'Ah Shelagh. Just who I wanted to speak to.' Sister Julienne walked into the kitchen of Nonnatus House to find her former sister there with Angela being fussed over.

'Hello Sister, what can I help you with?' Shelagh smiled up at her.

'Can we speak? In my office?'

'Of course. Is everything alright?' She handed Angela over to Sister Winifred and followed Sister Julienne.

'I would like you to speak to Nurse Franklin.' Sister Julienne barely let Shelagh sit before she spoke.

'Trixie? Why on earth-?'

'It would seem Mr Hereward and she had parted ways.'

'Oh how sad.' Shelagh gasped. Trixie had been so happy! What could have happened? Sister Hulienne leant forwards onto her desk in a familiar action Shelagh took to mean her former Sister was about to impart some information she was not entirely at liberty to disclose. She smiled at the realisation she was back to having the nuns ear.

'Indeed. Whilst I am not at liberty to disclose the details they had a falling out and she…reacted badly. She refuses to tell him of her slip up and has decided she is not suitable for the life of a curate's wife as a result. I am sure Mr Hereward would not mind this slip up and I told her of the dangers of keeping secrets within a marriage. You, more than anyone I know, know the truth of such a sentiment.' They both took a second to acknowledge the memory of the painful meeting they had had when Shelagh had tearfully phoned her one day after being accepted as an adoptive mother. 'I cannot help but feel responsible for what has happened. I was wondering if you might talk with her-out of all of her friends here you have known her the longest and are best placed to help her I feel.'

'Of course I'll talk to her. Poor Trixie. Poor Mr Hereward.'

'Quite.'

'Do not blame yourself Sister. This was Trixie's decision. You tried to help her because you love her. Noone can judge you ill for that.'

Knock knock.

'Patsy I'm not in the mood to talk to you.'

'It's a good thing I don't answer to Patsy then.' Trixie span over in her bed shocked as the scottish vice reached her.

'Shelagh? I suppose you've heard?' She sighed flopping back over to face the far wall.

'About you and Tom? Yes I have. And I'm very sorry to hear it but that's not quite what I'm here about.'

'It's not?' She frowned as Shelagh sat on the bed opposite her.

'Sister Julienne was filling me in very broadly about what's happened but didn't go into any details. I'm just here to make sure you're alright and to help you if I can. I am technically your longest serving non-nun friend here at the moment.' Trixie smiled just slightly at her appreciation of such a claim. She mulled the situation over for a moment. It was true, Shelagh was now one of her oldest friends and she had never judged her ill before. Surely it couldn't hurt to talk to her friend?

'Tom's been offered a job in the slums of Newcastle. I reacted verbally in front of the Bishop and they made it clear I should be seen and not heard. Tom and I fought. I came back here and…and I drank myself unconscious. I realised I may have a drinking problem just like my father did. Patsy and Babs have been taking bets on who is closer to guessing how soon I'll open 'Trixie's bar' after work. I don't want Tom to know-he wouldn't want to marry me if he knew. I wouldn't fit the 'perfect curates wife. role. Sister Julienne pointed out a good marriage has no secrets. So I'm not getting married. End of.' Trixie huffed.

'Oh Trixie. I'm so sorry.'

'So now you know are you able to offer up magical words to make it all better? Can you wave your magic wand and make everything ticked boo and marvellous for me?' She scowled.

'I can help. Or try to at Julienne didn't mean you'd be a bad wife for keeping secrets you know that. And Tom loves you-that much is clear to see. He wouldn't care-he just wants you to be his wife. He'd help you. Marriage is-'

'Oh grow up. Just because you managed to go and get your happy ending out of a ridiculous situation doesn't mean the rest of us can. Just because the first man you threw yourself at happened to be an incredibly broad minded and forgiving man doesn't mean Tom will be. You have the perfect marriage. What Tom and I could never be half as good as that. Not with me keeping this a secret and it wouldn't happen at all if he knew.' She sat up in bed all but shouting at her friend.

'My marriage isn't perfect Trixie.' Shelagh said quietly, trying to keep the hurt out of her voice. 'It came very close to falling apart last year. Patrick is not the paradigm you think he is and I'm certainly not perfect.'

'What? Because of your infertility? You still got your bloody happy ending. You have the sweetest daughter I've ever seen and a stepson who thinks you hung the moon. And Dr Turner was there every step of the way for you. At clinic after your operation he could barely tear his eyes from you.' Shelagh sighed. The pain of her diagnosis was still raw, she suspected it always would be, so to hear her friend speak as it it was over, as if adopting perfectly made up for the ache in her heart, hurt deeply. Angela was perfect and Shelagh loved her beyond end and there were ways she loved her which she could never have had with a child she had delivered herself but it still lacked in others. despite the numerous times Patrick assured her otherwise there were still moments when she felt a failure for being unable to breastfeed her darling.

'No not then. He kept a huge secret from me, something that had he told me beforehand I would have understood. He thought I would think less of him if I knew. He refused to tell me and I had no idea he was even hiding something until the adoption interview. The interviewer brought it up and could plainly see I was clueless about it and was heartbroken by the revelation. They all but told us that as a result of his dishonesty and evident lack of trust in me we would almost certainly we denied adoptive parent status. Afterwards we fought, I said some things I regret and so did he. I was so angry at him for keeping it bottled up-not just because of what the adoption people had said. I was angry because he had been hurting and I hadn't known. I just wanted to help him.

We both avoided each other for a few days before I stopped being angry and became devastated for what he had suffered through. But he still refused to talk to me. He barely said 100 words to me in three weeks. Immediately after we got the letter to say we had been approved I told him I was miserable. He just walked off. I thought my marriage was over. I seriously did. I started to think about plans for the future without the man I loved and how likely was I to be allowed to keep Timothy as my son. No woman should ever have to think that.

We talked it through eventually and he told me everything in detail. We are so much stronger for it. When he started to trust me more, when I started to listen more, we became closer and stronger and happier and never more sure that we had made the right choice. I know my marriage came from a 'ridiculous place' and that it may seem to some that I 'threw myself at the first man I saw' but it is a healthy and very happy marriage. We trust each other and we work for it and love each other.

Please Trixie, just think about telling him the truth. You and Tom are so good together. You can do anything, be anything, you want to be whether it's a super nurse, a curates wife, a hairdresser to small malnourished children or all of them at once. This Trixie I see who just gives up-that's not the Trixie I came to love as my friend. This is not the woman who was my bridesmaid. Please just think about it-I couldn't stand to see anyone else go through what I did last year. Especially not somebody I love.' With that Shelagh turned and left the room leaving Trixie to her thoughts.

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