Matilda’s little face is scrunched with seriousness as she puts the new toy doctor bag Tommy and I gave her to good use—tapping the diaphragm of the brightly colored stethoscope against my chest and listening intently at the eartips that disappear beneath the baby-blond braids on either side of her head.
“Hmm . . .” she hums thoughtfully, and it’s so adorable I smother a laugh.
Then she nods, quite seriously. She drops her stethoscope into the bag and carefully sticks an oversized electric-blue adhesive bandage to my splint.
And then she hands me a lolly.
“Why thank you, Dr. Matilda! I feel so much better now.”
She giggles in that magical, high-pitched way that makes anyone who hears it smile along with her, and then she toddles to her feet, gathers her bag and rushes off to see her next patient.
A moment later, Tommy is dropping to his knees on the blanket next to me, handing me a plate of crackers and cheese.
“Thank you.” I smile up at him. “Though I really could’ve gotten it myself—my wrist is sprained, not my leg.”
He shrugs, then bends his head to smack a kiss on my lips.
“Now you won’t have to get up—you can sit back and watch me and Lionel kick Andy and Arthur’s arses all over the yard.”
He’s going to play football with his brothers—a common pastime at Sullivan gatherings, which can go from playful to deadly in a hot minute and usually does. Sullivan boys are competitive.
Tommy kisses me again, then heads off—telling his sister as he passes, “Keep Abby company, Fi.”
No sooner is he out of earshot than his youngest sister wonders, “Would you write a prescription for birth control for me if I asked you to?”
I cover my eyes with my good hand. And groan.
“Why me? Why do you ask me these things? You have three older sisters and a mother who loves you incessantly.”
By “these things” I mean questions—generally sex related—for the past few months.
At first I thought she was doing it to tease me or purposely make me uncomfortable . . . like her naughty brother before her.
But now I think it’s something else. That Fiona’s looking for someone to talk to, someone who won’t judge her, someone she can trust.
While that someone is absolutely me, it doesn’t mean I have to be happy about it.
“Have you met my mum?” Fiona gives me an inane look. “I could never talk to her like this. She’d lock me in my room until I was thirty.”
I look across the grass to the lady of the house—Mrs. Sullivan—pointing and giving directions and orders like a drill sergeant gunning for a promotion. I’ve come to realize that handing out tasks is her way of showing affection—of saying she likes you enough to want your contribution and has faith in you to do it correctly.
The woman’s never asked me to even pick up a bloody spoon.
“Sometimes mums and dads can surprise you,” I tell Fiona.
Mine did.
After our heart-to-heart at my flat that day, and then the accident, things changed between me and my parents. Don’t misunderstand me—they’re still stuffy as all get-out—they don’t know how to be anything else. But they’ve gone out of their way to have lunch with me each week and there’s a closeness, an honesty, a realness to our conversations that wasn’t there before.
“My mother will never surprise anyone,” Fiona insists. “She’s as stubborn as a stone in a five-hundred-year-old castle.”
“Be that as it may, this is still a discussion you should be having with her. Or your regular physician.”
Fiona leans forward.
“But if I didn’t want to discuss it with either of them—would you do it if I asked?”
I take a breath, and I think about it only for a moment.
“Yes, I would.”
“What if Tommy didn’t want you to?” she asks.
“The prescription wouldn’t be for him, so it’s not really any of his business, now is it?”
“What if he was angry about it?”
My gaze finds Tommy across the way—his eyes dark and intense, his hair clinging damp to his forehead and a smudge of dirt on his cheek, making him look rough and rugged and so handsome it sears my heart.
“He wouldn’t be. Nauseous more likely at the thought of his baby sister having sex, but not angry. Above all he would want you protected.”
After a moment of thinking it over, Fiona nods.
“For the record—I’m not asking. But it’s always good to know.” Then she reaches over and hugs me, quick and sweet. “Thank you, Abby.”
After an aunt calls Fiona over, I find myself looking over at Mrs. Sullivan again.
She’s standing on her own now, arms crossed, watching her four boys play ball with just a hint of a smile on her face. And speaking of discussions that should be had . . .
I stand up from the blanket, brush my beige trousers off and walk straight over to Tommy’s mum. She doesn’t acknowledge that I’m standing next to her at first—but I tell her what needs to be said anyway.