Eden kept her arms by her sides as they walked down the hill towards the beach. If this had been anofficialdate, she might have linked her arm through his, but she still wasn’t even sure what it was. She’d asked him to a party and he’d said yes, that was all she knew for certain. Whatever this was, she was glad Felix had pushed her into asking Drew and she’d meant what she’d said in her text, she was looking forward to it far more than she would have been without him.
Amy was hosting the party in a new restaurant that had huge bifold doors which opened onto a boardwalk, with steps down to the beach. When the tide was out, the restaurant’s guests could play games on the sand. Amy had explained her decision to have the party there when she, Isla and Eden had been having a coffee outside the hospital shop.
‘It sounds fabulous.’ Gwen’s eyes had glittered. As the lynchpin that unofficially held the entire hospital together, it had been inevitable that she would be invited to the farewell party too and she was never going to be a wallflower. ‘If this Indian summer keeps on, we might even be able to go for a swim.’
‘Should I pack my swimsuit just in case?’ Isla had pulled a face, clearly thinking Gwen was joking, but she should have known better.
‘No need for that. Undies will work just as well if the mood takes you.’
Eden might be wearing her very best matching underwear beneath her jumpsuit, but that was just to make herself feel more confident about the way she looked, even if no one could see it. In fact, there was absolutely no way anyone would see it, because she’d rather pull her own fingernails out than strip off in front of her colleagues and run into the sea. She had a feeling Drew would be even less keen to get involved in an impromptu dip in his underwear, but it wouldn’t surprise her at all if Gwen led the charge. That woman wasn’t frightened of anything, or at least she didn’t seem to be. Eden on the other hand was an expert at second-guessing everything and worrying about things that hadn’t even happened. She’d spent so much time worrying about how today would go that she hadn’t even allowed herself to imagine a scenario where it might just be lovely. Although now that she was walking side by side with Drew, it suddenly seemed like a strong possibility.
There was a question she’d been dying to ask him, but she only felt able to do it now that they were face to face. ‘I saw Ali Wilson the other day when he came into the hospital. He said he knows you.’
‘Ah yes, we met at… Yes, I know, Ali.’ Drew clearly didn’t want to break any confidences without being certain of how much Eden knew and she felt another surge of affection for him. He was such a good man and he just kept on proving it.
‘I couldn’t believe how much better Ali looked than the last time I saw him. The mentoring is obviously paying off, but I had no idea you volunteered with Domusamare.’
‘He told you that I’m his mentor?’
‘Yes, and how much difference it’s made to him. With your job it must be hard to fit it all in.’ She wanted to tell him how impressed she was that he made time for volunteering, but before she even got the chance he did his best to make it sound like nothing much at all.
‘It’s no big deal. Just a couple of hours a week face to face, but most of it’s done on the phone. I work with a couple of local charities, ones that are close to my heart.’ For a moment it looked as if that might be the end of the conversation, but then Drew took a deep breath. ‘I started volunteering with a homelessness charity when I was still in Scotland. I got involved after someone I knew used their services and I saw what a difference they make. I wanted to work with a similar charity when I moved here and when someone told me about Domusamare, I knew it would be a good fit. I do some work with one of the local autism support charities too.’
‘That’s great. I still can’t understand how you fit it all in.’ Every time she found out something else about Drew she liked him even more than she had before. Nothing about him was a disappointment, or a red flag that made her want to back off. After what she’d been through with Jesse, that was nothing short of a miracle.
‘I’m sure it won’t surprise you to hear this, but I’m not exactly a party animal, which means when I’m not working, I have more free time than anyone probably ought to.’
‘Oh no and there I was counting on you to be the first on the dance floor.’ Eden laughed, just to make sure he knew she was joking. ‘Anyway, never mind the dancing, I don’t know about you but I’m ready for a couple of drinks. It’s been a long day of wrangling with bureaucracy and pulling together everything I need to try and get Teddie a place at the right school. Thanks again for all the information you sent me by the way, but please tell me your day has been more exciting than mine.’
‘It’s been okay. I was on call overnight and into this morning, but nothing came in.’ He’d told her before that he was part of an area-wide team providing 24/7 cover for forensic cases, as part of his broader hospital role. Living and working in such a rural area meant that skills like Drew’s were in high demand, and although the kind of blended role he had was unusual, his qualifications and experience made it possible.
‘How do you fill your time while you’re waiting to see if you get a call out?’
‘It depends. This time I spent it catching up on some paperwork, and wondering why you’d invited me to a party. I’m not exactly the obvious choice.’
‘You are to me.’ She didn’t look at him as she answered, and she didn’t stop walking either. It was easier that way.
‘I’m glad.’ His tone was gentle, but he didn’t reach for her hand even though her fingers twitched with the desire for him to do so, and she kept her arms clamped to her sides as they continued their journey down the hill towards the beach. Talk soon turned to Teddie, and Eden relaxed again as she realised just how easy it was to tell him all the things that worried her.
Stealing a glance at Drew as they continued walking, she felt a wave of gratitude for him coming into her life. Here was someone who understood her son in a way that perhaps even she didn’t. Their autism was at opposite ends of a vast spectrum, and the paediatrician still wasn’t certain whether there were more complexities to Teddie’s diagnosis than ASD only. Eden had her suspicions, but she’d been trying to let the specialists lead her, rather than becoming one of those infuriating people who relied on Doctor Google. The trouble was the system was overloaded, and if she didn’t fight for Teddie every step of the way he wouldn’t get the help he needed. Eden was already beginning to gather evidence for the next stage of the fight, filming Teddie’s behaviour, including his stimming and emotional outbursts, both of which were still escalating. The hardest part of the whole situation was not being able to predict anything about the future. She had no idea what level of ability or disability Teddie would have in the longer term, and that was scary, especially when she thought about the prospect of anything happening to her. When she was talking to Drew about Teddie, it was clear he understood that too.
‘I know it’s not the same for me, but when I got my diagnosis it helped me to understand why I was the way I was and that was a relief.’ Drew breathed out slowly. ‘My mother was heartbroken. She thought it meant the end of all the dreams she’d had for me. I think she kept hoping that I’d change, settle down and buy a house around the corner from her, get married and give her the grandchildren she was longing for. She probably thought that would make up for losing Flora, but it never would have done. And that kind of life wouldn’t have happened for me either, whether I was diagnosed or not.’
‘What makes you say that? Why don’t you think you’d ever have got married and had a family?’ Eden’s question sounded pointed, even to her own ears, as if his dismissal of marriage and settling down somehow affected her personally. It didn’t, of course, but she cared far more about what his answer might be than she wanted to admit.
‘It’s not that I don’t want to.’ He turned and caught her eye for a moment, before looking away again. ‘I just could never envisage it happening for me and, even if I did find someone, I wouldn’t have bought a place around the corner from my parents. I couldn’t wait to put some distance between myself and my father for a start.’
‘I can understand that. There was a time when getting away from my mother was my greatest wish.’ Eden was trying to push down the sense of relief that had welled up inside her when Drew had admitted he did want a relationship. It shouldn’t have mattered to her nearly as much as it did. ‘It must have been really hard to feel that kind of pressure to fulfil your mum’s hopes and expectations.’
‘It was, especially as I knew it was never going to happen. Her getting upset about it didn’t help either of us, it just made me feel even more like I’d let her down.’
Eden glanced at Drew again. Even after all this time he seemed weighed down by the feeling that he’d somehow fallen short of what his mother needed, but she could see it from the other side. Drew’s mother should have wanted her son to do what was best for him, not what was best for her. Eden didn’t want to make that same mistake with Teddie, so she had to ask Drew another question. ‘What do you wish your mum had done instead?’
‘I wish she’d used the information she had about my diagnosis to reframe her thinking and what she wanted for me. She knew I had a passion for medicine, that my studying was going really well and that I had a plan to go into pathology. She could have seen the hyper fixation that autism gave me as a positive in that respect. It meant I kept going no matter how tough the studying got, because I knew it was the path to making that ambition a reality, but my mother couldn’t let go of her own dreams for me.’ Drew suddenly stopped and turned to look at Eden. ‘You’re nothing like her, and Teddie’s lucky, but for your own sake I’d suggest trying to let go of all the dreams you had for him when he was born and find some new ones based on who Teddie really is. Otherwise you’ll torture yourself, and you won’t be able to celebrate any of Teddie’s achievements.’
Eden paused for a moment, temporarily winded by the raw honesty of Drew’s words. She knew he was right, but it was a hell of a lot to get her head around and she had no idea what those new dreams for Teddie might look like. There was only one thing she knew for certain, and she met Drew’s gaze as she finally spoke. ‘I just want him to be happy, and feel safe and loved.’
‘He already is. Nobody is happy all the time, but Teddie experiences the kind of pure joy that most people will never know.’
