The Doctors' Christmas Reunion / Unwrapping The Neurosurgeon's Heart. Meredith Webber

the high school here in Maytown, maybe Ellie was right about her problem being psychological.

      ‘Was she unhappy about the transfer?’ Andy asked his wife, as she, too, peered down at the sleeping patient. ‘Could she just be miserable?’

      He could practically hear Ellie thinking.

      ‘We have talked about it,’ she said at last. ‘It was easy to bring up because I’m a newcomer to Maytown myself, but she’s always responded enthusiastically: about the town, the school, everything…’

      ‘You’re starting to sound uncertain,’ he said, and saw the little frown line between Ellie’s grey-blue eyes—a line she tried to rub away whenever she was aware of it.

      Like now…

      ‘She might have been too positive about it all,’ she eventually admitted. ‘But, honestly, Andy, I think whatever she has is real. I’ve been thinking fibromyalgia but that’s such a hard thing to pin down and I’ve never known a patient with it, so I’ve no comparison I can make.’

      ‘It’s a good thought, though. That or some other auto-immune problem,’ Andy told her. ‘And having something like that, which is difficult to diagnose, could make her more anxious about possible concussion.’

      ‘Because she knows there’s something wrong with her but if the doctors can’t find what it is, could they also miss something else?’

      Andy put his arm around Ellie’s shoulders, thinking of the times when they’d been studying or working together, and their minds had been so aligned they could finish each other’s thoughts.

      How could something that had been so strong—so right in every way—break down the way their marriage had? How had grief pushed them apart when it should have drawn them closer together? Had he been wrong, not sharing his feelings at the time, not wanting to burden her with more angst?

      He pushed the thoughts away, and focussed on his patient. His go-to strategy since the break-up…

      ‘I think we should leave it for another day,’ he said. ‘I’ll stay a while in case she wakes with more confusion, but I’ll let you go.’

      Andy suggested it because it had been a long day and he knew Ellie would be tired, but thoughts prompted by the words ‘I’ll let you go’ kept running through his head.

      He walked back into the ward where Madeleine was still sleeping.

      He had let Ellie go—quite literally—when the pain of the loss of their baby had been so overwhelming, so all-encompassing for him, he’d felt he hadn’t been able to help her with her grief and despair.

      Or done enough to get through the layers of protection she’d wrapped around her own grief.

      So guilt had been added to his certain knowledge that he could never go through that anguish again—never face the hope and elation, the despair and pain…

      ‘No, no, no!’ he’d shouted when she’d suggested one last round of IVF. ‘No more, not now, not ever.’

      Then he’d killed any chance of redemption with his bitter, caustic words: ‘If this marriage needs a baby to make it complete, then it can’t be much of a marriage.’