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

‘That woman comes to see me at least three times a week and I swear she’s the healthiest patient I’ve ever seen.’

      Andy looked puzzled.

      ‘But if you don’t like her, why did you come up to the hospital with me?’

      She looked into the dark eyes she knew so well.

      ‘I don’t dislike her, and anyway, you asked me to,’ she reminded him, which seemed to make him even more puzzled.

      ‘I’ll walk home,’ she said, desperate to get away from the hospital and Madeleine Courtney, but most desperately needing distance between herself and Andy—distance so she could think…

       CHAPTER FOUR

      ‘I MIGHT JUST as well have stayed with you at the hospital for all the sleep I got,’ Ellie grumbled as she bumped into Andy in the en suite bathroom next morning.

      A freshly showered and shaved Andy. The scent of his familiar aftershave filling her with a sense of longing.

      ‘I slept like a log in a spare room at the hospital,’ he said cheerfully. ‘The nurses knew to wake me if Madeleine’s condition showed any signs of deterioration, but there was really nothing wrong with her. I saw from her file she’d been seeing you quite often—is there something specific, do you think?’

      ‘Not that I and a battery of tests can find,’ Ellie muttered, so distracted by her husband’s proximity she could barely think straight.

      Had Andy picked up on a terseness in her voice that he said, ‘Well, she’s been very helpful to me with the soccer teams.’

      Ellie bit back the comment, I’m sure she has, which she’d have liked to utter, and backed out of the room. Maybe if she took a few deep breaths, the room would be vacant by the time she returned.

      And had Andy always worn aftershave to work?

      She didn’t think so, given the variety of allergies doctors were likely to encounter in their patients.

      Was that jealousy coiled like a serpent in her stomach? And, if it was, did she have any right to be jealous? Whatever she and Andy had, it was hardly a marriage in the real sense of the word.

      Not now. Not any more…

      But I love him, a voice whispered in her heart, which she instantly dismissed as nonsense.

      She was tired. She needed to have a shower, a quick breakfast, and get back to work. She must remember to phone the high school about Chelsea getting in there, probably starting next week as there were only a couple of weeks left in the term…

      And she should give their guest some money for paint. The previous night, after some prodding and prompting, Chelsea had admitted she’d like pale green walls, and both Andy and Ellie were happy to go along with that idea.

      Ellie would need to buy brushes and rollers, a tin for the rollers, and some plastic spreadsheets.

      By the time Ellie was showered and dressed the list she’d been using as a distraction had grown so long she knew it would be easier to take Chelsea to the hardware store in her lunch hour with the car, so they could bring everything back home.

      The gods had decided to be kind to her. She reached the kitchen to grab some breakfast, to find it was Andy-free.

      ‘He only came home for a shower and some fresh clothes,’ Chelsea explained to Ellie. ‘He said he’d had a patient in a road crash last night so I suppose he was up all night.’

      There was no point in disabusing Chelsea of that notion, no reason why she should be caught up in their marital stalemate…

      Much better to concentrate on pale green walls.

      ‘I should be home by twelve-thirty,’ she told Chelsea. ‘If you grab something to eat before then, we’ll go down town and get what you need for decorating your room. Have you done any painting?’

      Chelsea beamed at her.

      ‘Dad taught me. He said girls should be useful around the house, so when I turned ten I got to choose what colour I wanted my room, and he showed me how to paint it.’

      Not a totally absent father, then, Ellie thought.

      Ellie’s morning passed smoothly, although again, as she listened to some of her elderly male patients, she wondered what could be done to occupy their time.

      Chelsea picked up on it when they were in the hardware store, where several older men were poking around, fiddling with bolts and nuts, lifting things and putting them back, looking, more than shopping.

      ‘Don’t they have anything to do?’ she asked.

      ‘Not a lot,’ Ellie told her honestly.

      ‘They need a Men’s Shed,’ Chelsea said, echoing what had only been a nebulous thought in Ellie’s mind.

      ‘What do you know about Men’s Sheds?’ she asked, and Chelsea smiled.

      ‘My gramps—Mum’s dad—belongs to one. They get old bicycles and old plastic chairs, sometimes from hotels, and turn them into wheelchairs that they send off to Africa and the Pacific Islands—anywhere people can’t afford fancy wheelchairs.’

      ‘Does your gramps still do it?’ Ellie asked, excited by the idea.

      ‘Sure.’

      ‘And would he send you instructions on how to do it?’

      ‘I’m sure he would.

      ‘Well, let’s phone and ask him—you can use our phone.’

      ‘I’ll write to him,’ Chelsea replied, ‘because I’ll have to explain why I’m here and not at home. He’ll probably assume Mum arranged it before she went away.’

      They collected all they needed, Chelsea insisting on paying with her credit card, and headed home, seeing more elderly men sitting on a bench outside the supermarket.

      The Men’s Shed idea was growing, but how many old bicycles and plastic chairs could they source in Maytown?

      ‘Plenty!’ Andy said, when they were discussing the idea over dinner. ‘I bet you’ve never had a good look in our garden shed. I’d say there’d be half a dozen in there. We all had bikes as kids, and when we outgrew the small ones, we got bigger ones, or for the girls just fancier ones. The old ones always ended up in the shed—just in case we might need them later, or could give them to a friend or a cousin.’

      ‘And I suppose the garden shed might also house any number of old plastic chairs?’ Ellie said, with only a slight edge of sarcasm.

      ‘Well, if you mean those white ones that stack easily, then yes, there’d be some. We always needed extra chairs when relatives came for Christmas, and Mum and Dad never threw anything away. You never know when it might come in handy, that’s Mum’s favourite saying.’

      Ellie could only shake her head, but Chelsea was all for going down to explore the garden shed immediately.

      ‘Not at night, my girl,’ Andy said firmly. ‘The place hasn’t been opened for months and who knows what snake might have made his home in there. I’ll go down in the morning and open the doors and bang the sides a bit so any nasties lurking in there will have time to get out before we explore.’

      ‘Oh, well,’ Chelsea said, ‘I have to email Gramps anyway, so I’ll do that now.’

      ‘Just as soon as we’ve cleaned up after dinner,’ Ellie reminded her, and Chelsea leapt to her feet and began to clear the table, Andy deciding that with two people already cleaning up, he could