we don’t mind people depending on us. Like our parents. So she fell blindly in love, or she thought she did, and when I tried to intervene she hated me for it. And the more right I was, the more she hated me.’
‘That must have been hell!’
‘It was,’ he said bitterly. And then added, ‘It still is.’
‘She still holds it against you?’
‘I guess.’ He shrugged. ‘But I love my little sister, Em, and I’m doing everything I can to get her life back on track. Now Kevin’s gone I have a chance. Unless this bloody disease…’
‘Hey!’ Unconsciously Em’s hand flew across to rest on his on the steering-wheel. ‘Hey, Jonas, you know the odds. They’re very, very good.’
‘Yeah, but it’s a scary word-cancer,’ he told her, and she pressed his hand once more.
‘Try cyst, then,’ she said softly. ‘Until tomorrow.’
‘You don’t think it’s a cyst. It’ll be cancer and maybe it’ll have spread. Good things don’t happen to our family.’ His hands clenched and clenched again and again on the steering-wheel, and she could feel the strain in the muscles under her hand. ‘Good things don’t happen to Anna.’
‘I think they do,’ she said softly.
He gave a harsh laugh. ‘And how do you figure that one out?’
‘Because she has you,’ she said gently. ‘Because you’re with her every step of the way.’
‘She won’t let me be.’
‘As my partner, you can’t be anywhere else,’ she told him.
‘You agree-to play along?’
‘I agree that I need you,’ she said simply. ‘For as long as it takes.’
And that was that.
Only it wasn’t quite as simple as he had made out, Em thought as she lay waiting for sleep that night. Blessedly the hospital was quiet. Last night’s twins had been airlifted to Sydney, Henry Tozer’s gallstones, which had troubled both Henry and Em last night, had finally settled and peace reigned over the wards.
Bernard was snoring peacefully at the foot of the bed. All was right with his world.
Em should have done the same. Instead, she lay and stared into the darkness and wondered about the promise she’d just made.
If indeed Anna’s lump turned out to be malignant, then Jonas might well want to stay for her operation and afterwards, for the further weeks of radiotherapy and possibly chemo. Em figured it out in her head. It’d take at least three months, she thought. She could have him here for three months.
And all the time he’d be pretending he was staying for Em’s sake, and not Anna’s.
That was all very well, she thought, but where did that leave her?
Bernard stirred and whoofled in his sleep-which amounted to the ancient mutt’s complete exercise for the day. Em hauled him close and hugged his portly frame, but he was already asleep again. She arranged him back at her feet, like some huge, hairy pyjama-bag, then lay back and fingered her firmly braided hair.
She was close to thirty, she told herself, and here she was, sleeping in a single bed with a dog who stayed awake all of sixty seconds per day! And that was to eat. All of a sudden she had an almost irresistible urge to unbraid her hair and shift the snoring Bernard out of the room.
‘But I won’t do it,’ she told the battered old dog, and she knew she wouldn’t. ‘You’re my constant, Bernard Heinz. Bay Beach needs a dedicated doctor, and I’m it. Now Charlie’s gone, you’re the only male in my life, and that’s the way it’s going to stay. Now and for ever.’
For ever…
CHAPTER FOUR
EMILY made the journey to Blairglen the following morning, specifically to see Anna at the end of her tests. She knew Jonas was with her but, if she could, she needed to be there, too.
Luckily, it was Tuesday. Em had an arrangement with a doctor who worked south of Bay Beach. They were both overworked, but in emergencies they gave anaesthetics for each other, or covered if one was ill. They’d formalised this so that every Tuesday Chris was officially ‘on call’ for Em, and every Thursday she did the same for him.
It didn’t give them time off. What it meant was that they could do house calls in outlying areas where the cellphones were out of range, and while they did it they knew the nursing staff had someone they could contact in an emergency.
And this Tuesday it meant that Em could rise early, check her hospital patients, visit a patient on the northernmost tip of her district and then travel the extra distance to end up at Blairglen Hospital.
Blairglen Breast Screen in particular.
Anna’s mammogram had been scheduled for ten-thirty so Anna was well through the X-ray department by the time she got there. As referring doctor, Em asked to see the X-rays before she saw Anna, and her heart sank at what was put up on the screen.
This didn’t look like a cyst.
On the other hand, she told herself firmly, deliberately thinking positively, it looked a firmly contained mass. There was only the one small lump, and there was no other suspicious area.
‘Where’s Anna now?’ she asked the nurse in charge, and was pointed through into the procedures room.
‘They’ve done an ultrasound, and now they’re doing a biopsy,’ the nurse told her. ‘But she’s seen the X-rays and her brother’s explained what it means. He’s nice, isn’t he? He’s still with her.’
Yes, he was nice, but Em was focused on Anna. ‘Can I go in?’
‘Sure,’ the nurse told her.
So Em went in. Anna was lying on the procedure trolley, while a biopsy was taken. The medical team were taking tiny core samples of the tumour.
They weren’t wasting any time, Anna thought. Which was good. By the end of today they’d have solid answers. That was something, at least, even if the answers weren’t the ones they’d hoped for.
From the door, Em could hardly see Anna, but she saw Jonas at once. He looked up as she entered, and she saw straight away the strain and shock he was feeling.
It was impossible to be doctor and brother at the same time, she thought, and her heart went out to him. What had the nurse said? He’d explained the X-rays to Anna? Surely that wasn’t his job.
But her focus now still had to be on Anna. She crossed to the table, a nurse made room for her and she lifted Anna’s hand as the doctors worked on.
‘Hi,’ she told her. ‘Not great news, huh?’
Anna shook her head, and a tear slipped down her cheek. She looked terrible, clothed in a pallid, green hospital gown, her face bloodless, and only her bright hair giving any vestige of colour. The doctor was taking a biopsy of her breast at that moment. Even though she was anaesthetised and there’d be no pain, Anna’s lips were clenched, and Em saw she was very close to the edge.
Without a word Em grabbed a tissue, held it to Anna’s eyes, and then placed it in her hand. ‘The specimen’s been taken,’ she told her as the doctor moved away. ‘Anna, it’s finished. That’s the last of the tests.’
‘It’s cancer.’
‘Yes, it’s cancer. Anna, this is bad news, but not terrible. You hang on to that.’ She flicked a glance at the radiologist in charge, a woman in her fifties. ‘This probably won’t even mean a mastectomy, will it, Margaret?’
‘Not on the basis of what we’ve found.’ Margaret White was Blairglen’s senior radiologist. Normally, to do a mastectomy or not was a surgeon’s decision, but Patrick May, who did Blairglen’s breast surgery, worked hand in glove with Margaret and he didn’t mind if Margaret stepped in with early reassurance. ‘You’ll be using Patrick?’
‘That’s who I’ll be suggesting,’ Em said. She took Anna’s hand and smiled down at her. ‘Anna, Patrick May is one of the best surgeons I’ve met.’ She hesitated and then smiled again. ‘Apart from your brother, of course.’
That brought a weak twinkle in response, as Anna looked up at Jonas’s strained face. ‘Of…of course.’
‘Patrick’s good,’ Em reiterated, for the benefit of Jonas, who was looking doubtful. ‘If you-and Jonas-are happy
