CHAPTER 15 The Woman Behind the Doctor

POV: Amelia

The consultation ends later than I expect it to.

Damian has asked all reasonable questions about his assessment, challenged two of the recommendations, and asked for copies of the available results. This time, he has taken the answers at face value, not turned the discussion into a contest.

I call that progress.

Dr. Harris leaves first, instructing me to send the revised plan to the cardiology team. Damian stays at the desk, reading the details of the appointment on the sheet I have given him.

“Your next review is booked in,” I tell him. “If anything changes before then, phone the department rather than waiting for the appointment.”

“I see.”

“You do?”

He glances up from the paper.

“Did you have to ask that question?”

“Probably not.”

“Well, I was beginning to think you had lost the stomach to ask it.”

I take the sheet from the printer and slip it into his folder. “I don't like having to repeat myself.”

“Then we have something in common.”

He closes the folder, and I expect him to walk away. Instead, he moves to the corridor, where a nurse is trying to convince an impatient visitor to wait while she checks the records of a patient.

“Is it always this busy?” he asks.

“Most days.”

“And you like it?”

I am surprised by this question.

Patients want to know if they will get better, if a medicine will work, if a test will hurt. They wonder if they can return to work, travel, exercise, or sleep without fear for their hearts.

They don't ask me too often if I enjoy my job.

“If I didn't, I wouldn't stay doing it.”

“That's not quite an answer.”

I look at him carefully. “You have a great ability to question people's answers.”

“I prefer accurate information.”

“That sounds familiar.”

Something near amusement crosses his face.

We walk down the corridor together. I'm planning to walk him to reception, but a nurse calls my name from the other end.

“Dr. Carter, could you have a look at this request before I send it through?”

“Two minutes.”

She nods and walks off to the nurses' station.

Damian pauses at a window overlooking the hospital courtyard. A couple of people are standing at the entrance, their coats drawn tight against the morning chill.

“You never answered my question,” he says.

“Which one?”

“If you enjoy what you do.”

I cross my arms loosely.

“I like to help people understand what is going on with them. I like solving tough cases.”

“And the difficult patients?”

“They are good for teaching patience.”

He looks over at me. “Is that your diplomatic way of saying I'm difficult?”

“That's my professional way of saying you ask a lot of questions.”

“That's not a denial.”

“Do you want a written test instead?”

He almost smiles.

The look changes him more than I expect. He doesn't have the edge he usually brings to a room; he looks less like a man about to take on everyone around him and more like a man who's forgotten to defend himself, even if just for a moment.

It takes a moment before he speaks again.

“How long have you been a cardiologist?”

“Several years.”

“Was that what you always wanted to be?”

The conversation has gone in a direction I didn't expect. I glance over at the nurses' station, where my colleague is still busy, and then back at Damian.

“No. Not always.”

“What changed?”

I could tell him the easy answer. Medical school, clinical rotations, and a growing passion for the heart and the complex nature of cardiovascular disease. All would be the truth.

None of that would be the entire truth.

“My parents died when I was eight,” I say.

His gaze freezes.

“I'm sorry.”

I nod, accepting the words without giving him anything to make the moment easier.

“They were in a road accident. They required specialist medical care, and there was a delay in them receiving it.”

I keep my voice even. This is the part of the story I've told before, usually when someone asks me why I picked medicine. I've learned to put the facts into sentences that can be said without letting the memories behind them move in and take over.

Damian doesn't say anything.

“Then,” I continue, “I got interested in medicine. At first, I thought maybe if I knew enough about it, I could figure out what had happened. I later realised that I wanted to be a doctor.”

“And cardiology?”

“My father's condition required attention to the heart. I grew up with questions about what could have been recognised earlier, what treatment might have changed, and what happens when someone needs a specialist but can't get one when they need one.”

I look down at my hands.

“I finally figured out that I couldn't change what happened to my parents. But I could choose what I did with the knowledge I received.”

The corridor is quieter than it was a moment ago.

Damian looks toward the courtyard, giving me a moment to decide whether I want to say any more.

It's an unusually thoughtful gesture coming from a man who usually fills the silence with questions.

“Did becoming a doctor help?” he asks.

“Help with what?”

“Making sense of what happened.”

I think about the question.

“Sometimes. Medical knowledge accounts for much. It can help you understand the decisions made, the options available, and the consequences of delay. But knowing the facts doesn't mean you're comfortable with them.”

“Because you can't fix them.”

“Right.”

He nods slowly, as if the answer has struck some familiar chord.

I wonder if he's thinking about his dad. He's told me enough that I understand his father's illness helped shape him, but not enough that I know how he bears that loss.

I don't ask.

“You were very young,” he says.

“Yes.”

“Did someone explain things to you?”

The question hooks somewhere beneath my ribs.

“Not properly. I guess they were trying to protect me. They told me what they thought I could take hearing.”

His mouth tightens.

“And that wasn't good enough.”

“No. I don't think they knew what else to do, but…”

I trail off.

I've spent years examining that part of my childhood from different perspectives. I know adults can be frightened, overwhelmed, or unsure of what to tell a child. I know that a delay doesn't have just one cause, and not every outcome can be avoided.

Knowing those things doesn't answer the questions.

Damian looks at me with an intensity that has little to do with the examination he gives me during consultations.

“Is that why you're so keen to get answers?” he asks.

“Partly.”

“And why don't you tell patients what they want to hear?”

I look at him.

“Because I'm a doctor. My job is to tell them what the evidence supports, not what would make the conversation easier.”

“Even if the truth frightens them?”

“More so then.”

He thinks about that, his expression unreadable.

“That must be hard.”

“Sometimes.”

“You're treating difficulty as if it's just part of the job.”

“Isn't it?”

“What if the job is not the problem?”

The question strikes harder than he seems to mean it to.

I look at his face. He has stopped asking me about my work. He is asking about the person who goes home from the hospital, the person who has to live with what she cannot fix.

For a moment, I consider telling him about the nights I lay in bed as a child, listening for my father's footsteps, or the guilt that followed me through medical school when I began to realise just how much I hadn't known at eight.

Instead, I keep my answer simple.

“Then I try not to let the hard parts make all the decisions for me.”

“Does that work?”

“Not all the time.”

His eyes drop to the folder in his hands.

“At least you're honest about that.”

“I don't know how to do this job any other way.”

A nurse enters with a chart.

“Dr. Carter, I hate to interrupt. We need your signature on the referral.”

“Of course.”

I take the chart and look over the request. The interruption is short, but when I turn my attention back to Damian, something is different. The easy rhythm of our conversation has been replaced by more cautious silence.

He glances at the clock.

“I ought to let you get back to your work.”

“That would be considerate.”

“There it is again.”

“What?”

“Your bedside manner is quite remarkable.”

I hand the nurse the signed chart.

“You seem to be doing okay.”

“Against the odds.”

I shake my head, but a smile tugs at my lips before I can stop it.

He sees it.

Of course he does.

His face relaxes, and neither of us seems in a rush to leave for a while.

“Do you ever think about what your life would have been like if it hadn't happened?” he asks.

I understand what he's saying.

Had my parents survived. If I'd grown up with them. If my childhood had not been split into a before and an after I can scarcely remember.

“Sometimes,” I admit. “But I cannot know what that life would have been. I can only live the one I've got.”

“Would you still have gone on to become a doctor?”

“I don't know.”

The answer tastes funny in my mouth. I've spent so much time tying my career to my parents' deaths that it almost seems disloyal to think of another way.

“But I know I chose this profession for reasons that matter to me now,” I add. “That has to count for something.”

He nods.

“Yeah. It does.”

His voice doesn't offer grand reassurance or try to tell me all this happened for a reason.

No. I appreciate it.

“Thank you.”

My phone buzzes in my pocket, and I remember the patients waiting for me.

“I need to get back,” I say.

“Of course.”

I move toward the consultation rooms, but he stops me with his voice.

“Amelia?”

I turn around.

For the first time, he's mentioned my name outside a medical discussion without a question or challenge attached to it.

“Yes?”

“What happened the night your parents died?”

My fingers tighten on the chart I'm carrying.

For a moment, the corridor is lost behind a memory I've held at bay for years. I see the door of a hospital, bright lights, strange faces, and grown-ups talking in voices they think children can't hear.

I hear a question I asked and an answer that did not arrive.

I am eight again, waiting for someone to tell me why my parents don't come home.

“I can't talk about that right now.”

I pull myself back to the present.

Damian's face changes immediately.

“I didn't want to pressure you.”

“I know.”

He opens his mouth as if to say more, but catches himself.

I like the restraint more than I can say.

“Perhaps another time,” I say, though I don't know whether I mean it.

He nods.

“Another time.”

I turn and walk toward the consultation rooms. I keep my steps steady and greet the next nurse I pass as if nothing has changed.

But the question follows me.

What happened the night your parents died?

For years, I've answered it in pieces. I've spoken to people about the accident, the delay, and the decision that finally brought me to cardiology. I've learned to keep those facts separate from the memories I dare not examine too closely.

I've never told the story all the way through.

Not to Maya. Not to my colleagues. Not to anyone who looks at me and sees anything other than the doctor I've worked so hard to be.

And now Damian Blackwood, who sees vulnerability as a liability, has asked the one question I'm not ready to answer.

The worst part is that he didn't ask like a man demanding information.

He asked as if he wanted to understand.

I enter the consulting room, close the door, and place the chart on the desk.

I am the right person for the next patient: attentive, calm, poised.

But as I open the file, I realise I am looking at something I don't want to see.

For the first time since meeting Damian, I haven't been worried about what he might learn about himself.

I am worried about what I might one day tell him about me.