Neurosurgeon...and Mum! by Kate Hardy Page A

wrong, he and Joe love each other, but there’s a fair bit of sibling rivalry between them. I was a month early, meaning that I’m three days older than Beth, and I can just imagine how much Dad crowed that he’d produced the first grandchild. And my mother always said that there was a glass ceiling—she had to work twice as hard as Dad to get anywhere. So their work’s always been their focus in life.’
    Tom frowned. ‘So your upbringing was pretty much like Eloise’s.’
    ‘Let’s leave it that what you told me rang a few bells,’ Amy said dryly.
    ‘But you’re not like Eloise was. I mean, the way you’ve spent time with Perdy—you’ve told her silly jokes, you’ve taught her skipping games, you’ve shown her how to make the dog do tricks. Eloise would never have done anything like that with her.’
    Maybe that, Amy thought, was why Perdy hardly talked about her mother. Because Eloise had been as distant as her own parents had been. And Amy could so, so easily have turned out like that herself. ‘She might not have been comfortable playing games or doing messy stuff. Some people aren’t. But she did other things with Perdy, didn’t she?’
    Tom sighed. ‘The more I look at it, the less I can see. The less I can remember. She never even made it to Perdy’s nativity plays—she got me to video them for her, but it wasn’t the same as actually being there in the audience so Perdy could look out from the stage and see her clapping next to all the other mums.’ He dragged in a breath. ‘I have days when I wonder why the hell I married her—and then I feel guilty about being so mean and judgemental.’
    ‘Feelings aren’t all black and white,’ Amy said. ‘They’recomplicated.’ Like the way she was feeling right now about Tom. Wanting to preserve some distance between them to keep her heart safe, and yet at the same time unable to keep away. ‘If I hadn’t had Joe and Cassie, I might’ve had the same kind of trouble as Eloise—I wouldn’t have known how to show people I cared. Joe and Cassie showed me.’ She grimaced. ‘Don’t get me wrong, I do love my parents—but I’m a lot closer to Joe and Cassie than I am to them.’
    The pain in Tom’s eyes deepened. ‘I tried to show Eloise how to love, and I think Perdy tried, too. But we just weren’t enough for her. She wanted to save the world, and we were just in the way.’ He looked bleak. ‘And I resent her for that. I really resent her. What kind of sick bastard am I, to be angry with someone who’s dead and can’t defend herself?’
    ‘A perfectly human one. It’s one of the stages of grief,’ Amy said softly.
    ‘It’s still wrong of me to feel that way. Eloise did so much good in the world, and it’s tragic that she died young. Thirty-three’s no age at all.’
    ‘True. But she wasn’t able to give you and Perdy what you needed,’Amy pointed out. ‘A partnership’s about give and take. And you always, always put your child first, no matter what your ambitions and hopes are.’ That was what she’d done with Millie. In that situation, someone had had to lose, and it was better that it had been her rather than the little girl. As an adult, she’d had a better capacity to deal with it. Even though it had ripped her heart into little pieces. ‘Tom, you’ve done a fantastic job bringing Perdy up.’
    ‘Have I?’
    She knew the self-doubt was real, and that he wasn’t fishing for compliments. Clearly he was terrified that his child would grow up with the same emotional blocks as her mother, and he felt powerless to stop it happening.
    ‘Let me ask you something. When Perdy woke in the night as a baby, who went to see her? Who fed her, changed her nappy, rocked her back to sleep?’
    ‘I did,’ he admitted, ‘because I was the one who was there. Eloise would’ve done it had she not been on night duty or what have you.’
    Amy didn’t share his conviction, but kept her thoughts to herself. ‘OK, let me ask you