Chapter One
The night times hurt the most. That's when the memories come flooding back to her. She could distract herself with work during the day but then, when she is still, with only the erratic sound of Trixie's breath in the bed next to her for comfort, she feels it. It starts as an ache in her stomach and then spreads throughout her whole body so that she burns with it. It is fortunate, she supposes, that in the months since Delia's accident she has become so skilled at crying silently. She rarely wakes Trixie anymore and when she does she tells her the truth, well, half of it, she tells her she's had a nightmare about Delia. Because that's okay. It's fine for Patsy to occasionally appear troubled by the whole affair. It's natural for her to be upset by such a close friend being torn away from her in such a vicious manner. Perfectly understandable for her to fret about Delia's welfare. Her nightly terrors would only become problematic if Trixie was aware that they were so frequent because, as far as Trixie was concerned, Patsy cared for Delia only as a friend and if she appeared too perturbed then it would raise far too many questions about the exact nature of their relationship, and that would never do, not if she wanted to keep her position.
Little did Patsy know that Trixie was all too aware that she lay in bed each night wracked with sobs and engulfed in pain, for Trixie too lay awake each night in torment. At the beginning, she had tried to comfort her but it soon became apparent that Patsy did not want to share her reasons, and this was something that Trixie understood, so she chose to accept it. She'd hardly touched alcohol in the months since she had admitted to having a drink problem, there had been the inevitable slip ups of course, when she'd come home after a particularly trying day and been unable to resist the urge to drown the demons in her head with whatever took her fancy. Still, she had not counted upon how difficult it would be to stop drinking. Had not realised how utterly dependent she had become on the stuff. It pained her to see how her own hands shook and trembled uncontrollably and even more so to know that others could see this. In the months since the night where she had called the Samaritans, Cynthia had tried on so many occasions to talk to her, to offer her counsel and spiritual guidance but she could not bring herself to accept it. It was only a month ago that Sister Julienne had placed Trixie back on the midwifery rota and, as glad as Trixie was to be free of the more tedious tasks she could not help but worry that something would go wrong. After all, something always did where she was involved.
They both rose, as usual, at 6.30am and got ready for the day in silence, each of them preoccupied with thoughts of their own and each of them aware that the other was in no position to be burdened with their troubles. It was sad to think how this room had once been filled with laughter but perhaps what was the saddest thing was that neither of them realised just how much they understood about each other. Patsy was well aware that Trixie was, for all her pretence, struggling with some deep, inner torment. It was, in Patsy's opinion, something that had been in Trixie for all her life but her increasing dependence upon alcohol and her broken engagement with Tom had brought it to the surface so it was something that had become far more difficult for her to ignore. Trixie knew Patsy's darkest secret of all, for she understood that her feelings for Delia were not strictly platonic, in fact, they were not platonic in the slightest.