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

Pulling the sleeves of her sweater over her hands, she twists the fabric in between her fingers and bites hard at her thumbnail. A thin sliver of blood.

Theo can’t look at her and instead finds the eyes of the custody officer, who shakes his head imperceptibly.

‘All Miles ever wanted was a child,’ she continues. ‘All I ever wanted was a child.’

‘I want to look after you, Rose,’ Theo says.

She takes his hand again, leans over the table and places it on her cheek. ‘What is Natasha like?’

‘She’s lovely.’

‘And… Mia?’ she asks softly.

‘I’ve only seen a photograph.’

He spoke to Natasha yesterday and told her everything. He asked her if she had a photo of Mia he could show to Rose. She sent one straight away. A clear image of Abe’s daughter.

Rose’s granddaughter.

‘Would you like to see it?’ he continues.

‘I would.’

He pulls it from his coat pocket, together with a photo of Natasha, and gives them to her. She takes them gently, as if she is touching something sacred, and studies the images. ‘Mia has my hair, only darker.’

‘She does, doesn’t she?’ He pauses. ‘Rose, why did you take the blame for Miles?’

She shrugs.

‘Tell me.’

‘I need to go, Theo. I need some time alone.’ She gets up from the chair, but then hesitates. ‘What will happen to your book?’

‘Gone. History. I’ve many other ideas.’

‘I’ll see you on the other side, then?’

‘I hope so, Rose.’

60

Rose

2 June 2016

Because I’m leaving, and probably because he feels sorry for me, the prison’s director has allowed me to call Natasha from his office. Theo has put her number on the back of the photo.

After Theo left, I went to the prison library, where I googled Natasha and found a photo of her and Abe from 2014. I think it was from an old Facebook page. Looking at the image, my stomach pitched, just as it did when Alison Greenwood told me the horrifying truth. My son’s face staring back at me, a face that was so familiar from the many times I washed his skin on the unit and tended to the growth on his chin.

At the hospital that day, afterwards, the punch of a mother’s grief landed inside my stomach; low and aching and located where my womb was not. Why did the kernel of realization and the warmth of Abe show itself to me only then?

I stare at the image on the internet. God, how I hate that information can never be eradicated. Stains everywhere. Immovable, as mine will be.

The director has already left his office, so I can make the call in private; he only asked that I don’t stay on the phone for hours. We don’t have funding for calls to America, Rose, he said.

I punch in the number.

‘Hi, Natasha speaking.’

‘Natasha, it’s Rose.’ Silence. I carry on. ‘Theo thought—’

‘I told him you could call me, Rose. It’s okay.’

Natasha has an American accent, but it’s not strong. Her voice is soft and lilting. I could tell her now. ‘I don’t know what to say.’

‘I’m coming to London at the beginning of September, for work.’ I hear the sound of a child’s cry. ‘I’m bringing Mia,’ she says. ‘Would you like to meet her, Rose?’

‘I really would, and I’d like to meet you too, Natasha.’

I hear her inhaling. ‘Abe knew, Rose. God knows why Ed told him then, after so many years.’ She takes a breath. ‘He would have found you.’

The tears are now falling down my cheeks and onto the director’s leather-framed blotting pad. I’ve only just noticed the old-fashioned nuances of his office. A green banker’s lamp, the blotting pad, a Montblanc fountain pen. It reminds me of my old lecturer’s office. I’m sure Wilko will be long dead.

‘Natasha, I’m so sorry.’ I pause. ‘How can you forgive me?’

‘This is not your fault. You’ve gone through enough.’ Again Natasha inhales deeply. ‘Mia looks very like Abe. Like you.’

Daniel would hate the colour of Mia’s skin. I think about meeting Abigail all those years ago, and my own skin crawls. She wanted to meet me – the woman who was sleeping with her husband, with her permission. It’s only now that I see the perversity of their marriage. All this time later, the images of Señora López and the maître d’ at the Riverside Restaurant, even my midwife, Cam, make my stomach ripple with self-loathing.

‘Was Abe happy?’ I ask.

She moves the position of her phone. ‘He was really happy with me.’

He was taken from a contentment he’d only just found, but I need to connect with this life I have unearthed. One of my last remaining loves emerging from my only hate. I might not have that long. But the terrible pain that began with Alison Greenwood’s visit and which has stripped the lining of my stomach, as well as the integrity of my heart, is transmuting into something other – into a resoluteness of purpose. There is only one objective. There can only be one objective.

Mia.

Otherwise there will be nothing, even with Theo.

I cannot allow myself to think of Abe. But I can let myself think of Mia, and how perhaps I have so little time left for her.

Natasha carries on. ‘So, we’ll see you in London in September. Theo wants to be there. That okay?’

‘That’s good. I have to go. I can’t stay on the line long. I’m still in prison. Out tomorrow.’

‘See you soon, Rose.’

On cue, the director returns. ‘Time for you to start packing, Rose.’

61

Theo

3 June 2016

The story surrounding Abe’s identity broke earlier this morning with footage of Rose leaving the prison with her solicitor and Alison Greenwood, together with two uniformed police officers. It’s all over the morning news.

It is to her marital home that Rose returns, and to Miles, who is on bail awaiting his hearing.

Theo is on edge and can’t settle. He spent all of yesterday in his study, and last night too, plucking up the courage to make the dreaded call to Bella – a call he still hasn’t made. Now, at last, he