Author: Tricia Cusden
Series: The Anamchara Chronicles
Genre: Contemporary Romance

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PROLOGUE 

 

The hours in the operating theatre have been unbearable. One of those days that lodge themselves in the body, that refuse to be shaken loose. As so often before, Gerald Kenny has taken a risk - has pushed forward with an operation on a boy barely into his teens, a boy whose chances were always thin, whose survival depended on courage, skill, and something close to grace. Sometimes, against all reason, miracles happen.

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But not today.

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Everyone has done everything they possibly could. Aoife knows this with a painful clarity. As lead theatre sister, she has moved through the hours almost without conscious thought, anticipating Gerald’s needs before he voiced them, placing instruments into his hands as if they were extensions of his own body, willing the impossible to bend in their favour.

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Still, it has not been enough.

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After hours that feel endless, the anaesthetist finally speaks the sentence that changes everything, the sentence that fractures the room.

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‘I’m sorry. We’ve lost him.’

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Gerald leaves the theatre without a word. He goes to tell the parents - the worst duty of all - and then he disappears. The others let him go, assuming he needs space. Aoife knows better. She knows exactly where he will have gone.

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Upstairs, to the small office tucked away from the wards, barely more than a cupboard. He keeps a key so he can use it for moments like this. For silence. For collapse. For being unseen.

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She tells herself she should leave him alone. That this is what he wants. And yet something in her resists that logic, insists instead that solitude might not be what he needs most. That despair, when it turns inward, can become destructive. She decides - perhaps recklessly - that her presence might be worth the risk.

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She climbs the stairs slowly, her heart beating hard enough to make her feel almost light-headed. Outside the door she pauses, listening. In the two years she has worked beside Gerald Kenny, she has learned his rhythms, the precise choreography of his brilliance, the subtle shifts in his temper and focus. She has seen him victorious, almost radiant, and she has seen him undone. Today belongs firmly to the latter.

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She takes a breath and turns the handle.

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He is sitting in the chair, folded in on himself, staring at the darkening sky as if it might offer him an explanation. When he hears her, he looks up. She braces herself for anger, for dismissal.

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Instead, he says, softly, almost helplessly,

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‘Oh Aoife - what am I going to do?’

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She doesn’t understand the question. Not really. But she understands the feeling beneath it. Without thinking, she goes to sit beside him.

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‘I’m here, Gerald,’  she says softly. ‘Let me help you. You don’t have to be alone.’

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He looks at her then - really looks at her - and something in his expression softens, as if a carefully maintained structure has finally given way. She holds his gaze. Neither of them speaks. There is no need.

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Aoife leans forward, a small act of courage, and lays her hand over Gerald’s, tracing the line of his knuckles with the lightest of touches. He does not withdraw. Instead, the faintest suggestion of a smile flickers across his mouth, and his gaze lifts to meet hers, steady and unguarded.

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In the stillness of the room, as the city beyond the window slips into shadow, something subtle but irrevocable alters its course. No words are needed. An understanding takes root between them - quiet, complete. For a moment, it is enough simply to be there together, sharing breath, sharing warmth, their hands joined.

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But time, as ever, insists. Aoife must go; her aunt will be waiting, and worry comes easily if the hour grows late. She rises reluctantly, and Gerald looks up at her.

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‘Thank you, Aoife,’ he says. ‘For everything. You’re right that I am tired of being alone.’

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With that admission, the long, careful dance of their romance begins. For neither of them stands in a place where departure will be either swift or simple. Duty, habit, and the intricate web of lives already lived hold them fast, however deeply they might wish for freedom. And so they step forward not boldly, but inevitably, into a secret love that they cannot either deny or turn away from. It will be many years before Gerald finally decides that they have the right to find happiness together.