking she was an expert in child-rearing.
The seething silence lengthened while their eyes clashed, black on iridescent blue. The dark bands of colour scoring his cheekbones deepened and his eyes dropped as he finally slid the phone slowly back into his pocket, tacitly admitting a defeat she could see was alien to his nature and life experience.
‘And that is my fault, I suppose,’ he said bitterly.
Gwen recognised that this could easily escalate into some sort of war of attrition. One of them had to keep their temper, so she took hers tightly in hand and shook her head. If she lost it she might say things that she would undoubtedly later regret.
‘I didn’t say that. I’m simply saying that being a mum is a learning process and this isn’t the first time Ellie has been unwell. Babies do sometimes become unwell and they can’t exactly tell you what’s wrong!’ Belatedly aware that her voice had climbed shrilly and started to wobble, she took a deep, calming breath.
He didn’t need to know about her doubts, about the nights she longed for someone to share the responsibility that came with being the parent of a baby, but there hadn’t been anyone so she had made the unilateral decision that she no longer needed any help.
‘Her temperature has already come back down. She had a cold last week and it’s left her a little stuffed up. She’s been pulling at her ear...she seems a bit prone to ear problems.’ She pushed out the information quickly before explaining something no new parent, or indeed anyone who had never been ill, would know. ‘They are reluctant to give antibiotics these days for something that is probably viral, and sitting in a crowded waiting room was not going to make her feel any better. They’d just tell me to take her home and do what I am already doing.’
‘Which is?’
He listened in silence as she explained that she’d given Ellie medicine to lower her temperature and made sure she had plenty of fluids.
‘And sleep,’ she added, ‘is really good, though she’s likely to be a bit grumpy when she wakes up.’ She really hoped this would be sorted and he’d be gone by the time Ellie woke up, but, being a realist, she could see that this might be optimistic, so it was best to prepare him for the worst. ‘Or then again, she might be chirpy. It’s not an exact science...’
‘But in general she is a healthy child?’
Gwen was relieved he sounded calmer. ‘She’s fine and, yes, she’s had no health problems beyond the usual.’
He nodded and she could see from the blank look on his face that he didn’t have a clue what the usual was. Perhaps he didn’t have much to do with his son?
‘Right, then, is there anything else you’d like to know?’ She paused, wondering if she should tell him straight off that she wasn’t going to make any financial demands on him. Just cut the polite and painfully awkward chit-chat and get to the point?
‘This must have been a shock for you,’ she said, remembering how much of a shock it had been to her to discover she was pregnant.
She’d run home—that had been her first mistake.
