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

sits on the bed, her shoulders straight, her legs uncrossed, her hands lying in her lap, and Theo notices her ringless left finger.

He closes the door, strides across the deep-pile carpet and sits down next to her.

Slowly Rose peels off her dress and takes off her underwear, then she pushes him down gently. Theo closes his eyes. She kisses him and the tension in his neck, shoulders, groin is exquisitely overwhelming. He moves away a fraction and removes his own trousers and shirt.

There is no clumsiness and no embarrassment as Theo becomes a part of Rose. All their meetings, all their talk, and this is the beginning, a new beginning. He tries not to think of the end. He feels her quiet release and the bite of her teeth on his chest, and allows himself to join her. He will never leave her.

Lying widthways across the hotel bed, she turns to him. ‘It was as I knew it would be.’

‘Ditto.’ He smiles, but it quickly fades. ‘I saw Cathy at the prison. She gave me a piece of creative writing. A story. Your story.’ He watches for her response. She’s not surprised, but the expression he saw so often in prison hovers around her features. Fear? Sadness? Guilt? Relief? He isn’t sure, just as he was never sure during his prison visits.

‘You could have told me, Rose.’

‘It was easier to let Cathy tell you.’ Her head is buried in the crook of his neck, and he strokes the silken skin on her back, lifts the weight of her hair. ‘I’m as guilty as Miles,’ she says.

He rests his cheek on her spine. ‘Stop, Rose. Stop.’

In Cathy’s story, Rose and Abigail argued at Abe’s bedside, Rose absolutely distraught at Abigail’s sheer callousness towards her. When finally Abigail left, Rose did think of taking Abe’s life, in a moment of madness. She left the unit to calm herself. On her return, she saw with horror what Miles had done.

‘It was Miles’s crime. Not yours,’ Theo says. She turns away and he holds her tighter. ‘Look at me, Rose.’ He cups her face so he can see her eyes. ‘And this is why you admitted to Abe’s murder, isn’t it? Because you felt it was your fault; and because you’d been diagnosed with cancer, you thought it was better that you took the blame.’ He falters. ‘Tell me what happened when you found out.’

And Rose tells him.

The appointment to see the oncologist to get the results of her biopsy was an evening slot, after her shift finished. It was at the end of that shift that she saw – for the first time – Abigail visiting her son, Abe. Rose’s patient.

Half an hour later – after Rose’s world had combusted when she realised Daniel Deane’s sister was actually his wife – the oncologist informed her that she had low-grade breast cancer. She made it clear to the doctor that she would not seek treatment and told no one about her diagnosis. She wanted peace from her desperate depression and believed that by accepting the repercussions of refusing treatment, she would find that peace.

‘I took the blame for Miles because what he did was precipitated by me.’

Theo says nothing. He moves her warm body to the side of him and sits up. ‘You need to see the oncologist.’

‘I will.’

Theo and Rose have dressed and taken the lift to the roof terrace. They walk to the perimeter of the building and cast their gaze over a darkened London skyline.

He gathers her to him. ‘You didn’t go through with it, Rose. You left to calm down, and when you returned to the unit, you found Miles there?’

‘Yes, he was standing next to Abe’s bed. I checked Abe’s vital signs. There were none.’ He feels her shoulders shaking, and the depth of her tears. ‘When I turned, Miles had gone. I pressed the emergency alarm to alert the other staff, and then went to find him. I knew where he’d be: at the hospital’s side entrance. It was where he went to think. Where I’d always find him when we’d lost a patient, someone we couldn’t save.’

She unpeels herself from his chest and leans over the railings, taking in the city. ‘Miles did what he did for me. He’d heard the terrible conversation between me and Abigail. He’d watched me after Abigail had left. He understood what I was contemplating. That was what compelled him to do such a terrible thing.’ Still looking ahead at London’s vista, she continues, ‘I told him I was the one who should go to prison, not him. I told him I didn’t want to live – and I didn’t, Theo. Not until you, and then… knowing about Abe. And Mia.’

‘And he agreed?’

‘He did.’ She holds her cupped hands to her face and blows with vigour.

‘I can never forgive him,’ he replies quietly, holding her, looking at the intense lights of the city.

She rubs her palms along the steel and shivers. ‘Thank you for bringing me together with Natasha and Mia. You have no idea what this means to me. But I have to tell her about my insane thoughts that day.’

‘I think… for you, you do.’

‘The situation could easily have been the other way round,’ she says quietly, as if to herself.

He’s standing behind her, holding her, his face nestled in her hair, his arms loosely around her shoulders. He cannot see her expression. ‘But it wasn’t?’

He feels her chin moving on his forearms, which are holding her tight.

He interprets the movement as a no.

Two hours later, he’s on the train heading back to Manchester. The smell from the burger that the man in the seat next to him is eating is too strong, and his stomach turns over. He swivels around and looks out of the window. Before he left Rose, he implored her to make an appointment with the oncologist. She promised she would. She promised him she’d be okay.

If Rose is okay, then he will be