Page 7 of Mending Hearts at the Cornish Country Hospital (The Cornish Country Hospital #6)

Eden had been on her feet all day, and the waiting room in the emergency department had got busier and busier as the shift progressed.

It was a recipe for frayed nerves and when a fight had eventually broken out between two of the patients it had been no surprise, except that they’d been a married couple in their sixties.

The two of them had come in after an accident in the garden, when they’d tried to take down the branch of an old tree.

Eden had triaged both of them and although their injuries weren’t serious, nothing more than a few cuts and bruises, it had been clear from the start that the husband was blaming his wife for what had happened.

‘Silly cow. I told her to keep the rope taut, but she got distracted like she always does.’ Michael’s assessment of his wife had been less than flattering, and Eden got the impression that it wasn’t the first time he’d spoken about her like that.

She’d tried to smooth the waters, although a big part of her had wanted to tell him that he ought to have a bit more respect for the woman he was supposed to love.

‘You’d be amazed by how often accidents like this happen. DIY injuries keep us in business.’

‘She needs to learn to listen.’ There was a curl of his lip that made Eden really uneasy, and she’d decided that the assessment of his wife should be more than physical.

‘Are you in pain?’ Eden had looked at Isabel when she asked the question, and the older woman had nodded. ‘Whereabouts is the pain?’

‘In my bum, and I’ve been married to him for forty years.’ Isabel had tried to smile, but it went all wobbly. ‘Other than that, it’s on my right-hand side; the end of the branch hit me like a whip, but I don’t think anything’s broken.’

After examining Isabel, Eden suspected she was right, but what she was most concerned about was whether Isabel’s spirit might be broken. The feisty comment about Michael had given her hope, but then she’d started parroting what she must have heard him say on the way in to the hospital.

‘It was my fault, I should have held the rope tighter, but when he cut through the branch I couldn’t seem to hold on. I should have tried harder, I shouldn’t be so weak.’

‘I don’t think many people could hold on to branch like that, and I doubt very much it’s the technique a tree surgeon would use.’ Eden had softened her tone after that, not wanting Isabel to think she was berating her too. ‘Was it your idea or your husband’s to take that approach?’

‘It was Michael’s. Everything we do is his idea.

’ Isabel’s response had made Eden’s heart sink, but it was enough to tell her that it might not just be her physical injuries they needed to focus on.

Eden had recognised herself in Isabel’s words; the same lack of autonomy over her actions because her partner dictated everything.

Jesse had controlled their whole lives and she’d had a horrible feeling that Isabel was a victim of some form of coercion, but getting her to admit it could be next to impossible.

‘Do you get any say in things?’ Eden had been in this situation often enough to know that sometimes the best approach was to tread carefully, not just on a professional basis but in her own life too.

Back when she’d been with Jesse, if anyone tried to suggest he was controlling her, she’d shut them down.

Part of the reason had been because she didn’t want to admit she was being manipulated, but she’d been terrified of the consequences too.

She was scared that Jesse might follow through on the threats he’d made about hurting himself, but there was something else that frightened her.

After so long together, she’d had no idea who she was without Jesse any more and whether she even had the ability to make her own decisions.

It had felt as if he’d stripped away the old Eden bit by bit and she’d almost become robotic, operating only on his command.

In the end, her love for Teddie had been what had made her realise the old Eden was still in there somewhere.

She’d had no way of knowing whether Isabel felt the same, but pushing the other woman too hard would almost certainly have made her clam up altogether.

For a moment, Isabel had held her gaze and, she’d thought her patient was going to confide in her, but then the other woman shrugged.

‘It’s fine, he knows best about these things.’ Isabel’s expression hadn’t matched her words, and Eden had decided not to let it drop that easily.

‘If you feel like you’re being pushed into things you wouldn’t choose to do, or that you don’t have the right to say no, then it really isn’t fine.’

‘It’s not that bad, I’m exaggerating.’ Isabel’s face had looked like a mask, and Eden had a horrible feeling she spent most of her life wearing that same mask.

It was something else she’d recognised only too well, after years of pretending to be okay when all she’d really wanted was to find a way to escape.

‘There are organisations that could help and I could give you some information.’

‘No!’ Isabel’s response had left no room for misinterpretation, as she cut Eden off.

In the end, all Eden could do was record her concerns on Isabel’s notes.

When she was seen by another member of the team, there would be a second opportunity for Isabel to open up, although Eden suspected she never would.

The last thing she’d expected was for Isabel to suddenly find her voice and a whole lot more, as she and Michael waited to be seen.

Eden had heard him continuing to make comments to his wife about how stupid she was, when she’d called other patients in to be triaged.

Despite the busyness of the waiting room, the space around Michael and Isabel was an indicator of how uncomfortable his behaviour was making other people feel, too.

Eden had just decided she needed to speak to someone else on the team, despite what Isabel had said to her about not needing help, when the older woman had suddenly got to her feet and swung her handbag like a baseball bat before launching it at her husband’s head and shouting at him at the top of her voice to ‘shut the eff up’.

He’d reacted instantly, by grabbing hold of her hair.

Eden had shot forward to try and separate them, but one of the porters and a couple of other patients got there first. The couple were separated and Isabel was taken to another part of the department, while Michael shouted that he wanted the police called and that he was going to have her arrested.

Eden hadn’t been able to see Isabel again, because there’d been other patients who needed triaging, but Esther, the head of the nursing team, had come to find her afterwards, for a debrief.

She’d told Eden that Isabel’s sister was coming to the hospital to pick her up, and that her sister had been urging her to leave Michael for years, after four decades of coercive control.

He’d never actually hit her, which was why she tried to convince herself that his behaviour wasn’t that bad, but all those years of belittling and controlling her, and lashing out with insults and demands had ground her down.

In the end, it was the fact that it had driven her to physically lash out at him, that had made her want to take action.

Isabel had told Esther she was frightened of what she might do next otherwise and had asked her to pass her thanks on to Eden, because she’d shown her that there were still people who cared.

It was something she’d almost stopped believing after so much abuse from Michael.

They couldn’t be sure whether Isabel would stick with her intention to finally leave him, but at least she was safe for now.

It was days like this that reminded Eden how much better off she was on her own.

It had taken her far too long to break away from Jesse.

He’d been able to manipulate her into believing that he couldn’t live without her, and that she’d be responsible for what happened to him if she left.

The first time she’d tried to go, he’d rung his sister, Sadie, telling her he couldn’t go on without Eden.

Sadie had arrived begging Eden not to leave, and to hold on just long enough for him to get stronger.

Jesse and his sister had lost their parents by the time they were both in secondary school, as a result of addiction and suicide, and they were all each other had.

Eden had understood that bond only too well, because of what she and her brother had been through together growing up; their mother’s addiction had blighted their lives too, if not to the same extent.

Sadie had been the only constant in Jesse’s life, and somehow she’d managed to break the family curse, in a way that he hadn’t.

She desperately wanted to save her brother from the fate their parents had faced, and when she’d stood in front of Eden, pleading for her not to risk Jesse’s life by leaving, Eden had realised that by agreeing to stay there was a chance she might never be able to leave.

She was effectively handing down her own prison sentence, but in that moment, she hadn’t been able to see any other way forward.