Marion Lennox - Rescue at Cradle Lake

This town knew everything about everyone already. There was no need for eavesdropping. Miriam probably knew already what he was about to say right now.

‘Ginny, I can’t…’

‘You can’t be with me,’ she whispered. ‘I know that. I told you.’

‘I thought-’

‘Fergus, you’re not thinking,’ she interrupted, and she laid her hand on his arm and pressed. ‘You’re hurting. You and I had a wonderful one-night stand. That night set things free for me in a way that I could never have imagined. But it didn’t set you free. And my freedom doesn’t mean I’m taking things further with you. You’re where I’ve been for years. Running from encumbrances. There’s no way I’ll load you with mine.’

‘But you-’

‘Fergus, I’m a package deal,’ she said softly, and she lifted his hand and held it against her face. ‘I think…I think you’re a wonderful man. A man I’d love to love. But there’s lots of things to love in this world and you’re only one of them.’

‘Gee, thanks,’ he said blankly, and she managed a shaky laugh.

‘Don’t mention it.’

‘It’s only Madison.’

‘No,’ she said softly. ‘It’s nothing to do with Madison. You think you’d like to be with me if only you didn’t have to look at a child again. But you don’t really want to be with me. Not how…not how I want to be with you.’

‘I don’t understand,’ he said miserably, and she smiled and reached up and kissed him lightly on the lips.

‘That’s because you haven’t had an epiphany,’ she whispered. ‘I hope one day you have it. For your sake. Somehow you’ve given it to me.’

‘An epiphany…’

‘I used to try and drive away pain by anger,’ she said. ‘Or work. Dive into medicine and don’t think of anything else, and when the world got too grim I’d go to the gym and kick-box.’

‘Kick-box?’ He stared and she grinned.

‘Didn’t know that about me, huh?’

‘N-no.’

‘Puts me in an altogether new light.’

‘Maybe,’ he said faintly, and her smile faded.

‘Look, it doesn’t matter. All I’m saying is that by loving you I realised that it works. I can love again. I can make this life work for me. I can be happy again, even if I’ve lost.’

‘Yeah, but-’

‘This isn’t about you,’ she said. ‘What I’m saying is about me. You look at Madison and you cringe inside and there’s no way you should put yourself in that position. We go back to being professional colleagues, Fergus. Maybe in a few years you’ll have your epiphany and maybe I’ll be sitting in my rocking chair with my knitting and my dogs and I’ll spend a little part of my pension on another rocking chair so you can sit beside me.’

‘Lie beside me,’ he growled, and she chuckled.

‘I’m betting you’ll be a very sexy octogenarian.’

‘Ginny-’

‘Enough.’ She kissed him again, lightly but with purpose. ‘We both know this isn’t going to happen now for us. Face it, Fergus, and move on. I love you but I don’t need you. I wish that could make the loneliness better for you but I don’t think anything can. Except maybe time. So give it to yourself, Fergus, love. Walk away.’

RICHARD died eight days later.

Fergus had been back at the house many times in the interim, but he’d kept his visits relatively formal. With Ginny.

With Richard he’d established something that was as close to a friendship as could be made between people in such disparate circumstances.

‘You’ll look out for Ginny for me, mate,’ Richard had whispered in one of his last few moments of consciousness when Fergus had been by his side. Ginny had been out visiting one of the community’s new mums and had taken Madison with her. ‘She’s playing hardy but when the others died… She breaks up inside,’ Richard had told him.

Fergus knew what that felt like. He thought of a grief-stricken Ginny and thought if he only had the courage…

To take Ginny, to take three dogs, to take one little girl…

‘I’ll keep in touch with her,’ Fergus said. ‘Though I’m not sure…’

‘You don’t have to be sure it’ll lead anywhere,’ Richard whispered. ‘And you don’t have to be scared either. Take it from me, there’s nothing to be afraid of. You know, a few weeks ago I was terrified. But not now. I’ve been given this place. I’ve been given the gift of knowing I have a kid and Madison’s going to be great. Great for Ginny. Great for…’ He paused and his gaze turned inward, as it did increasingly. ‘Well, who knows who she’ll be great for. But, Fergus…watch out for her for me.’

‘I will,’ Fergus promised, and when Tony rang him at two in the morning to say it was over, he remembered his promise as he drove through the darkness.

To what?

To a deathbed.

In such circumstances it wasn’t even necessary for a doctor to attend. Richard had been in a coma for the last three days. His death had been inevitable. The local undertakers could come and do their job without him, and Fergus could sign the death certificate in the morning.

But not to go now was unthinkable.

He pulled into the yard and Tony was standing on the veranda, waiting for him.

‘I knew you’d come,’ he said in satisfaction. ‘Ginny said not to call you but-’

‘But I’d said call,’ Fergus said, almost roughly. In truth, he’d wanted to be here himself at the end, but time of death was totally unpredictable and Fergus was employed to take care of the needs of the entire community. Not just one man.

Or one man’s sister.

‘Was it OK at the end?’ he asked. There were deaths and deaths. He’d worked hard to make this one right. He’d rung a Sydney palliative care physician. He’d double-checked himself every way. Please…

‘He just slept into it,’ Tony reassured him. ‘If Ginny hadn’t been sitting with him, holding his hand, we wouldn’t have known exact time of death. He just slipped away.’

‘Ginny…’

‘She’s not here,’ Tony said. ‘She said she needed to be by herself for a bit. She left in the car a couple of minutes ago.’

Hell.

He needed to see the whole picture. He needed not to focus just on Ginny.

‘Madison?’

‘She’s sound asleep. We thought we wouldn’t wake her.’

‘No.’

‘You want me to call the undertaker?’

‘There’s time,’ Fergus said. He checked Richard’s body but it had been like Tony had said. He’d just slipped away, leaving his body like an outer husk of what had once been there. A peaceful death.

‘Can you stay on a bit longer?’ he asked Tony, and Tony smiled and shrugged.

‘We agreed this was a part of our regular shift work. Madison’s on the books as well as Richard. I’m on duty until seven.’

‘Ginny will be back by then.’

‘You’ll go and find her?’ Tony asked, and Fergus could see that he was troubled.

‘You think I should?’

‘I think you should,’ the big nurse told him. ‘Mate, I think you have to.’

She was in the boatshed. He’d guessed she would be, but even so it was a relief when he pulled into the clearing and saw her car.

The door of the boatshed was open. He pushed it wide and saw her. She was at the other door, sitting on the ramp which slid down into the water. She wasn’t moving. For a moment he thought she was in control, simply sitting staring out over the lake.

But then her shoulders heaved with a convulsive sob and he moved like a shot from a gun, kneeling, gathering her into his arms, holding her, pulling her against his chest, taking the brunt of the wrenching sobs as she wept her heart out for the brother she’d loved.

She wept and wept, until it seemed she could weep no more, and then she subsided against him, spent.

He kissed the top of her head and she shuddered, a long, racking shudder that seemed to go right through her.

And then she pulled herself away from him. Her face was almost colourless in the moonlight. Almost deathlike.

‘You’re never ready,’ she whispered, and he nodded.

‘No.’

‘I thought…’

‘That this would be different? You love Richard. How can a loss of a love be anything less than that?’

‘Oh, God…’

He couldn’t bear it. He couldn’t bear it for her.

And here she was opening herself up again for future pain. She’d taken on Madison. She’d taken on three dogs.

She’d take him on if he only could…

He couldn’t. He stared down into her face and the grief he saw was a reflection of the pain that had torn him apart for months. To take on more…

She saw it and she withdrew. Just a little. Just enough to show that she’d get past this, she knew it. The control was there, ready to slip down.

She might hurt as much as she’d done before, but maybe she’d learned that she’d survive.

A lesson he hadn’t learned yet?

‘Thank you for coming,’ she whispered. ‘I shouldn’t have needed…but I did.’

‘Of course you did.’

‘See. That’s the problem,’ she managed. ‘I’ll always need. That’s why…’

She shook her head as if ridding herself of a bad dream and tried to struggle to her feet. He was before her, lifting her, supporting her as she made her knees firm under her.

‘I’m fine. Thank you for being here for me, Fergus. I’ll go back to the house now. I need to get the undertaker before morning. I don’t want Madison to be awake when…’ She took a deep breath. ‘There’s things need doing.’

‘Let me help you.’

‘You’ve done enough,’ she told him. ‘You gave Richard the best medical care possible. More, you gave him friendship…’

‘But-’

‘You have nine weeks left in this place,’ she told him. ‘I understand you came here to get away from…strings. If you wanted to leave now, I could understand.’

What was she saying? Leave everything, including his medicine? ‘I signed a contract.’

‘Yes, but I’m available to be medical officer for the district now.’

‘Not yet,’ he told her, finally finding some ground he was sure of. ‘You need time to adjust. Madison needs time…’