Hello Stranger

“That’s your way of saying people can’t handle the upset,” she said. “Don’t worry, Dr Hall. I know. We’ll get it right.”

I flashed her an apologetic smile. “I’m sure you will, Wendy. Thank you.”

But I wasn’t sure. I was never sure.

People professed wholeheartedly that they wanted to work in the palliative care team, only to be a broken sobbing mess just a few days after they started. People felt they could watch others take their last breaths without a fluster, and not lay scared in bed all night in the aftermath.

I’d seen it plenty of times. I doubted Gina Salzaki would be back after her maternity break. I think she too was finally reaching her limits.

“I’ll send you some employee files for you to take a look at,” Wendy said, and I nodded my thanks.

“I appreciate it.”

She was cut short by her nursing alarm bleeping and I was cut short with a shout in my direction from the corridor outside, and the day returned to normal.

I brought someone back from the Reaper’s clutch, so he could spend a few more days with his family. I helped a young lady work through her medication options, and left her with a smile on her face, optimistic she would live for a few more months than she was expecting.

And then, far too late in the evening, just like usual, I made my way back home.

I read The Master and Margarita, but didn’t really soak in the pages.

I wondered if Chloe was already long home – wherever her home may be. Eddington, most likely. I didn’t know Eddington all that well.

I wondered if she’d finished Gone with the Wind, and would pick up a fresh old classic before I’d even made my way through another chapter.

I wondered if I’d see her again.

I shouldn’t care, but I did. I did care whether I saw Chloe on the Harrow-bound train again.

My mother was struggling when I got through the door that night. Her morphine driver had been misfiring, leaving her chest tightening up with the pain through the evening.

I could feel it. I could feel every wheeze she made. It tightened up my own chest the very moment I stepped into her bedroom.

“Thanks,” I said to Olivia, and told her to go home.

“I’m here… If I can help…” she replied, but I shook my head, and mustered a smile.

“I’ve got this.”

And I did have it.

I made sure the morphine was delivering right and made sure her oxygen was fixed up properly. I poured her a fresh, cold juice by her bed, and squeezed hold of her fingers while she wheezed some life back into herself.

Finally, her eyes opened and she was right back there with me, a smile lighting up her face.

She pointed to the folded-up newspaper on the bedside table, before she found any words, and I picked it up, casting my eyes over the crossword.

The pen was right there waiting for me, along with Olivia’s scrawled answers in the little boxes.

I smiled at her right back.

“Let’s get through these clues.”

I talked her through the answers, and she nodded and shook her head without so much as mustering a word, but still she kept smiling, her eyes fixed bright on mine.

When we were done, she gestured to her mask, and I freed it from her face, loose enough for her to suck in a breath and grab my hand in hers.

“Meet… Amy…” she said, but this time her eyes were serious.

Mine were serious back at her as I shook my head.

“Drink some drink, and dream sweet dreams.”

She gripped my hand a little tighter.

“Logan… please…” she paused. “Meet Amy. Please don’t…” Another breath. “Please don’t make me leave you on your own.”

I kissed her forehead. “So don’t leave me. Not yet.”

She let go of my hand and drank some juice, then dipped down into her pillows as I fitted the mask back snug for her.

“Amy isn’t right for me,” I told her. “She never would be. She never will be.”

“So find someone… who is…” she rasped, so loud I heard her over the oxygen.

“Maybe one day,” I told her, and her eyes were so full of pain as I stepped away.

She knew I was lying as much as I did.

There was no maybe one day about her prospect of getting a daughter-in-law. There was no maybe one day about me finding someone who would ever be right for me.

I spent enough of my life trying to fix pain, without causing more of it.

I hovered in the doorway, watching Mum’s pale moonlit petals falling right in front of my eyes.

So soft, but so firm.

There were hardly any left, and I knew it.

She knew it, too.

“Sweet dreams,” I said.6ChloeI couldn’t rest easy that night.

My feet were pooped, and my brain was too, and my thoughts were running riot with all the new stuff I was soaking up from Kingsley Ward. But it wasn’t just that.