He looked at her. ‘Nothing. It’s not important.’
This time she wasn’t going to let him off the hook. ‘It’s not nothing,’ she said. ‘And it is important.’
‘I don’t want to talk about it here.’
That last word gave her hope. It meant he was going to open up to her. Not at the hospital—but there was a real chance that he’d talk to her. ‘Look, you should’ve been off duty twenty minutes ago and so should I. Let’s go back to my place. It’s quiet and we won’t be disturbed.’
To her relief, he agreed.
He was silent all the way back to her house; she respected it, not pushing him to talk about the situation in public. But as soon as they were in her kitchen and he was sitting at the table with a mug of coffee in his hands, she directed, ‘Talk to me, Rhys.’
He sighed. ‘I just let a case get to me.’
‘Felicity Walters?’
He nodded.
‘Even I could hear her mother yelling—from the other side of the ward, at that.’ She gritted her teeth. ‘I was just on my way over to see if I could sort it out when I saw you’d beaten me to it. And I don’t know how on earth you got her to apologise to him, but you were brilliant.’
‘Mmm.’
His voice was flat, and she frowned. ‘There’s more to it than that, isn’t there?’
He twisted the mug round and round on the table. ‘Yes.’ He was silent for a long, long moment, and then he looked up at her. ‘I was about the same age as young Simon when my little sister Gwyneth was taken to hospital with pneumonia.’
But he’d said he was an only child.
Her questions must have shown in her face, because he said quietly, ‘Gwynnie wasn’t so lucky.’
‘Oh, Rhys.’ She put her mug down, went over to him and held him close.
He shifted so that he could pull her onto his lap. ‘You’re the only thing that stopped me wanting to strangle that woman. Because you’ve taught me the power of a hug,’ he said.
His voice sounded slightly thick, and Katrina could feel tears in her own eyes. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘Not your fault.’ He dragged in a breath. ‘Though I can remember my mother yelling at me the same way Simon’s mother yelled at him. Blaming me for bringing the virus home. If it hadn’t been for me, Gwyneth wouldn’t have got pneumonia and she wouldn’t have died.’
She pulled back just far enough so she could look into his eyes. ‘Rhys, you’re a paediatrician. You know that’s not true.’
‘I know that now,’ he agreed tonelessly. ‘But I believed it for a long time when I was a child.’
No wonder he wasn’t close to his parents. Did they still blame him? Katrina wondered. ‘When did it happen?’ she asked.
‘Twenty-eight years ago.’
She had a nasty feeling he meant exactly twenty-eight years ago. ‘It’s the anniversary today?’ she guessed.
He nodded. ‘Any other day, I can deal with it. Today, I was close to losing it and acting incredibly unprofessionally. I was so angry I nearly threw her out of the ward myself.’
‘But you didn’t,’ she said fiercely. ‘You rose above it. You understood what drove her to do it and you fixed it. And I’m so proud of you for that.’
His eyes were suspiciously bright as he looked at her. ‘Are you, now?’
‘Yes.’ She nodded furiously. ‘And now I understand why you’ve been quiet, the last few days.’
‘I should’ve told you before. Explained,’ Rhys said. ‘But…’ He broke off.
‘You’re a very private man. You don’t like talking about things.’ She bit her lip. ‘And I’ve been nagging you. I pushed you into coming with me to Maddie’s for Christmas. Pushed you about playing the cello for her wedding. I’m so—’
‘Shh.’ He pressed a forefinger to her lips. ‘Don’t apologise. It’s OK. You pushed me, yes, but you did me a favour. You showed me what a real family Christmas is like.’
‘You mean, you never…?’ She stared at him, stunned.
‘Not since I was three. And I can barely remember that.’ He grimaced. ‘As I said, my parents split up when I was just about to start school. The Christmas when Gwynnie was in hospital was our last together.’ He shrugged. ‘I guess it’s hard for a relationship to survive a loss like that.’
She thought about it. Would her parents have got through it? Would Madison’s?
And she was absolutely sure of the answer. ‘If you love someone enough, you’ll get through it together. I’m not saying it’d be easy, and it would take an awful lot of work, but you’d help each other through it. One of you would have a strong day when the other wasn’t so strong, and vice versa. You’d get through it with teamwork.’