The Nurse by J. Corrigan (list of ebook readers txt) 📕

her face, leaving a faint trace of blood from her finger. ‘I was embarrassed,’ she continues. ‘I was so unseeing, like Ed had said. I couldn’t share it with the world. I didn’t want to share it with the world.’

‘Oh Rose.’ He wants to leap over the table and hold her, take care of her, in a way she believed Daniel Deane would look after her all those years ago, but catching the eye of the custody officer, who’s watching them more intently than usual, he checks himself.

Rose glances up at the officer too, shuffles forwards in her chair, pushes the fingertips of both hands through her hair. ‘After Samira died, it was as if I could really see Daniel. I didn’t love him, I never had. It all became clear when my daughter was put into my arms. It was as if I saw everything that I hadn’t seen before.’ She pauses. ‘That I didn’t want to see before.’

‘What happened after you were discharged from the NHS hospital?’ he asks gently.

‘I left my mum’s house. I couldn’t bear to be near her. She should have called an ambulance, and she didn’t. I stayed with Tom and Casey, and that’s when Miles contacted me. He came to see me and then came to Samira’s funeral. He kept in touch in the months afterwards.’

‘Did Daniel go to Samira’s funeral?’

‘No. I didn’t want him there. My mum didn’t go either. Just Casey, Tom and Miles.’ She flicks a glance towards him. ‘My mother carried on working at Bluefields, for God’s sake. She thought I was mad to drop Daniel.’

‘Did Daniel try and reconcile with you?’

‘He called once in the weeks after Samira’s death, but I wouldn’t take his call. He never tried again. And that suited me fine.’

Her eyes dart around the brightly lit visits hall. ‘When I saw Abigail at the hospital all those years later, visiting Abe, and realised when Abe had been born, the stark reality of Daniel Deane struck me so hard. He’d had no intentions at all towards me, and would have dumped me if Samira had lived.’ She pauses. ‘Abigail must have fallen pregnant with Abe very near to my due date for Samira. Maybe even near the time of my daughter’s funeral.’ She lays out her clenched hand on the table as if clawing at the plastic.

‘I did see the notes,’ she carries on. ‘Maybe they did do everything they could. The haemorrhaging I experienced isn’t uncommon. It doesn’t happen often, but it does happen.’

She waits for him to answer, but he only shakes his head.

She ploughs on, releasing the floodgates that have been tightly closed for too long. ‘When Abe was brought in and I saw Abigail, I recognised the fact that deep inside I’d always known something was very amiss during my affair with Daniel. The carvings on his bed. Abigail looked like me.’

There’s still something she’s not telling him. Patience, Theo. Patience.

‘Do you think Daniel asked for Miles’s resignation because Miles knew something more about him?’ he probes gently.

‘No, it was Daniel who had a hold over Miles and his career, as you know after listening to my story. Miles had wanted to leave Bluefields years before.’ She looks at him. ‘I don’t know why, suddenly, Daniel allowed him to go. Miles doesn’t know either.’ She holds the edge of the table, her knuckles white.

‘Is there more I should know about Miles?’ he asks.

‘Don’t you think that’s enough?’

‘A lot of doctors fight addictions,’ he says.

‘Miles would never have got a decent position in the NHS – anywhere – if this had come to light.’ She leans towards him. ‘When he was a medical student, he began swapping a drug – morphine – that was meant to be used on his patient, giving the patient a placebo trial drug instead. Miles was a morphine user; he was addicted. When a savvy ward sister got wind of it – realizing her patient wasn’t responding to the drug – she started to ask questions and worked out that Miles was on shift whenever this occurred. Daniel stepped in. He and Miles worked on the same general medicine wards. After the nurse had taken the incident a step further, reporting it to the med school’s head of faculty, Miles was invited to take a voluntary blood test. Daniel took the rap for him, saying it was his mistake; he claimed he was the one who’d administered the wrong drug to the patient, inadvertently. Miles was in his debt then. Forever.’

‘They kept Daniel on the course after that?’

‘Yes, because he took the blood test and he was clean. Daniel was never a drug taker.’

‘Unbelievable.’

‘Miles loves his job… loved his job, it was what he lived for. He’s been clean for years. He’s paid for his mistake.’

‘And you’d have done anything to protect him, because you felt you owed him? You’d have done anything so he could carry on practising?’

‘I wanted him to continue working, yes.’ She goes to bite her nail but instead jams her hand in her jean pockets. ‘Tell me more about Elliot.’

And Theo does, because he doesn’t think Rose will tell him anything more about her husband. He talks about Elliot, and about the sort of man he knows he is. An ex-hack, a man who disregarded his wife, a father who ignored his son at a time when Elliot needed him the most. A writer who hates failure so much that he has contemplated sensationalizing her story.

She listens intently, her eyes boring into his own.

He’s fallen for Rose. But the story he’s hearing from her is not yet complete. It’s time for her to be totally truthful with him. What neither of them has anticipated is the current of energy flowing between them. But Rose is married, and she loves Miles, and he certainly knows Miles loves her. It is this that lies at the root of her confession and conviction: their shared love and loyalty.

What is Rose still not sharing with him?

Has she