Rosie was happy to let them chatter and laugh. She’d worried every day for the last year that their experience with Michael’s associate had scarred them; but hopefully they’d been too young to realise quite what was going on and how terrified their mother had been.
Once the twins were in bed, she curled up on the sofa with a cup of tea and a puzzle magazine. A year ago, she would never have believed she could be this relaxed again. Some things hadn’t changed; she was still the one who did everything for the twins and did all the cooking and cleaning. But she no longer had to deal with Michael’s mercurial mood swings, his scorn and his contempt, and that made all the difference. Being a single parent was hard, but she had the best family and good friends to support her. And she didn’t have Michael to undermine her confidence all the time.
Various friends had hinted that she ought to start dating again. Part of Rosie missed the closeness of having a partner, someone to cuddle into at stupid o’clock in the morning when she woke from a bad dream. But she’d lost her trust in relationships. Good ones existed, she knew; she’d seen it with her parents and with friends. But Rosie herself had got it so badly wrong with Michael that she didn’t trust her judgement any more. Trusting another man, after the mess of her marriage, would be hard. Too hard. Plus, she had the twins to consider. So she’d become good at turning the conversation to a different subject rather than disappointing her well-meaning friends and family, and any direct suggestions of a date were firmly met with ‘Sorry, no.’
Just as she’d rebuffed Leo Marchetti this evening, when he’d suggested that they went for a drink in the pub over the road after work.
Had she been too hard on him?
OK, so the guy was a charmer, something that set all her inner alarm bells clanging. On the other hand, today had been Leo’s first day at Paddington’s. The only person he knew at the hospital was Robyn, so he was probably feeling a bit lost. Guilt nagged at her. She’d been pretty abrupt with him, and it wasn’t his fault he’d been born with a Y chromosome and was full of charm. She needed to lighten up. Maybe she’d suggest having lunch with him tomorrow.
But she’d make it clear that lunch meant lunch only. She wasn’t in a position to offer anything more. And, if she was honest with herself, it’d be a long time before she was ready to trust anyone with anything more. If ever.
‘YOU’RE IN CLINIC with Rosie, this morning,’ Kathleen said to Leo with a smile when he walked onto the ward. ‘It’s the allergy and immunology clinic.’
‘Great. Just point me in the right direction,’ he said, smiling back.
Hopefully Rosie would be less prickly with him today. And if they could establish a decent working relationship, then he might be able to work out why she drew him so much, and he could deal with it the way he always dealt with things. With a charming smile and a little extra distance.
He looked through the files while he waited for Rosie to turn up.
‘Sorry, sorry,’ she said, rushing in. ‘I was held up this morning.’
‘You’re not late,’ he pointed out, though he was pleased that she didn’t seem quite so defensive with him today.
‘No, but...’ She flapped a dismissive hand. ‘Has anyone told you about today’s clinic?’
‘Kathleen said it was the allergy and immunology clinic, so I’m assuming some of these patients have been coming here for a while.’
‘They have,’ she confirmed.
‘Then at least they have some continuity with you,’ he said with a smile. ‘Are you happy to call our first patient in?’
Their first patient was an eighteen-month-old girl, Gemma Chandler. ‘The doctor asked me last time to keep a food diary with a symptom chart,’ her mother said.
‘May I see them, please?’ Leo asked.
She took it out of her bag and handed it to him; he read the document carefully. ‘So she tends to get tummy pain, wind and diarrhoea, and sometimes her tummy feels bloated to you.’
Mrs Chandler nodded. ‘And sometimes she’s come out in a rash on her face and it’s been itchy. It’s really hard to stop her scratching it.’
‘There are some lotions that help with the itch and last a bit longer than calamine lotion,’ Leo said. ‘I can write you a prescription for that. And you’ve done a really good job on the diary—I can see a very clear link between what she’s eating and her symptoms.’
‘It’s dairy, isn’t it?’ Mrs Chandler bit her lip. ‘I looked it up on the Internet.’
‘The Internet’s useful,’ Leo said, ‘but there are also a lot of scare stories out there and a lot of wrong information, so I’m glad you came to see us as well. Yes, I think it’s an allergy to dairy—more specifically lactose intolerance. What that means is that Gemma’s body doesn’t have enough of the enzyme lactase to deal with any lactose in the body—that’s the sugar in milk. What I think we need to do is try an exclusion diet for the next fortnight to confirm it. So that means I’d like you to check the labels for everything and make sure there’s no milk in anything she eats or drinks. If you can keep doing the food diary and symptom chart, we can review everything in a fortnight.’
‘We can give you some information leaflets about substitutes and vitamin supplements,’ Rosie said. ‘You can give Gemma rice milk instead of cow’s milk, and sunflower margarine instead of butter.’
‘Gemma’s meant to be going to her cousin’s birthday party, next week.’ Mrs Chandler sighed. ‘So that’s going to be difficult—she won’t be able to have any of the sandwiches or any of the cake, will she?’
‘You could do a special packed lunch for her,’ Rosie suggested. ‘And I’m sure if you tell your family and friends, they’ll help you work things out.’ She handed Mrs Chandler a leaflet. ‘Eating out with a toddler can be tricky enough, but having to take a food allergy into account can make it seem overwhelming.’
Was she talking from personal experience? Leo wondered. Or was it because she’d worked with so many patients in the allergy clinic? Not that he could ask without being intrusive, and he didn’t want to give Rosie any excuse to back away from him.
‘There are some good websites on the back of the leaflet for helping you to find places where they offer dairy-free options,’ Rosie said.
‘Thank you,’ Mrs Chandler said.
‘And we’ll see you and Gemma again in a fortnight to see how things are. If her symptoms are better,’ Leo said, ‘I’ll refer you to a dietitian so you can get proper support with a long-term exclusion diet. And in the meantime, if you have any questions or you’re worried about anything, give us a call.’
Mrs Chandler nodded. ‘Will she ever grow out of it? I’ve heard that some children do.’
‘We really can’t tell, right now,’ Leo admitted. ‘I think this is something we’ll need to take one step at a time.’
Once the Chandlers had gone, while Leo was writing up the case notes, Rosie got out the next patient’s notes. ‘Sammy Kennedy. He’s a sweetheart.’
‘What’s he seeing us about?’ Leo asked.
‘He has CAPS.’
Cryopyrin-Associate Periodic Syndrome. Leo knew it was an auto-inflammation disorder where the immune system was overactive and caused prolonged periods of inflammation, rather than the body producing antibodies against itself. ‘That’s rare,’ he said. ‘About one in a million. Actually, I’ve only seen one case before.’
‘Sammy’s my only case, too,’ she said. ‘Most patients with CAPS in the UK have Muckle-Wells Syndrome, and that’s the variant Sammy has.’