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did in all country towns, but few attempted to discuss their situation, although she often felt the warmth of their compassion.

      The separate living and work situation had turned out for the best, Ellie thought glumly as she made her way through to the surgery and nodded a good morning to Maureen, her receptionist-cum-nurse, who was busy hanging tinsel along the front of her desk.

      Dismissing the idea that it could possibly be that close to Christmas when she herself felt so bleak, her thoughts tracked back to Andy... But how were they going to cope with Christmas?

      Didn’t the very word conjure up togetherness?

      Joy and laughter and sharing...

      Happiness, and hope for the future...

      Could they carry on with Christmas celebrations as if nothing had ever happened? Sit at one of their tables—just the two of them—with silly paper hats on their heads, reading even sillier jokes?

      The ache in Ellie’s heart deepened, but suddenly she knew.

      She couldn’t do Christmas, not here, not with Andy—she couldn’t go on with things the way they were. If she advertised now, she might find a young doctor, fresh out of GP training, who’d like the challenge of working in the bush. Or a skilled, well-qualified migrant, happy to spend three years working in the country before applying for permanent citizenship.

      She was sure there’d be someone.

      She wouldn’t actually get a new appointee until January, when staff changes were generally made, but if she stayed until just before Christmas, then Andy could manage any emergencies for a week or two.

      She’d go—

      Where would she go?

      Where the hell would she go?

      Back to the city?

      To what?

      Ellie shook her head. That idea had zero appeal to her.

      And she’d grown to love this town and its people so maybe she should go to another country town—one without Andy in it!

      Ellie could feel her heart weeping at the thought, but she had to accept they couldn’t go on as they were.

      ‘What’s Andy up to with this soccer club idea of his?’

      Maureen interrupted her gloomy thoughts as she pushed the final tack into place on the tinsel and fetched Ellie the mail.

      Ellie shook her head, clearing Christmas—and leaving—from her mind.

      Why had Andy started the soccer club? Had he told her while she was busy checking out all the familiar bits of the man she knew so well?

      Loved, even?

      ‘I know he’s having a barbecue for them on Saturday; our side veranda seems to have become the unofficial clubhouse. And some of the kids I’ve seen coming and going are far from athletic types, so I guess he’s doing it to raise their fitness levels.’

      ‘My Josie’s joined,’ Maureen said, ‘and you know the worry I have with her weight. I would have thought she’d be the last person picked for any team, so maybe fitness is behind it.’

      Ellie thought of the motley lot she’d seen on the side veranda from time to time, and for the first time wondered just what Andy was up to with this soccer club he’d started. The ones she’d noticed were a very mixed bunch.

      There were a couple of gangly Sudanese lads from the group of refugee families who’d been re-settled in the country town, a young teenage girl who was often in trouble with the police, two girls from a remote aboriginal settlement who boarded in town for schooling, and a rather chubby lad she suspected was bullied at school...

      Ellie took the mail through to her consulting room, aware yet again of the painful arguments that had split their oneness, and the gulf that had widened between them. Once Andy would have shared his interest in the team, and she’d have shared his enthusiasm...

      This was no good, she needed to focus on work.

      Ellie scanned the patient list, surprised to see Madeleine Courtney back again. Madeleine was a puzzle—one she would have shared with Andy had things been different.

      But they weren’t, she reminded herself sharply, stamping down on the little kernel of unhappiness inside her before it could open, overwhelming her with memories and grief...

      Only one other name stood out—Chelsea Smith. She frowned, trying to remember a patient of that name, then rubbed at her forehead because she knew she’d be frowning and it wouldn’t be long before she had permanent frown lines, and became known as Grumpy Doc Fraser.

      ‘Who’s this Chelsea Smith?’ she called to Maureen.

      ‘She’s a new patient. She phoned earlier so I put her in that space you leave every morning for emergencies.’

      Thanks a bunch, Ellie thought, but she didn’t say it. New patients always took longer to treat as Ellie had to gather as much information as possible from them.

      But Maureen had done the right thing, they made a point of never turning anyone away.

      Shrugging off her rambling thoughts, she sorted through the mail, setting bills aside and tossing advertising bumf into the bin.

      Andy sat in the tiny space that was his hospital ‘office’, scanning the internet for videos of soccer coaching, although images of Ellie as she’d sat in the kitchen again kept intruding. The hospital was quiet—too quiet—leaving him far too much time to think of Ellie and the mess their marriage was in.

      Shouldn’t losing a child have brought them closer together, not thrown up a wall between them?

      It was because thinking of Ellie caused him physical pain that he had thrown himself into establishing a Maytown soccer team, allowing soccer to block out all but his most insistent thoughts.

      Would their son have played soccer?

      The wave of pain that accompanied that thought sent Andy back to the videos.

      How could he not have known how much it would hurt—losing the baby, losing his son?

      He took a deep breath and went back to the videos. He needed to do something constructive and worthwhile.

      The call to the emergency room—hardly big enough to deserve the name ‘department’—sent him in search of work, which was an even better diversion than the soccer team.

      Although the ghost of Ellie always worked beside him, for this had been their dream: to work together in the country, bringing much-needed medical services to people who’d so often had to go without.

      The patient was a child, a young boy—maybe twelve—bravely biting his lip to stem the tears while he clutched at his injured side.

      ‘Bloody fence strainers broke,’ a man Andy assumed was the father said. ‘The barbed wire whipped around him like a serpent. I’m Tim Roberts, and this here’s Jonah.’

      Andy shook hands with the pair, then leant over to examine the wound. A red weal showed where the wire had hit the boy, but the serious wound was just above his right groin.

      ‘Bit of a barb got in there, but the wife pulled it out with tweezers and put some cream on it last night, but you can see how it is now.’

      The area was red, swollen, and obviously infected.

      ‘I’ll need to open it up,’ he said. ‘We’ll just give Jonah light sedation and clean out the wound.’

      There was no need to mention there could be damage to the bowel, but Andy would have to look carefully, which was why he’d chosen to give an anaesthetic over a local pain injection.

      His mind ran through the roster

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