by Dani Atkins
My phone pinged with an incoming message and a flicker of hope fluttered in my chest, even though I told it not to. Had Liam actually decided to reply this time? My eyes scanned the message from my phone’s service provider, and as much as I tried to disguise the disappointment on my face, Karen still managed to spot it.
‘Not from him, I take it?’
I shook my head, thankful my sunglasses were dark enough to provide protection from more than just UV rays.
‘Well, I’m sorry, but your new friend isn’t impressing me one little bit with his radio silence. I still think this has a lot to do with you dropping such a high-profile case that would have given their firm incredible exposure.’
I remained silent, because nothing I said would convince Karen otherwise. But I was the one who’d been there, not her. I remembered how anxious I’d been when I’d left William’s office and hesitantly knocked on Liam’s door, to tell him about my decision. He’d sat me down on the green leather chesterfield, his eyes probing mine as I repeated what I’d just told his partner.
‘I’m not going to insult you by asking if you’ve really thought this through,’ Liam had said when I’d finally got to the end of my explanation. His eyes were kind and his voice was gentle as he added, ‘I imagine you’ve thought of nothing else for days.’
I had smiled the way I always did when either a passing comment or an expression on his face revealed how well he’d come to understand me in such a short period of time.
‘Was Bill gutted?’ he asked, his eyes holding no blame at all.
‘I think so.’
Liam shook his head, but the smile never left his lips. ‘He’ll get over it.’ The smile sobered a little as he looked at me. ‘But will you?’
I sighed, and gave a small, helpless shrug. ‘I think I have to. It’s the best thing for Noah, and I think when all’s said and done, that’s what I have to keep reminding myself.’ Liam nodded wisely, and nothing about his demeanour changed when I’d added softly: ‘Besides, I truly believe it’s what Tim would have wanted me to do.’
A sudden blast from the cruise ship’s horn brought me back with a jolt to Sydney Harbour. A crowd had gathered at the harbour wall to watch the gigantic white ship slowly leave the port, but I wasn’t seeing that; I was still stuck on thoughts of Liam and how I’d carelessly ruined our burgeoning friendship by sticking my nose in where it hadn’t been wanted. Because it wasn’t dropping the case that had ruined things between Liam and me, it was speaking to the gallery owner about Anna.
Two days after that last phone call with Liam, and after a decade of excuses and putting it off, I finally took the plunge and purchased a return flight to Australia. I needed to get away, to lick my wounds and make peace with my decision about Noah. I yearned for the comfort that only my sister and her loving, chaotic family could give me. My decision was out of character and impulsive, but I told myself it had absolutely nothing to do with what had happened with Liam. Nothing at all.
*
‘Under twenty-three kilos for a three-week holiday,’ Karen exclaimed, lifting my suitcase off her bathroom scales. ‘How did you do that?’
I gave a rueful shrug and took the case from her, preparing to carry it down to the waiting car. ‘It’s probably because I don’t pack any medicines.’ Karen looked confused. ‘It’s… It’s just something silly Liam told me, that’s all.’
A vaguely disapproving look passed over my older sister’s face. ‘You talk a lot about someone who’s ignored every single communication you’ve sent him over the last three weeks.’
I’m sure she wasn’t deliberately trying to rub salt into an open wound, but her words still had the power to sting. ‘It’s because we’re friends. Were friends,’ I amended regretfully. If truth be told, I had no idea if Liam would ever want to pick up where we’d left off because, as Karen had so accurately pointed out, he’d apparently forgotten how to reply to his phone messages.
I’d sent him countless ‘My view today…’ picture messages, and hadn’t received a single one in return. And mine had been pretty amazing: the spectacle of the Blue Mountains; Sydney’s Botanical Gardens – a florist’s paradise; and endless miles of deserted Australian beaches. Liam had lost either his phone or any desire to hear from me again. I guessed I was going to have to wait until I got back to the UK to find out which one it was. And yet I still shouldered all of the blame.
‘I should have realised that if Liam had wanted an exhibition of his wife’s paintings, he’d have organised one himself by now. I mean, it’s not like he’s stupid, or anything. He is a lawyer, after all.’
‘Those two aren’t mutually exclusive, you know,’ Karen had observed, which at least had made me laugh.
*
I thought I’d done well to avoid it, but Karen caught me unawares, somewhere between the check-in desk and the security gate.
‘It’s really hard saying goodbye to you guys,’ I said, sniffing slightly. My eyes feasted one last time on my two adorable nephews, and of course their mum, who had all insisted on coming to the airport to see me off.
The holiday had given me a poignant taster of what life was like with young children, particularly one who was almost the same age as Noah. ‘They’ll exhaust you,’ Karen had warned. And she was right, they had. But I’d fallen asleep each night with memories of laughter, sand-castle building and sticky ice-cream flavoured kisses filling my head, and of arms thrown around my waist as the boys launched in for one more cuddle.
‘You’ll fall in love with Australia’, everyone had predicted, and in a way they were right, I had. But I’d fallen in love with being Aaron and Josh’s Auntie Beth even more.
‘Goodbye doesn’t have to be for so long this time. Please promise me that you’ll think about it seriously when you get back to the UK.’ My sister’s voice was starting to wobble the closer we got to the security gate.
I nodded and pulled her to me for one last hug, the kind I thought would have to last me for years, but if I said ‘yes’ to Karen’s suggestion, then perhaps it only had to keep me going for a matter of months.
As I buckled myself into my economy airline seat, and prepared for the gruelling twenty-four-hour flight home, I thought again about what Karen had said.
‘It’s going to be so hard, you know, now you know where Noah is. I worry that you’re going to find yourself looking for him in every crowd, or street corner, or driving past his school hoping to catch a fleeting glimpse of him.’ She’d shrugged her shoulders, her eyes soft with sympathy. ‘It’s what I would do.’
‘If I have to, I could move anywhere,’ I’d reasoned. ‘I’ve always said that one day I’d like to move back to the coast. But the UK has beaches too, you know. I don’t necessarily have to relocate to the other side of the world. Besides, if I moved, what would I do about Crazy Daisy?’
‘Keep it, or sell it,’ Karen had fired back, finally getting the chance to use every tool of persuasion in her arsenal. ‘It doesn’t make it any the less something you and Tim dreamt up and created together, even if you decide to move on. And with the money you get from the clinic settlement you could open up a second Crazy Daisy, right here in Sydney.’ The idea dangled enticingly before me, like a twirling jewel. ‘You could go global,’ she said. I was still laughing at the thought when she went in for the kill with all the skill of a matador. ‘And if you move out here, then I bet Mum and Dad would come too.’
As the plane took to the skies, it was impossible to tell if I was flying back to my old home, or away from my new one.
33
Izzy
‘I couldn’t remember if you said you wanted the blue jumper or the black one, so I just brought everything from your drawer.’
I took the canvas bag, inside which a large section of my wardrobe appeared to be stuffed.
‘That’s fine,’ I said, sliding the bag out of the way beneath the hospital bed. ‘Was everything okay at home?’ It was surprising how quickly the hospital had started to feel li
ke the only place we had ever lived. It was the cosy three-bedroom house, where we’d spent the past ten years, that felt alien, as though it belonged to an alternate version of the Vaughan family; people whose lives were untouched by the devastating diagnosis of kidney disease.
Pete lowered himself onto the uncomfortable straight-backed chair on the other side of Noah’s bed. It was where he’d slept for the first two nights, before the nursing staff had taken pity on him and had found us a second camp bed. Apparently, there was some dumb rule about only allowing one parent to stay with their child in the hospital. So far, everyone was pretending it didn’t exist.
‘He’s looking a little better, don’t you think?’ asked Pete, staring down with hopeful but tired eyes at our sleeping son. I didn’t need to glance towards the bed to know that he was wrong. Noah’s face was still puffy, his eyes practically disappearing in the soft folds of swollen flesh. He looked like a very tiny boxer who’d been bounced around the ring by a particularly vicious opponent. It wasn’t fair. None of it was fair.
‘Yes, a little better,’ I lied, giving Pete the closest thing to a smile I could manage to summon up. I was exhausted, both mentally and physically, but despite Pete’s daily urging, I refused to leave Noah’s bedside for anything more than just a few minutes. I took thirty-second showers in the doctors’ on-call room they were letting us use, and bolted down meals I couldn’t even taste in the hospital cafeteria. There was a constant dull aching pain lurking in the middle of my chest, which was probably indigestion, but felt more like my heart was breaking. It certainly felt like shattering every time I looked at Noah, and the battle he was fighting.
It seemed far longer than just ten days ago since we’d sat anxiously in the GP’s office on the morning after the wedding. The rest of the building had been in darkness and the junior doctor, the one I’d had no confidence in, had let us into the building and through the deserted surgery to the consultation room. Her eyes had darkened in a concern she wasn’t experienced enough to hide as she briefly examined Noah. Her chirpy demeanour as she carried out her checks jarred worryingly with the expression on her face when she asked Noah if he’d mind waiting in the reception for a moment while she spoke to us.
Eight is young, but it’s not stupid. Noah knew straightaway that something was very wrong. The look he gave me as he walked out of the doctor’s office tore my heart wide open, and it was still there, burnt behind my lids, every time I closed my eyes.
The young medic had turned her troubled gaze in our direction as she slid a single sheet of paper across the leather-topped desk. I glanced down at the paragraphs, the medical words I had been reading through the night jumping off the page at me.
‘This is a copy of a letter I’ve emailed to the hospital, requesting Noah undergoes further investigation. His recent tests have revealed that he may be experiencing some issues with his kidneys.’
It was a sugar-coated version of what I now suspected was way more serious than just an ‘issue’. Pete took the letter and read it slowly and determinedly, as though the scary Latin words could be defused if he faced them head-on.
‘You found protein in his urine?’ I asked, earning me a look of respect from the doctor. I’d been wrong about her. I had underestimated her and her abilities, but perhaps she’d been equally guilty of under-estimating me.
‘We did. And that coupled with the oedema – swelling,’ she translated for Pete, who was looking increasingly sick with every passing second, ‘and the weight gain makes me feel that we should really get this investigated further without delay.’
‘So you’re arranging for an appointment for him to see a consultant?’ frowned Pete, still not fully understanding just how serious this had all suddenly become.
‘No, you need to take him today. Right now. They’re already expecting him on the children’s ward.’ What little colour there still was on Pete’s face had rapidly drained away.
*
‘We have the results of Noah’s kidney biopsy.’
The flinch that ran through me was involuntary. Every time that word was mentioned, all I could think of was standing beside Noah, humming a lullaby I hadn’t sung to him for years as the general anaesthetic flooded his system and fluttered his eyes to a close. I’d tearfully collapsed into Pete’s waiting arms even before they’d wheeled Noah into the operating theatre for the procedure.
‘As you know, the biopsy was essential to give us an accurate picture of what is going on with Noah’s kidneys,’ the doctor continued. Pete and I both nodded, bracing ourselves for the words that I suspected would hit us like a blow. ‘I’m afraid the test revealed that Noah has a condition called FSGS.’
Beside me I could hear Pete’s sudden indrawn breath, like the hiss of a tyre. The paediatric nephrologist was silent for a moment, allowing his words to filter down slowly. They seeped into our lives like an indelible stain.
‘I imagine you’re wondering what those letters stand for—’
‘Focal Segmental Glomerulosclerosis,’ I murmured, my tongue working its way around the unfamiliar words. It was the first time I’d said them out loud, but I already knew it wouldn’t be the last.
‘You’ve heard of it?’ Mr Clinton asked in surprise, his thick black eyebrows inching upwards towards his hairline. ‘Are you a nurse?’
‘No. A mother.’ I wasn’t being facetious, just truthful.
‘And are you aware of what this condition means?’ Noah’s consultant asked, angling his question slightly in Pete’s direction. The bridge my husband hadn’t wanted to cross until he had to was suddenly right there in front of him.
‘Perhaps you can give it to us in layman’s terms,’ he asked.
Throughout the paediatrician’s explanation Pete wore a stony expression, but he listened hard, as though Noah’s recovery was dependent on his ability to grasp the situation.It broke my heart the way he pulled his chair closer to the desk as though afraid of missing a single word, and how his eyes scrutinised each of the doctor’s hastily drawn explanatory diagrams.
‘It’s a chronic condition that we will manage with a variety of medication and diet. And of course he will have to be closely and regularly monitored to ensure his kidneys are functioning correctly.’
Noah’s uncomplicated childhood was evaporating away before our eyes, and there wasn’t a damn thing we could do to help him.
‘How did he get this? And why wasn’t it spotted sooner?’ Pete’s voice was a low growl. He was angry and wanted someone to blame. The doctors who had missed the initial symptoms were an easy target.
‘It’s a tricky condition to recognise in its early stages and very easily overlooked when the child in question has a long history of allergies, as Noah does. Even if it were my own son, I can’t guarantee I’d have spotted it,’ confessed the doctor, his eyes unconsciously travelling across the desk and coming to rest on a silver-framed photograph of a flaxen-haired boy around Noah’s age. When he spoke again, he sounded much more like a parent than a physician.
‘You mustn’t blame yourselves. You couldn’t have known it was serious and in cases such as Noah’s, where there’s no family history of kidney disease, we simply don’t know what causes this condition.’
Did the doctor notice the way we suddenly both sat up a little straighter, or the quick worried glance that telegraphed between us?
‘Would it have helped to know if there had been a family history? Would it have been easier to diagnose? Would it have been found earlier?’
The doctor looked confused. ‘Has anyone else in Noah’s family ever suffered from renal failure?’
Pete’s head dropped, leaving me to answer the question.
‘We don’t know.’
34
Izzy
The face was truly monstrous. The eyes were deep sunken hollows and lingering traces of blood could be seen on the row of jagged fangs. I studied the Halloween pumpkin on the kitchen table carefully, as if it was a piece of art.
‘It’s incre
dibly authentic,’ I said. ‘I particularly like how you got the blood-stained teeth effect.’
‘Very funny,’ replied Pete dryly, holding up one hand and wiggling his fingers comically for Noah’s benefit. Three of them wore plasters.
‘And you were worried I was going to cut myself,’ laughed Noah weakly. It was how he did everything lately. Weakly.
‘Next year, you can be in charge of the carving,’ promised Pete, deliberately turning his gaze from mine so that he wouldn’t see the question in my eyes. The future, which had once seemed so very clear and straightforward, had become much murkier over the last few months.
‘Can I go trick or treating tonight?’ Noah asked hopefully. ‘You said I could if I felt better.’
‘Let’s wait and see, shall we?’ I said, feeling every ounce of his disappointment as he despondently pushed his uneaten slice of toast away.
‘That means no,’ Noah said, his lower lip jutting and beginning to tremble. My own wasn’t that far behind his. I bent down and planted a kiss on the thatch of thick dark hair. ‘That means wait and see.’
‘We’ll have a quiet morning and see how you’re feeling later when Mum gets back,’ Pete compromised, managing to reignite the hope in Noah’s eyes. He was good at that; far better at it than I was, I acknowledged.
‘Have you taken all your pills this morning?’ I was looking at Noah, although it was really Pete I was asking.
Noah opened his mouth impossibly wide, as though he’d just completed an eating challenge on I’m A Celebrity, closing it only to ask a question I already knew I was going to have to answer with a lie.
‘Where are you going, Mum? You’re all dressed up. You look fancy.’
‘Not really,’ I countered, looking down at the blue jumper dress, the one that always managed to make me feel good. I had pulled it from the wardrobe that morning as if it was a suit of armour. ‘I just have some errands to run.’
Pete waited until Noah had left the room before allowing his smiling mask to slip a little.