midwife » michael gray. [completed]

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE.

  → CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE; CHANGE OF EMOTIONS.   

There was hurt, there was love and there was anger. Hannah felt as if her whole world had been ripped away from her within a matter of a few weeks. She wanted to look at Michael and hate him for the wrongdoings that he had committed but she couldn't, she detested what he had done and what his family had somewhat forced him to do but she could never hate him. Michael could murder Hannah's mother and she would more than likely forgive him, all he had to do with smile and use his notorious Shelby charisma.

However, the dark secret that Hannah was carrying for Michael and the Shelby's was looming over her and she was finding it hard to sleep at night. It seemed unavoidable to Hannah, Michael's arrest, something that would surely catch up with him if the police had any sense and investigated Father Hughes properly. Tommy could say a thousand times that he was going to protect Michael and make sure that he didn't get sent down and stupidly, Hannah believed him. She knew that Tommy could get whatever he wanted but she didn't know if he was just saying it to keep her on side, or if he was genuinely being honest.

"Crying again?" Alexandra said, nudging Hannah with her shoulder as she walked past the sad-eyed midwife. "Oh, you actually are. What's wrong?"

Hannah shrugged her shoulders, she needed to tell someone, but it wasn't her place to tell Alexandra what had occurred between Michael and Father Hughes and even though she saw Alexandra as one of her best friends, she still didn't know if she could trust her completely.

"It's nothing, just a letter from my parents," Hannah said after thinking of an excuse that seemed realistic. "They just told me that my horse had passed away."

"You never mentioned that you had a horse," Alexandra said with squinted eyes, as if she knew that Hannah was making the whole thing up. "What was its name?"

"Patricia." It was the first name that came to Hannah's head and she knew that Alexandra did not believe her but thankfully nothing more was said as the sound of the telephone ringing blasted throughout the convent.

Hannah rushed to her feet as quickly as she could and ran down the stairs, hoping to get there before any of the other midwives picked the phone up. There was a thumping in her heart, racing at a hundred miles per hours as she flew down the corridor and into the little room where the telephone was. Quickly, Hannah glanced up at the rota and saw that she wasn't on shift until the next night meaning she had a good twenty-four hours to sort her act out before she went back to midwifery duties.

"Michael?" Hannah asked as the other end of the phone was silent. "Michael, is that you?"

"Yeah," Michael said heavily, almost as if he was out of breath.

"Are you alright?" Hannah asked, feeling just as nervous as what Michael was most likely feeling.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. I'm just - " Michael stopped himself before sighing and collecting his thoughts. " - I was going to ask you something earlier but I never got around to it because Tommy interrupted and then - " another pause, another sigh.

"Michael, go on..." Hannah encouraged.

"I know that I haven't done this properly before and I keep doing this over the phone, but I seriously need to ask you something - "

"I know what you are going to ask, and the answer is yes."

"What?" Michael was almost in disbelief. He hadn't expected Hannah to be so quick with her answer, almost expected a no, but despite everything, her love for him was so strong and nothing was going to break that. The pair were head over heels for each other, both thinking of nothing but each other every single second of the day, and they deserved happiness whether that be a few months down the line or ten years.