A Child to Heal Them Read online

  ‘Tasha.’ He stood in front of her, forcing eye contact.

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t know what’s wrong! I’m on a rollercoaster with you, Quinn! There’s no straight and steady...it’s all ups and downs! We shouldn’t be here. We should be back with those children. Healing them.’

  He considered her for a moment. ‘There’s nothing we can do at the moment but wait.’

  ‘It’s not enough. There must be more we can do! I hate feeling helpless. Useless. It feels horrible.’

  ‘Hey...’ He lifted her chin with his finger, wiped away the tear that had begun to trickle down her cheek. ‘It’s okay.’

  She had to ignore the sensation of his soft thumb sweeping across her skin. ‘Is it? How do we know we’re doing enough?’

  ‘Because I know we are. You have to trust me.’

  She stared back at him, confusion, hurt and anger blustering through her with the force of a storm. Buffeted by emotions she didn’t want to feel. ‘That’s what it all comes down to, isn’t it? Whether I trust you.’

  He stared back at her. ‘Well, do you?’

  ‘I don’t know. I want to, but...’

  ‘Well, that’s a start. It wasn’t a no.’ He smiled. ‘Give me a chance—that’s all I ask. A chance to prove to you that you can trust me.’

  She looked up into his face. Into the face that had haunted her dreams for years. A face that seemed open and kind. The face of the man she so wanted to believe in.

  She’d really like to close the door upon her pain. It had hurt for too long. Here was a chance. A chance to change that hurt into something positive. If it went wrong, what would she have lost? Nothing. But if it went right...

  ‘Okay. One chance.’

  He smiled. Nodded. ‘That’s all I need.’

  * * *

  They found a little café that neither of them had been to before and went in. The Coffee Bean was small and intimate, but it offered hot food, and it was open till late, so they decided to chance it. The tables were old Formica, their surfaces indented with scratches, but the flowers on each table were real, their scent competing with the aroma of the food. Somewhere amongst the din music played from a radio.

  Quinn and Tasha sat by the open door, so they could feel the evening breeze.

  ‘So...what really made you come to Africa, Quinn? What made you think, Okay, I’m going to leave the UK and head out on a hospital ship?’

  He laughed, but it wasn’t a happy, genuine one. She watched his face carefully, wondering what nerve she’d just hit and how he was going to answer. It would have to be the truth. She would know if it wasn’t.

  ‘I needed a change. A challenge.’

  ‘You were an A&E doctor?’ That hadn’t been her specialty. She’d trained in paediatrics. Thinking that caring for kids would add some joy to her day.

  Quinn nodded.

  ‘I would have thought A&E was challenging enough.’

  ‘It was. I just...’ His voice drifted away and his fingers fidgeted with the condiment pots on the table. ‘English schools not enough of a challenge for you?’

  She nodded. ‘They were...’

  ‘But...?’

  Tasha smiled. ‘But we were talking about you. You asked me to give you a chance and I am. I need to know more about you. What makes you tick.’

  ‘I was married, as I said before,’ he replied, looking directly at her. ‘And it didn’t end well and I... I just needed to get away.’

  ‘How long did it last?’

  Quinn let out a sigh. ‘Eighteen months.’

  One and a half years? I wonder what happened?

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  She sensed there was more, but he obviously wasn’t ready to tell her just yet. Maybe if he knew something about her...?

  ‘I was married to Simon. He was a doctor,’ she explained, leaving out the fact that she’d been one, too. ‘We had a whirlwind relationship, which initially started with a whole lot of lust and secret assignations in linen cupboards. We got caught once, which was embarrassing, by a nurse who’d come to fetch some clean pillowcases.’

  Quinn smiled at her.

  ‘We both seemed to want the same things. It was exciting, and thrilling, and so when he asked me to marry him I said yes and we went to our nearest registry office and did the deed, with two witnesses off the street.’

  ‘Wow.’

  ‘Was I impulsive? Crazy? Probably. It all went downhill once we’d signed the marriage certificate. It changed things between us. Subtly at first, but then more noticeably.’

  ‘In what ways?’

  She sighed. ‘The fun seemed to go. We were official. Man and wife. We weren’t those horny young people any more, looking for a thrill. I think he began to see me differently. I know I did the same to him. We were married. I wanted to plan our future, I wanted us to be serious. But getting married had somehow poured water on our fire. And then I discovered he was having an affair.’

  Quinn frowned. ‘I’m sorry...’

  ‘We’d drifted apart. He thought the fun in linen cupboards would continue and I wanted a serious relationship. To have a family of my own.’

  He grimaced. ‘How long did your marriage last?’

  ‘A year.’ She laughed, then, realising the irony. ‘Aren’t we a great pair?’

  He nodded, just as the server brought them their food. They’d ordered poulet yassa—chicken marinated overnight in peanut oil, lemon juice, onion, vinegar and spices—which was served with couscous and roasted plantain. The aroma was mouth-wateringly good and they tucked in with gusto.

  ‘What was your wife’s name?’ she asked, her fingers dripping with the marinade.

  ‘Hannah.’

  She smiled. ‘Why do you think we both failed so badly at marriage?’

  He shrugged. ‘I don’t think we failed. I’m sure we both fought as hard as we could to save our marriages.’

  There was something he wasn’t telling her. But she didn’t feel she could push because she knew damn well there was lots she wasn’t telling him. But they’d made a good start. They’d begun to open up to one another. What they had would take time. Trust didn’t happen overnight. And though she needed to trust him, he also needed to feel he could trust her.

  ‘You’re right. I didn’t want it to fail, but Simon was the one who gave up on us. He didn’t even try.’

  Quinn swallowed a mouthful of chicken and nodded thoughtfully. ‘There’s nothing you can do if the other partner just gives up.’

  Tasha raised her mug of coffee and held it towards him to make a toast. ‘To friends that don’t give up.’

  He raised his mug and smiled.

  ‘To friends that don’t give up.’

  * * *

  Quinn drove her home. He was so very pleased that he’d met up with Tasha again. What he’d done to her in the past had always been a stain on his memories—one that he hoped he was now beginning to rectify.

  It had been a little difficult to start with, but since sharing a meal and some conversation at The Coffee Bean he really felt that his friendship with Tasha was heading in a great new direction.

  All he had to do was keep her as a friend and not ruin it by wanting more.

  He always expected other people to give their all. Ever since Hannah had died—since they had died—he’d wanted other people to give everything. Not to give up when things got hard or painful.

  Hannah had tried to protect him. She hadn’t told him how bad her pain was. Insisted they were making the right choice in holding off treatment. He would never have gone along with it if he’d known how much pain she was in each day. But she’d been so determined to give their unborn son life.

  Their deaths had almost destroyed him. His wife’s doctors—people he’d once thought of as friends—had also known the truth, and he hadn’t been
able to be around them again. Hadn’t been able to walk in the same corridors and wards he once had. His workplace as much as his home had become tainted by lies and deceit.

  He’d felt angry. Had wanted to lash out at everyone. And afterwards Hannah’s family had blamed him. Blamed him for not doing more to save her. Their own guilt had been eating them alive, and they’d turned that pain on him.

  It had been the safest thing for all of them for him to get away. To start afresh. To go somewhere there would be no memory of his wife at all.

  The vacancy on the hospital ship had arrived at the perfect time and he’d jumped at it, determined to secure the post and get away from everything that reminded him of his loss.

  He was glad he’d met up with Tasha. He’d been able to shine a light on one of the dark spots in his past. He could rectify that in a way he couldn’t with his wife or child. He was making it better and it made him feel good.

  But she made him feel good, too. Being with Tasha was like breathing again after being in a vacuum. She made him feel brighter. Lighter. Unburdened. Her smile could light up the room. He didn’t know exactly what it was, just that being in her presence made him believe that life could possibly be good again. And he liked that feeling. He wanted more of it.

  More of her.

  Who’d have thought that the freckle-faced curly-haired girl he’d humiliated in his long-lost past, might just be his saviour?

  Quinn was determined to spend as much time with Tasha Kincaid as he could.

  He was hungry for the healing warmth of her friendship and trust after being out in the cold for so very long.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  ABEJE WAS SHOWING signs of jaundice. A nurse called Quinn during the night and he got up to inspect the little girl. She had the shakes and was complaining of muscle pain and tiredness. The lack of red blood cells was causing it, but she was still producing urine so her kidneys hadn’t been affected yet. He prescribed treatment, including a transfusion to aid her platelet count, and then went to check on the other patients in the clinic.

  The two children they’d brought back from Mosa were sleeping soundly and reacting well to their medications, despite having received them after Abeje. There was a woman with a serious case of mastitis, and they were doing their best to help her work out the blockage in her milk ducts so she could continue to feed her baby. There was a middle-aged farmer with a suspected stroke, but they hoped to discharge him soon, and a patient awaiting surgery on a large goitre in his neck.

  A mish-mash of cases, but he liked the variety in his work. The only cases he didn’t deal with were obstetric. Maternity and pregnancy was a big no-no for him. Thankfully there were other doctors on board who did specialise, so he was able to hand over to them, but he did his best to stay away if he could.

  He didn’t like it. He had made an oath to treat all people needing help. So if there weren’t any of those other doctors around he did it, because he had to, but inwardly he hated every second. And that hate came from fear. Fear that he would fail another mother-to-be. Fear that he would lose two patients in one.

  It was too close to home. Cancer he could deal with. But pregnant mothers...? All he saw was Hannah.

  Hannah with her burgeoning belly, sitting up in bed, smiling at him, holding his hand, despite the pain she was going through. The sickness. She’d refused chemotherapy to give their baby a chance at life, but the pancreatic cancer had been aggressive and had spread rapidly throughout her body. And she’d died before the baby could be saved.

  Their son had been just twenty-two weeks in gestation, and though they’d tried to deliver him when his wife’s system had gone into mass organ failure he’d not been strong enough to live. The steroids they’d injected her with to strengthen his lungs hadn’t been enough. He’d been tiny. Almost see-through. A fragile body no bigger than his hand.

  His son had struggled to live for a matter of hours.

  He’d watched his wife die slowly, whilst she’d tried to keep their son safe and give him a chance. And then he’d had to watch his son die.

  They’d let him hold him at the end. He’d unbuttoned his shirt and slipped his son’s baby bird body onto his chest, barely registering his weight, tenderly cradling him. His son’s minutely thin fingers had held one of his, and tears had dripped from his eyes, down his cheeks and onto his son’s failing body.

  He’d never felt so helpless. So impotent as a doctor.

  He’d felt his son’s last ragged, struggling breaths and he’d raged against a world that could let this thing happen to such an innocent young life.

  Quinn had sat in that hospital chair, gazing at his son’s face, memorising the shape of his eyes, his tiny button nose, his small mouth invaded by a tube, his little body covered in fine downy hair, and told him over and over for hours how much he loved him, how much his mother had loved him. How precious he was. How brave. And that it was okay to stop fighting.

  He could let go.

  He could stop.

  The last juddering breath had come with a sigh, and when his chest had moved no more he’d held him for a long time, until his tears had run dry. The nurses had taken pictures for him and he had those now, in his wallet, never far from him at all.

  If he’d lived he would be a little boy by now—Abeje’s age—learning through play, making friends, laughing and having fun.

  But instead his son was just a memory. A powerful memory that drove Quinn on, that gave him the courage to get through life. Because if he could survive losing his wife and son he could survive anything.

  What could life do to him now? It had brought him Tasha and she was a good thing. He knew that.

  They’d have a month together. Four weeks in which they could consolidate their friendship. Twenty-eight days after which he knew he would have to sail away from her, knowing that each time he returned to Ntembe she would be here. A reassuring presence. A smiling face to welcome him.

  In the privacy of his office he took out his wallet and looked at the photo he treasured most.

  He was a father. A father without a child. A husband without a wife. He’d had the most precious people taken away from him already.

  He wasn’t going to lose Tasha’s friendship.

  Not now he’d been given this second chance.

  But as he stared at the photo, as he was reminded of his loss and the pain he had gone through, he felt hesitation. Hesitation about getting close to someone again, even if it was just as friends. Would he and Tasha ever be just friends? She’d had such strong feelings for him once. Had loved him. And he didn’t want to be responsible for hurting anyone ever again.

  He’d taken an oath not to.

  * * *

  The classroom wasn’t the same without Abeje. Tasha really missed her presence, her bright, smiling face, her eagerness to learn. Her empty seat was a painful reminder that whilst the rest of them were there, learning about adverbs and adjectives, Abeje was lying in a hospital bed, fighting for her life.

  It was hard for Tasha to stand there and concentrate when all her instincts were telling her she needed to be back on the ship. When all she wanted to do was sit by Abeje’s bedside and whisper words of encouragement.

  Malaria was a killer. Nearly half a million children died from it each year, most of them in Africa. It was a horrific number and she wished she hadn’t looked it up on the internet last night, when she’d been searching for details on the disease, but she’d not been able to help it.

  She’d known when she chose to come here that it was a country rife with it, but she’d naively believed that she wouldn’t have to face it. That she would stand in a schoolroom, by a blackboard, chalk in hand, and the most pressing thing on her mind would be whether the children understood the rules of grammar.

  She couldn’t make a difference as a doctor any more, so she wanted to make a difference as a teacher.
She needed to change someone’s life for the better. She had to! Because what was it all about, otherwise?

  She told her class that it was time to go out and play, and when they’d all filed out and the classroom was quiet Tasha went over to Abeje’s chair and sat down on it. Lifting the lid on her desk, she looked inside and saw Abeje’s books, all neatly lined up. She picked up the top one and looked inside. She saw Abeje’s progress, from hardly being able to write to almost being fluent. Her mastery of the English language was evident in her sentences and stories.

  Abeje was clever and special, and Tasha didn’t know what it was, but she felt something for the little girl. A need to do more for her. A need to give her a greater chance in life. But how?

  She put the book down and closed the lid, smoothing her hands over the old wood. She would go to visit her tonight. Straight after work. And perhaps she would see Quinn, too...

  Just thinking about him lightened the feeling of burden that was upon her shoulders and in her heart. Last night they’d had a lovely time together. Just talking, sharing stories, laughing, enjoying being in each other’s company. It was the start of a beautiful friendship. She knew that. They got on well together. Despite the past. She was glad she had chosen to be brave and give him the chance he needed.

  This afternoon all the children were going to write letters to Abeje. Letters that would form a book. Letters that might make their friend fight to get better and come back. That would let her know that everyone was worrying about her.

  It was something she herself would have loved when she’d been sick as a child. She’d once contracted the flu and had been stuck in bed for almost two weeks. Apart from one ‘Get Well’ card, Tasha had barely seen the others at all.

  She’d been so alone. Frightened. Desperate for love.

  She didn’t want anyone else to feel that way.

  * * *

  ‘Abeje?’ Tasha sat by the little girl’s bed, holding her hand. She’d been alarmed when she arrived, to see how yellow her eyes looked. Jaundice was caused by a build-up of bilirubin in the blood and tissues, which in turn was caused by the breakdown of red blood cells. It wasn’t a good sign, and her research last night was fuelling the fires of her worry. It might lead to coma. Kidney failure.