Chapter 8 – In the Wings
There was something familiar about the shadowy figure half-seen through the frosted glass of my kitchen door. My heart skipped a beat as I went to answer the knock and that is when everything changed.
I'd been thinking that I should leave Portwenn. There were plenty of patients, although whether or not they actually needed a GP's attention was problematic.
It was all so ordinary and boring and empty. There wasn't a waking hour that I didn't think of who was missing. And when I remembered that moment of loss, it centered on the retreating back of Louisa Glasson, wearing a white wedding dress, walking away from the surgery, and out of my daily life.
Encountering Edith Montgomery this week was quite a surprise. Our meeting provided some spark of interest, although having to intervene in Edith's planned treatment of Auntie Joan's friend was medically correct, as well as self-satisfying.
As I looked at Edith as she sat at my table with a wide-eyed look, having come to apologize, I found it quite odd to be near her. The old Edith, the one I pursued so unsuccessfully in marriage years back, was hard-driven and very professional; too professional.
Strangely any romantic encounters we had then were by schedule; hers, not mine. That is when or if they happened, it was per her appointment book.
'How about next Thursday evening at 8:45?' she might suggest, which was very clinical as well as mechanical. I can't say such times were not pleasurable, but they certainly were not spontaneous. However I did ask Edith to marry although Auntie Joan and Uncle Phil could not abide her.
But now, she was here, within arm's reach. The old Edith seemed to be gone, left behind in Canada or California, or wherever she'd disappeared to after medical school. This person I knew slightly, less well than the old one.
All those years ago I would have jumped at her command, but now I found her to be slightly specious in her approach. Considering the nasty way in which I aborted her surgical plan, then having her here apologizing to me, did not quite ring true.
I opened the door and there stood my ex-fiancée. "Louisa!" I exclaimed.
"Hello, Martin!" she answered and gave me a tiny smile; her eyes filled with great promise.
It was so good to see her, but I was frozen in surprise. "How are you?" I asked but there was something about her stance that was different. I looked down and saw a waist filling bump under her shapeless green dress. "You're pregnant!" I said as my eyes flew wide.
"Yes, I am!" she said with pride and touched her abdomen.
When I now see blood, saliva fills my mouth, my stomach roils, and perspiration breaks out on the palms of hands and feet. In a few seconds I am usually trying to hold back a stream of vomitus, rushing up my esophagus.
When I saw Louisa… well, I could breathe for the first time in weeks or months. I stood straighter and I felt a millstone of misery drop from my neck and roll away.
The sight of her pregnant form gave me a sense of wonder, tinged with panic. My God, Louisa, what have we done?