Epilogue

„Oh no, Angela!" Shelagh exclaimed.

„What did she do?" Timothy asked curiously, while placing his empty cereal bowl into the dishwasher.

"She spat her porridge all over me. Ah, now I have to go change and we are already running late," Shelagh said.

"Sorry, I am late, too, can't help," Timothy quickly shouted, grabbed his packed lunch and left for school.

"What's all the noise?" Patrick asked while entering the kitchen. Spotting his wife's blouse, he smiled. "Oh, I see, Angela told you that she is done with her breakfast."

Shelagh looked at him angrily. Patrick quickly shrugged off his suit jacket and rolled up his shirt sleeves while he said: "You go upstairs and change, I will clean up the mess down here. We won't little Miss have delay her Mummy on her first day back at work, right?"

Shelagh took in a deep breath and got up from her chair. She hastily cleaned off the remains of the porridge above the sink and turned around. She watched affectionately how her husband wiped their ten-month-old daughter's face clean and then tickled the protesting girl's chubby little chin to make her giggle.

Shelagh smiled warmly and went upstairs to change. Walking into her and Patrick's bedroom, she looked affectionately at Angela's cot, which the girl had almost outgrown. Soon the baby would move into her own room. She was growing so fast.

Shelagh pulled her blouse over her head and placed it on her bed. Before she went downstairs again, she would soak it in the bathroom. She opened her dresser, took out another blouse and quickly put it on. Her eyes fell on her blue striped scarf, neatly folded, which sat on the shelf where she kept her scarves and shawls. She put the scarf around her neck and watched herself in the mirror next to the dresser for a moment, adjusting her hair.

It was now a little over three years that she and Patrick had gotten married. After they had confessed their love to each other that cold day in December 2011, Patrick had proposed to her on Christmas Eve, the first evening they had spent all by themselves as a couple.

In early January 2012 Patrick and Timothy had returned to Moshi while Shelagh had stayed back in London for her daily rehabilitation sessions. At first she had been grateful for Mrs. Parker's offer to stay at her house until about two months later when her health had further improved. She had then been able to take up a part-time position as family nurse with Nonnatus House in Poplar, a position that also provided lodgings.

The Turner men had returned to Moshi aware that they would not stay for long anymore. Patrick had negotiated to end his contract with Durham University by the end of April 2012 and Phyllis had taken over from him as director.

Timothy had even been able to return earlier; he had been able to transfer to his new school in March for the new term.

Only six weeks after Patrick had returned for good, he and Shelagh got married. It was a small and private ceremony with only Timothy and Mrs. Parker present as well as Sister Julienne and Trixie.

Then the couple had moved in with Mrs. Parker again. The arrangement was supposed to be temporary until they had found a place of their own. But after a few months of unsuccessfully searching for a house, Mrs. Parker had offered them to stay.

Even though the combination of former mother-in-law and new wife seemed odd to the occasional outsider, Shelagh and Mrs. Parker got along very well. While the former had lost her mother long ago, the latter had lost her daughter and this somehow had brought them together, along with their shared fondness for Timothy and his father.

After his return from Moshi, Patrick had first worked as a locum GP covering a doctor on maternity leave in the practice of a former colleague. Then, about one year after their wedding, he had taken over his own practice, located in Poplar, after the former GP had retired. This gave the couple the opportunity of regularly working together on the same cases because the young mothers and their children of Nonnatus House all were registered with Patrick as their GP.

Shelagh and Patrick wanted a child of their own very much but Shelagh did not conceive. Medical tests did not give a reason why not, but it simply did not happen.

One day some time after their second anniversary, Shelagh delivered the baby of a young mother living at Nonnatus House. The young woman, addicted to various substances, had made it clear from her first day at the facility that she did not want to keep her baby. Therefore, a social worker stood by during the birth. She would first take the new-born to a hospital where she would have to detox and then to a children's home until hopefully a family was found to care for her.

Even though she had never considered adopting a child before, Shelagh had known the moment she held the little girl for the first time, crying heartbreakingly, that she wanted to keep her.

In the weeks that followed, she and Patrick fought very hard to become guardians of the baby. They had even asked Sister Julienne and Sister Monica Joan, the Superior of the Mother House, to testify on their behalf. Eventually, they had been allowed to adopt their little Angela.

The first months with baby Angela had been difficult. She had cried a lot and Shelagh soon gave up work to care for her daughter full time. Even though she had been dreaming of a baby for a long time, these first months with a new-born were much more strenuous than she had imagined and Shelagh often doubted her ability to carry on.

Only when Angela was about six months, the baby got more relaxed and the situation at the Turner household calmed. When the paediatrician confirmed that he could find no indication of Angela having suffered any neuronal damage due to her birth mother's substance abuse, it was a reason to celebrate for the Turners.

At that time, Shelagh began to feel an urge to return to work. With her baby so little she had been able to negotiate a part-time agreement. At the same time, Patrick had cut down his own schedule a little and Granny Parker had offered to help out, too, thus everyone got their share with watching baby Angela.

Shelagh sighed and finished adjusting her hair. Then she quickly threw the dirty blouse into the bathroom sink to soak and hurried downstairs. Even though everyone at Nonnatus House was very supportive, she did not want to be late on her first day back at work.

When she entered the kitchen, she saw Patrick holding a laughing Angela, both watching the birds in the backyard. Shelagh felt her heart leap. She could not believe how much her life had changed. Just three years ago she had almost felt certain that she was called to the religious life.

Yes, she had been called, but the path she had taken had been the right one and she could never be more certain of it, she thought.