Page 28 of Mending Hearts at the Cornish Country Hospital (The Cornish Country Hospital #6)

‘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.’

‘Thank you.’ Eden’s eyes filled with tears. Drew had no idea how much his words helped and she couldn’t stop herself from leaning forward and kissing him on the cheek. It was about as chaste as kisses came, but somehow it still made her lips tingle.

‘Thank you, Drew. I’m so glad we met.’ She didn’t want him to feel like he had to say anything in response, so she didn’t leave a gap for him to speak.

‘But we’d better hurry up or we’ll be the last to the party, and Gwen will probably have our names down for beach volleyball, or something crazy she’s come up with, like a limbo competition. ’

Eden turned back towards the path and started walking again. Part of her wanted to ask Drew whether he still thought his mother’s dream of him getting married and settling down was as unlikely as he’d made it sound, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the answer.

* * *

As Eden had suspected, the party was already in full swing by the time they got there.

Once upon a time, before her relationship with Jesse, she’d have thrown herself right into the thick of things.

She wouldn’t have been afraid to walk up to people she didn’t know well and join in with their conversations, or introduce herself to people she’d never met before.

Jesse had changed all of that. He didn’t like her talking to other people, and he would sulk and accuse of her of all kinds of things.

He was so good at twisting the truth that in the end she almost believed she had been inappropriate.

He’d told her on multiple occasions that she’d embarrassed herself and everyone else with the way she’d been acting.

In the end she didn’t trust herself to read social situations any more, and she wondered if that was how Drew felt.

He’d told her how difficult he’d found university at first, and the self-imposed isolation that had finally led to his diagnosis.

Looking at him now, she’d never have believed he found it so hard, because there were a circle of people around him who appeared to be hanging off his every word.

It might have had something to do with Gwen loudly introducing him as a pathologist, who worked for the police as well as the hospital.

It was the kind of job that fascinated people and Drew seemed to be in his comfort zone when he was talking about work.

He’d told her it was small talk he struggled with the most, but she could hear him now talking to Isla and her partner, Reuben, about a case he’d been involved with.

He could only discuss it because the trial he’d presented his findings to was already over.

Eden had barely focused on the conversation going on around her, because she was too busy listening in to what Drew was saying, and it made her jump when Aidan suddenly prised her glass out of her hand.

‘I can imagine what you might see in him.’ Aidan topped up Eden’s glass with champagne as he spoke and passed it back to her. ‘I’m a very happily married man, but I’ve always found intelligence to be an aphrodisiac and everything Drew says sounds clever.’

‘Oh that’s charming isn’t it, you used to say I was the cleverest man you knew.

’ Jase shot his husband a look of mock outrage, but then he smiled and gave himself away.

He wasn’t remotely threatened and Eden had a strong suspicion that the two of them ribbed each other all the time.

What Aidan said next immediately proved her right.