those eyes were, and she knew them both warm and soft as a cuddly blanket and hard as stones.
Dark hair, cut stubble-short—a number one, but due for a cut, so nearly a number two at the moment. It would feel like the fuzz on her old teddy if she ran her hand across it, but it had been a while since that had happened.
And that funny little whorl of hair, just on the hairline above his left eyebrow. A whorl she’d touched so often, twirled around her fingers, back when his hair was longer...
Her heart ached, just from looking at him.
She’d loved Andy. She knew that with the deep certainty that had been with her from the day he’d asked her to marry him.
She loved him still—she knew that, too—but she had somehow lost him, and along with him the oneness of them as a couple that had seemed so normal for so long.
Ellie and Andy. Andy and Ellie. All through university; through the almost soul-destroying work schedules of their internship; through their volunteer work in Africa—where they’d seen the worst that human beings could do to each other—their oneness had remained. Their goals, dreams and futures had been inextricably entwined in a way she’d thought would never fray, let alone be pulled apart.
And yet right now they couldn’t have been further apart, for all that Andy had asked her up to his flat in the top section of the old house to discuss some idea he had about a soccer team that he was setting up, which seemed to be of far more interest to him than the split in their relationship.
Or was it a useful diversion from it?
She’d thrown herself into work, but still had far too much time to think of the past and what might have been...
Andy had even cooked her breakfast, though she could have done without the pain that the pretend intimacy of eating together brought with it.
‘So I thought I’d have a barbecue here on Saturday—about lunchtime, before the game. Until we get a proper clubroom there’s nowhere else. I’ll ask some of the older team members to organise the food—just sausages and onions and bread, or bread rolls.’ He looked up at her and grinned. ‘And, yes, I’ll make sure the boys do some of the shopping, not just send the girls.’
Heaven help me! We’ve barely spoken for months, apart from work stuff, and still that grin makes my stomach churn...
Ellie swallowed a sigh along with the last of her toast, left the dirty dishes on the table—after all he had invited her as a guest—and made her way downstairs to her own flat, with its well-set-up medical surgery, enclosed under the old timbered home.
Ellie and Andy had moved to Maytown six months ago—she pregnant at last and Andy excited to be back in his home town, doing the job he’d always dreamed of doing: providing medical care for people in the often harsh Outback.
Maytown, a small town in the mid-west, had been established when settlers had brought sheep to the area, although now it was mainly cattle country. A large coal mine, opened twenty kilometres north of the town, had brought in extra business in recent years, with some of the mining families settling in the town while other workers lived in the on-site camp, flying in and flying out from places on the coast, working shifts of two weeks on duty then one week off.
Ellie had become as keen as he was on the town, both from Andy’s talk of growing up there and her visits to his family, so they’d leapt on Andy’s parents’ suggestion they buy the old house and practice. Andy’s parents had both been doctors, his mother running the practice, his father working at the hospital. The senior Frasers had wanted to move closer to the coast, cutting back on their workloads as they prepared for retirement.
To Andy and Ellie, it had seemed a magical coincidence—a little bit of serendipity—because they’d both wanted to bring up their longed-for child in the country. And it had been an ideal situation, with Ellie working from the surgery downstairs, knowing when she had the baby she’d get help but would still always be on hand, while Andy took over his father’s post at the hospital.
They’d moved in late July, and Ellie had practically danced through the old house, imagining it festooned with Christmas decorations. With the baby due in November, their first Christmas in their new home would be spent celebrating his or her—they hadn’t wanted to know the sex—first Christmas, too.
Just the three of them this year, a family...
It should have been perfect.
Until, at twenty-three weeks, when they’d settled in, and everything seemed to be going so well, she’d lost the baby and somehow, in the ensuing pain and anguish, lost Andy, too.
They’d turned to each other for comfort and support in those first hard weeks, and had also discovered that they were part of a very caring community. The local people had helped them through their grief with comforting words and little acts of kindness, flowers left on the front steps, a picture drawn by a kindergarten child, and more food than they could ever eat.
And, slowly, they’d made their way back to a different kind of peace, each wrapped in their private sorrow, but together still.
Until, six weeks after the loss...
Ellie sighed again.
Had she been wrong?
Pushed too hard?
She didn’t know.
But when she’d talked to Andy about one last attempt at IVF—not immediately, of course, but when her body was ready—Andy’s response had staggered her.
He had been adamant—enraged, really. His answer had been an adamant no.
Their two—well, three now—failed IVF attempts had already cost them too much, both financially and emotionally, and no amount of arguing was going to change his mind. He was done.
Completely done.
And if she thought they needed a baby to make their marriage complete then it couldn’t be much of a marriage.
Stunned by his pronouncement, Ellie’s immediate reaction had been to pack her bags and head back to the city, but she’d grown far too fond of the town and its people to just walk out and leave them without a GP.
Early on, she and Andy had tried to talk—one or other of them calling a truce—but the talk had soon become a row and now too many bitter, hurtful words hung in the air between them. Although Ellie could concede in her head that they would never have a child, she found it so much harder to accept it in her heart.
Even harder to accept that Andy wouldn’t consider trying...
So she’d opted to stay, but had packed her bags, moving into the flat downstairs, built to house the locums his parents had hired to replace Andy’s mother during her own maternity leave.
Did the townspeople know?
Was there gossip?
Ellie assumed they did and that the gossip existed as it did in all country towns, but few attempted to discuss their situation, although she often felt the warmth of their compassion.
The separate living and work situation had turned out for the best, Ellie thought glumly as she made her way through to the surgery and nodded a good morning to Maureen, her receptionist-cum-nurse, who was busy hanging tinsel along the front of her desk.
Dismissing the idea that it could possibly be that close to Christmas when she herself felt so bleak, her thoughts tracked back to Andy... But how were they going to cope with Christmas?
Didn’t the very word conjure up togetherness?
Joy and laughter and sharing...
Happiness, and hope for the future...
Could they carry on with Christmas celebrations as if nothing had ever happened? Sit at one of their tables—just the two of them—with silly paper hats on their heads, reading even sillier jokes?
The