might be for ever?’ He sounded appalled. As well he might.
‘I’m saying for as long as I’m needed. Do I have a choice?’
He had the answer to that one. ‘Yes,’ he said flatly. ‘Bring your sister here. You can’t tell me there aren’t far better medical facilities in Sydney than on Petrel Island. And who’s going to be treating physician? You? You know that’s a recipe for disaster. Caring for your own family… I don’t think so.’
‘There’s no one else.’
‘There’s no one else in Sydney?’ he asked incredulously.
‘No. On the island. Beth won’t leave the island.’
‘She doesn’t have a choice,’ Grady said, the gentleness returning to his voice. Gentle but right. Sympathetic but firm. ‘You have a life, Morag, and your life is here.’
‘And Robbie? Her little boy? What of his life?’
‘Maybe he’s going to have to move on. Plenty of kids have a city life. It won’t hurt him to spend a couple of months in Sydney.’
‘You mean I should bring them both here while Beth dies.’
‘You have a life, too,’ he told her. ‘It sounds dreadful—I know it does—but if your sister is dying then you have to think past the event.’
‘Take care of the living?’
‘That’s right,’ he said, his face clearing a little. ‘Your sister will see that. She sounds a pragmatic person. Not selfish…’
‘No. Not selfish. Never selfish.’
‘You need to think long term. She’ll be thinking long term.’
‘She is,’ Morag said dully. ‘That’s why she rang me. She’s been ill for months and she’s been searching for some way not to ask me. But it’s come to this. She doesn’t have a choice and neither do I. Without Beth the community doesn’t have a doctor. Robbie doesn’t have a mother. And I’m it.’
Silence. Then… ‘Your mother?’
‘You’ve met my mother. Barbara take care of Robbie? He’s not even her grandchild. Don’t be stupid.’
He looked flatly at her, aghast. ‘You’re not seriously suggesting you throw everything up here?’ he demanded. ‘Take over the care of a dying sister? Take on the mothering of a child, and the medical needs of a tiny island hundreds of miles from the mainland? Morag, you have to be kidding!’
‘Do you think I’d joke about something like this?’
‘Look, don’t make any decisions,’ he said urgently. ‘Not yet. Get compassionate leave for a week or two and take it from there. I’ll come over and do some reorganisation—’
‘Some reorganisation?’
‘I’ll talk to the flying doctor service. We’ll see if we can get a clinic over there once a month or so to keep the locals happy. I can organise an apartment here that’d accommodate your sister. Maybe we can figure out a long-term carer for the kid on the island. He can go to day care here while his mum’s alive, and then we’ll find someone to take him over long term.’
Great. For the first time since Beth had telephoned, Morag felt an emotion that was so fierce it overrode her complete and utter devastation. She raised her face to his and met his look head on. He was doing what he was so good at. Crisis management. He was taking disaster and hauling it into manageable bits.
But this was Beth. Beth!
‘Do you know what love is?’ she whispered.
He looked confused. ‘Sure I do, Morag.’ He reached forward and would have taken her hand again but she snatched it back like he’d burn her. ‘You and I—’
‘You and I don’t have a thing. Not any more. This is Beth we’re talking about. Beth. My darling sister. The woman who cares for me and loves me and who put her own life on hold for me so many times I can’t think about it. You’d have me repay that by taking a couple of weeks’ leave?’
‘Morag, this is your life.’
‘Our lives. Mine and Beth’s. They intertwine. As ours—yours and mine—don’t any more.’ She rose and stood, staring down at him, her sudden surge of anger replaced by unutterable sadness. Unutterable weariness. ‘Grady, I can’t stay here,’ she whispered. ‘I’m going home. I’m going back to Petrel Island and I won’t be coming back.’
He stayed seated, emphasising the growing gulf between them. ‘But you don’t want—’
‘What I want doesn’t come into it.’
‘And what I want?’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘I want you, Morag.’
‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘No, you don’t. You want the part of me that I thought I could become. That I thought I was. Independent career doctor, city girl, partner while we had the best fun…’
He rose then but it was different. He put his hands on her shoulders and bent to kiss her lightly on the lips. It was a fleeting gesture but she knew exactly what he was doing, and the pain was building past the point where she could bear it. ‘We did have fun,’ he told her.
‘We did.’ She swallowed. It wasn’t Grady’s fault that she’d fallen hopelessly in love with him, she realised. Beth’s illness wasn’t his fault, and it wasn’t his fault that their lives from now on would be totally incompatible.
It wasn’t his fault that now he was letting her go.
For richer and for poorer. In sickness and in health. Whither thou goest, I will go…
Ha! It was never going to work. Beth needed her.
And Grady wasn’t going to follow.
But his hand suddenly lifted to her face, as if he’d had second thoughts. He cupped her chin and forced her eyes to his. ‘You can’t go.’ His voice was low, suddenly gruff and serious. The caring and competent young doctor had suddenly been replaced by someone who was unsure. ‘Morag, these last few weeks… It’s been fantastic. You know that I love you.’
Did he? Until this evening she’d thought—she’d hoped that he had. And she’d thought she loved him.
Whither thou goest, I will go.
No. It hadn’t reached that stage yet. She looked into his uncertain eyes and she knew that the line hadn’t been crossed. Which was just as well. It made the decision she was making now bearable. Just. Maybe.
‘No,’ she said softly. ‘You don’t love me. Not yet. But I do love Beth, and she needs me. The island needs me. It was wonderful, Grady, but I need to move on.’
Even then he could have stopped her. He could have come up with some sort of alternative. Come with her now, try the island for size, think of how it could work…
No. That was desperation talking and desperation had no foundation in solid, dreadful reality.
She didn’t need to end this. It was already over.
‘What can I do?’ he asked, and she bit her lip.
‘Nothing.’ Nothing she could ever vocalise. ‘Just say goodbye.’
And that was that.
She rose on tiptoe and kissed him again, hard this time, and fast, tasting him, savouring him for one last moment. One fleeting minute. And then, before he could respond, she’d straightened and backed away.
‘I need to go, Grady,’ she told him, trying desperately to keep the tears from her voice. ‘It’s been…fabulous. But I need…to follow my heart.’
CHAPTER