The Ripple Effect (10 page)

“So he loves you?”

“Maybe.”

“Do you love him?”

Melanie didn’t reply and when Joelle glanced across she was staring blindly out the window. “Mel?”

“Since when have you been interested in my life?”

“You’re my sister.”

“So? That doesn’t mean…”

“There’s no law that says you have to love your family?” asked Joelle wryly. She glanced across to find was Melanie staring at her.

She said in a strained, hurt sounding voice, “No I wasn’t thinking that at all. I was going to say it doesn’t mean you have to approve of everything I do or vice versa. Of course, I love you.”

“Do you?”

“Just because we used to fight a lot and don’t see each other much and—”

“Don’t have anything in common and want completely different things from life,” added Joelle. She laughed softly. “I love you too, Mel. Despite all past evidence to the contrary.”

“I know that.” She sniffed and to Joelle’s surprise dragged a hand across her eyes quickly. “Stupid—being pregnant makes me cry at anything.”

“Susan told me she’s really teary too. In between throwing up.”

“I haven’t had that, thank God, but I can’t stand the smell of tea or coffee any more. And I get very tired.”

“Do you want to stay with me tonight? It’s late and my place is closer.”

“No thanks, Jo. I don’t want to get in your way.”

“You wouldn’t. Who’s your doctor? Are you going to Doctor Davis?”

“Hardly. I never liked him even when I was a kid. He scared me. His hands are all hairy.”

Joelle snorted with laughter. “Those eyebrows—like a hedge. God knows why Mum and Dad still go to him. He should have retired years ago. I switched to Doctor Ceely. She’s good. I much prefer having a woman peer at me than a yeti.”

Melanie gave a little chuckling laugh and Joelle was pleased by the sound.

Mel said, “I haven’t been to any doctor yet.”

“I’ll give you her number. You make sure you go to see her. It’s important. I want my niece or nephew to be in good hands.”

“Thanks.”

“Mel, call me if you need help. Any sort of help, I mean. You will, won’t you?”

“Sure. You know, I thought it would be the other way around—that Mum and Dad would be okay with this and you’d be the disgusted one.”

“I don’t think they’re disgusted. Shocked is more like it.”

“Mum was furious.”

“She’ll come round. She loves you too much to desert you. Dad will calm her down.”

“He wasn’t very happy either.”

“What made you think I’d be the disgusted one, anyway?

“You’re so perfect. You don’t make mistakes the way I do. I thought you’d look down your nose at me and say it’s what I deserved.”

“Jeepers, Mel. We don’t know each other at all, do we?”

“No.”

A new delivery of liliums arrived at the shop on Monday morning. The heady perfume reminded Joelle of her mother’s comment and the questions surrounding that mysterious customer who was also a mysterious visitor. ‘He’ she’d said, perhaps inadvertently letting slip a clue. How many ‘he’s’ had bought bunches of flowers with liliums in them on Friday? Only one sprang to mind immediately. Doctor Shay Brookes. Why would he visit her parents?

Shay returned to the surgery on Monday and was immediately presented with a pile of patients’ folders whose owners were due in that morning.

“Thank you, Kavita,” he said and sighed. “It feels as though I haven’t had a break, and I’ve been back all of fifteen minutes.”

“How is your family, Doctor? Are they well?” Kavita’s rounded Indian-accented vowels and precise pronunciation always made him feel he should speak more correctly but he knew she would be amazed to hear him admit such a thing.

“Yes thanks,” he replied. “How are the children? Your son started high school this year, didn’t he?”

“Very well, thank you. Sanjeev is enjoying high school mathematics he tells us. We are very glad because we want him to become a doctor.”

“There’s no reason why he can’t.”

“That’s what we tell him.” She smiled displaying her perfect, glittering white teeth. “Mrs Brady is here, Doctor. Shall I send her in?”

“Give me a couple of minutes first, Kavita, thanks.” Shay picked up Mrs Brady’s case notes and reminded himself of her condition. Probably coming in for a repeat prescription of her blood pressure medication…mmm.

At eleven Kavita brought him a cup of tea and two biscuits. At twelve thirty, he took a lunch break. Jane Riley and Steve Smith, the senior partners in the practice, were both out. Jane had patients in the afternoon but Steve was at the local old folks’ home all day on Mondays.

Shay returned half an hour later with a couple of rolls and a chocolate muffin from the bakery across the road. Kavita handed him a sheaf of messages and he went to his room to sift them through while he ate. He had several phone calls to make arising from the morning’s patients, x-rays and a biopsy to study which had come in last week and been screened by Jane. Plenty to do and all he could think about was his sister. Lovely Joelle.

The weekend had been spent in an agony of indecision. To call or not to call. Calling her would almost certainly create incredible complications if he’d read her reactions—her attraction—correctly. Not calling her was physically painful. His stomach tied itself into knots just thinking about it.

Another option was to have another go at those parents. See if he could convince them to tell her about the adoption. The way Natalie had reacted he had his doubts about the wisdom and likely success of that approach. But if he did nothing he’d either go crazy or grow ulcers. It was almost worse than not knowing anything at all.

Shay dragged his mind back to work. He studied the top message and rang the hospital to insist on admittance for elderly Tomas Grzic. Then a call to check and discuss the blood test results on Lucy Day, which looked surprisingly normal when all symptoms suggested otherwise.

His desk phone rang and Kavita said, “Excuse me, Doctor, do you have time to speak to someone?”

“Who is it?” He scribbled a note to remind himself to check into Lucy’s family history.

“She said it’s a personal matter. Her name’s Joelle Paice.”

Shay froze. The hand holding the pen hung suspended above the note pad.

“Doctor Brookes?”

“Yes, put her through, thanks,” he croaked. The line clicked and a light flashed on his phone.

“Hello, Joelle?”

“Hello is that Shay? I mean Dr Brookes?” She sounded young and very nervous.

“Yes. I’m amazed to hear from you. I was just thinking about you.”

“Were you? I thought maybe you wouldn’t remember who I was. My name. I hope you don’t mind my phoning you at work but this was the only number on the card.” The words tumbled out in a torrent, breathless.

“Of course I remember you…what can I do for you? You’re not ill are you?”

“No, no. This is going to sound silly…I’m sorry to bother you when you’re working but…can you tell me who you visited when you came down last week?”

The nervous girlishness had gone, replaced by a steely determination he found hard to reconcile with his memory of her. She’d seemed soft and pretty in a creative arty way, surrounded by her flowers and dreaming of Japan. The type of girl upset at having to tell a boyfriend he was no longer desirable, who loved her family and was well loved in return.

“Tell you?” Shay gulped. Did she know? Why else would she ring and ask that?

“I’m being nosey, I know, I’m sorry. It’s just that it’s to do with the flowers, you see. Someone gave my mother flowers and she won’t tell us who and she and Dad are being really cagey about it. They’re not usually so secretive.”

“Why do you think because I bought flowers I visited your mother?” he asked, stalling. His brain had gone into neutral, the gears spinning uselessly, unable to engage and operate any rational thought processes.

“Because her flowers came from my shop, and you were the only man that day, it could have been. It’s been driving me nuts wondering why.”

A silence stretched between them. Her breath fluttered into the phone. His brain clicked and whirred—slow her down, head her back to her parents. They caused the problem.

“Maybe they have a good reason for not telling you,” he said.

“I can’t think of one and neither can my sister,” she said dismissing any further speculation in that direction.

He waited but she didn’t continue. His turn. “So you think I visited your parents?”

“Did you visit William and Natalie Paice?”

Shay sucked in a breath. Here it was. Unavoidable as it had been from the moment he discovered who she was. Lies always come back to bite you on the bum. The gospel according to Stan Brookes. He prepared to set the first domino in motion. Or had he already done that?

“Yes,” he said.

She gasped and then, “Why?” came almost in a whisper.

“I was looking for someone I thought they may know.”

“You said you were tracing a relative…from your birth family?” Now she sounded relieved as understanding dawned. “You thought maybe they’d been at Dad’s school or something? He knew lots of people. Thousands of children came through under him.”

“Something like that,” agreed Shay, grasping at this lifeline.

“Did you find whoever it was? Did they help?”

“In a way. They thought I shouldn’t contact the woman.”

“A woman? They knew her? Why did they say that?”

“You’d have to ask them.”

“Was it your sister?” she asked suddenly. “Did you think they may know your sister?”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you tell me you’d been to see them?”

“Why would I? I didn’t know you were related.”

“I thought…when you came back…maybe. No you’re right. Why should you, it was your private business. Didn’t you know I was their daughter?”

“Not at first.”

“The flowers?”

“Yes. Your father mentioned you ran the shop.”

“So wait a minute, you’re saying they know who your sister is and won’t tell you?”

Shay hesitated. This was bordering on the insanely dangerous but what could he do? Hang up on her? She was not to be fobbed off. Lies, lies, lies and more lies. How right Stan and Amy had been not to keep his origins secret. “They don’t think I should upset her life because she doesn’t know she has a brother.”

“That’s very unfair. It should be her decision not theirs. What are you going to do?” Full of righteous indignation now.
Oh Joelle, Joelle.

“I can’t do anything. It’s driving me nuts.”

“Shay, come with me to see them again. I can help you, I know I can.”

“Joelle, I think if you became involved your parents would be very angry. They weren’t pleased the first time I talked to them. I don’t want to upset them and cause trouble in your family.”

Joelle laughed. “There’s already trouble in my family. My unmarried, unattached and chronically broke sister Melanie just announced she’s pregnant. What a bombshell. Nothing I could do would blow them more completely out of the water than that. They went ballistic.”

“All the more reason to let them calm down,” he said. Little did she know.

“Why Shay? This has nothing to do with them. It’s just my parents being moralistic and judgemental. You should have heard what Mum said to poor Mel. You have every right to the information they have and so does your sister. They can’t justify keeping a secret like that.”

“I agree.”

“Well? At least together, we might stand a better chance of making them change their minds, Shay. Can you come down this weekend? You could stay overnight.” She paused and then added, “I have a spare room.”

“I’ll come on Saturday but I won’t stay overnight, Joelle, thanks.”

“Okay. Come to the shop at one. That’s when we close. We can go straight to their place.”

When Joelle hung up, Shay realised he’d been frozen in place for the whole conversation. The hand clutching the receiver to his ear was stiff and the fingers clammy with sweat. His other hand still held the pen rigidly over the notepad.

Saturday. D-day. She thought Natalie and William had gone ballistic over the sister’s pregnancy…Shay swallowed and replaced the receiver precisely onto the cradle.

Joelle dropped her mobile phone, her hand was shaking so badly when she finished the call. Sitting on a bench under a tree in the virtually deserted Sunshine Point community park, she managed to catch the pink-cased mobile before it hit the ground. She stuffed it into her bag and sat, stunned and amazed at what she’d done and even more so at what she’d learned.

How had she summoned the courage to make that call in the first place? How on earth had she convinced herself to do it? All morning she’d toyed with the idea. His face swam across her vision constantly. She’d even dreamed of him on Sunday night despite all the other calamities that had occurred. How could she contact him again? What reason could she possibly give a man who hadn’t seemed keen to continue their very brief relationship? He might think she was the worst kind of nuisance. Even a potential stalker.

But seeing him again had become an imperative. Deep in her heart, Joelle knew this man, this Doctor Shay Brookes, was her destiny. They were meant to be and if he hadn’t realised it she would damn well make him.

The flowers question provided the perfect excuse. She hadn’t desperately wanted to find out who the mystery buyer was because he could have come in when she was in the loo or having lunch. It began as a mildly interesting puzzle except for one thing. Shay appeared to fit the profile and if he was at all involved with her parents, she really did want to know why. If he wasn’t, at least she’d have placed herself squarely in his consciousness.

The very last thing she expected was to discover that not only was he the mystery visitor but her parents had behaved in a most uncharacteristically, unfriendly and very unhelpful manner. Why would they do that?

Joelle sat deep in thought for another ten minutes and reached a decision. She would go to their place tonight straight after work and ask them.

William handed Natalie a gin and tonic. She took it with a half smile of thanks but her face immediately resumed the tense expression it had worn since Mel dropped her bomb last night.