by Dani Atkins
Liam gave a self-deprecating grin. ‘I may possibly have ordered too many. But in my defence, what exactly are you supposed to give a florist when they’re in hospital?’
‘Grapes might have been easier to transport,’ I murmured, still struggling to visualise the immaculately suited lawyer carrying the enormous bundle of multicoloured balloons through the town.
Liam pulled up a spare chair and set it close to mine. ‘It was worth the abuse, just to see you laugh like that,’ he said, which oddly made my smile wobble a little.
‘It’s a really lovely gesture, Liam. Thank you.’
‘How are you feeling today? You look so much better,’ he observed, his gaze journeying from the top of my head to my bare feet. The ward was too warm for a dressing gown, and although the satin pyjamas were far from revealing, it still felt odd to be sitting next to him in just my nightwear.
‘I feel fine. Even better now I know how fantastically Noah is doing.’ Liam’s eyes flickered briefly. ‘I actually got to see him late last night.’
The charcoal of his pupils seemed to grow darker as I told him of Izzy’s surprising appearance in my room, and our journey through the sleeping hospital to Noah’s bedside. Liam had worn a very similar look when I’d explained about the arrangement Izzy and I had reached about my future role in Noah’s life. Perhaps it was the lawyer in him that prevented him from trusting anything unless it was signed and witnessed in triplicate.
‘We didn’t need to consult a lawyer,’ I’d told him. ‘We just agreed we’d do what was best for Noah.’
‘I’m concerned you’re going to get hurt,’ Liam said now, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees. The manoeuvre brought his face close enough for me to see the tiny spot just below his jaw that he’d missed when shaving. I clasped my hands together in my lap, as I fought an unexpected urge to graze my fingertips over the skin there.
‘I was fine. Izzy pushed the wheelchair.’
‘Not physically hurt.’
I looked down, my eyes going to the thin band of gold on my left hand. I raised my head slowly. ‘We both know there’s not much you can do to guard against that. Getting hurt is the flip side of the coin toss when you love someone.’
However deeply you bury the pain, it’s always there somewhere; it’s a stain that you never quite manage to wash away. I recognised it from the first in Liam’s eyes, just as I knew he had in mine.
‘And as far as getting solicitors involved – well, no offence, but that didn’t work out so well for us last time.’ Liam’s eyebrows clearly disagreed with me. ‘Izzy isn’t going to go back on her word – surely what she did last night proves that? And I’m certainly not about to ask for my kidney back.’ It was meant to make him smile, and it did. Briefly. Then his face sobered, and his eyes darkened once more to the colour of storm clouds.
‘I just hope you both know what you’re doing.’
*
‘Mr and Mrs Brandon.’
My head shot up. It had been a very long time since I had heard those words. Liam missed several beats before turning towards the group of doctors who had entered my room. I hoped no one had noticed that the man who was supposed to be my husband hadn’t appeared to recognise his own name. Two of the doctors were strangers, but I’d met the senior consultant before. His was the last face I’d seen as the anaesthetist had put me under.
‘I apologise for intruding on your visiting time, but we’re running a little late with our rounds today.’
Liam got to his feet as the medics came further into the room, looking vaguely alarmed when the nurse accompanying them firmly shut the door.
‘If you don’t mind, we’d just like to have a quick look at our handiwork, and see if we can think about letting you go back home.’
‘I… I should probably wait outside,’ Liam said, sounding more awkward than I’d ever heard before.
‘That’s all right. We’ll only be a moment or two,’ assured the surgeon, stepping back as the nurse helped me onto the bed. Liam shrank into the furthest corner of the room and had already turned to look out of the window before the dressings on my wounds had been removed.
‘Is your husband a little squeamish?’
‘A bit,’ I replied, wondering if this was actually the most excruciatingly embarrassing moment of my life. If it wasn’t, it certainly ranked high up in the top ten.
Thankfully, the physical examination was brief. ‘Everything is looking very good,’ the consultant declared. ‘I see no reason why, with the right aftercare, we can’t let you complete your recovery at home. Is everything okay when you pee?’ he asked, almost as a conversational afterthought.
I glanced over at Liam and thought very possibly his shoulders had begun to shake. ‘Just perfect,’ I answered.
‘Well then,’ declared the surgeon, turning now to include Liam in the conversation. ‘I think you’ll be able to take your wife back home tomorrow.’
The moment to correct the mistake had long since passed and my eyes sent a pleading message to Liam, asking him to play along. Sportingly he did, nodding seriously as the doctor outlined a comprehensive list of dos and don’ts for my recuperation. ‘Remember, no heavy lifting for several weeks,’ reminded the doctor, shaking first my hand, and then Liam’s. ‘And no strenuous sex for a month or so.’
‘Absolutely not,’ agreed Liam solemnly, who I strongly suspected was now having the best afternoon of his life.
I waited until the group of doctors had left before I turned to him, my cheeks still glowing hotly. ‘If you could just please erase the last fifteen minutes from your memory, I’d be really grateful.’
Liam’s smile was wide. ‘As amusing as that was, it must have made you realise that you’re going to need some help for a few weeks. You don’t have anyone to look after you, do you?’ I suppose I could have lied, but he was a lawyer, skilled at spotting a falsehood from a mile off.
‘No.’ I already knew what he was going to say next.
‘Then the only sensible solution is for you to stay with me.’
‘That’s very kind of you,’ I began, ‘but—’
‘But nothing,’ Liam interrupted. ‘You’ve just undergone major surgery and can’t manage alone.’ He was pacing as he spoke, as though delivering a closing argument in a courtroom. ‘You want to get out of here tomorrow, don’t you?’ I nodded reluctantly. ‘Well, that isn’t going to happen unless you have someone to help you.’
I was marshalling my arguments, which involved hiring a private nurse or a carer, although in reality I had no idea how to arrange either of those at short notice, when Liam suddenly stopped pacing and dropped to a crouch before my chair. ‘Let me do this for you, Beth. Let me at least try to make up for the way I behaved over the last few months.’
‘But it’s Christmas,’ I protested. ‘Surely you’ve already made plans for the holidays?’
‘Actually, no, I haven’t. I still find Christmas and New Year somewhat… difficult.’
I could feel the bonds that linked us growing a little stronger. Very slowly I nodded in acceptance.
‘Okay then.’
40
Izzy
Christmas music was playing at the nurses’ station from an oversized radio cassette, the kind teenagers had once carted around on their shoulders in a time before music downloads. There was a definite festive feeling on the ward, which had begun with a visit from an uncommonly slender Father Christmas earlier that afternoon. He’d gone from room to room distributing small gifts and hearty ho-ho-hos with equal enthusiasm. It was a nice touch, especially as several of the young patients he’d visited weren’t going to be well enough to go home for Christmas. As to whether Noah was one of them was still undecided.
The bright orange helium balloon tied to Noah’s bed frame bobbed up and down like a lifebuoy as he wriggled restlessly, trying to get comfortable. It was three days since the transplant and thankfully many of the tubes and wires he’d been hooked up to had been removed that morn
ing. But he was still confined to bed, and growing more bored and restless by the hour. Which were good signs, the consultant had declared on his rounds that morning. The physician looked almost as delighted as we’d been when he pronounced that Noah’s recovery was virtually textbook perfect. Beth’s kidney was performing splendidly in its new home, just as she’d said it would.
‘Where did Daddy go?’
‘He just needed to get something from the car, sweetheart. He’ll be back in a moment.’
I hadn’t set foot outside the hospital since the day of Noah’s operation, but Pete had been eating up the miles on the motorway, journeying back and forth between Noah’s bedside and home to feed and exercise Marvel. It would have been easier to have put him into kennels, but we’d promised Noah that he could stay at home. A small shudder of anticipation ran through me and I glanced at my watch and smiled. Not long now.
This had been Pete’s plan, and initially I thought we’d be met with resistance or an outright refusal, but surprisingly that hadn’t been the case. Apparently, this was something that was actively encouraged on children’s wards. Medical benefits aside, I couldn’t wait to see the look on Noah’s face, and as my ear tuned into the sound of Pete’s footsteps in the hospital corridor, I knew I didn’t have long to wait.
There are moments in your child’s life that as a parent you treasure. Mental snapshots that you know you will cherish for years to come. And the expression on Noah’s face when Pete walked into his hospital room carrying Marvel in his arms was definitely one of them.
A chorus of joyous squeals and excited whines filled the room as dog and boy expressed their mutual delight at seeing each other. Pete set the dog down on the bed, one arm casually looping around my shoulders as we stood side by side watching the reunion.
‘He’ll pee on the bed,’ warned Pete darkly.
‘I will not,’ declared Noah hotly, and then wondered why his parents had dissolved into peals of laughter. It kept happening to us. We were still in a state where all our emotions were heightened. Like wires stripped of their protective outer sheath, everything got too close to us. I imagined things would eventually calm down and we’d find a new level of normal, but it was still very early days.
The future remained a huge unknown. Noah might have decades with his new kidney or just weeks, nobody knew. That kind of uncertainty was admittedly harder for me to deal with than it was for Pete. ‘You can’t spend your life worrying about things that haven’t happened yet, Iz,’ Pete had said, after we’d been told the operation had been a success. That was easy for him to say; he’d always been more of a ‘cross that bridge when we come to it’ kind of person.
But I knew he was right. I’d spent my life worrying about Noah getting sick, and it still hadn’t stopped that from happening. All it had done was almost tear Pete and me apart and if I didn’t want that to happen again, if we were ever going to move forward, I was going to have to find a way to get past those feelings.
Pete’s arm was still in place and he used it to pull me a little closer to his side. I breathed in the smell of him, like a drug I never wanted to quit. The threat of Noah’s court case and then his illness had brought us to the same page in our story, but those couldn’t be the only reasons for us to stay together.
I slipped an arm around him, enjoying the way his laughter thrummed through me. Once we’d always been like this; two halves of the same person. And now, finally, I was ready to admit how much I wanted that back.
41
Beth
‘Got everything?’ Liam asked, watching as I folded the last of my belongings into the overnight bag and snapped the clasps in place. ‘We’ll stop off at your place and pick up anything else that you need.’
I smiled weakly, still far from comfortable with how things had panned out. I had lain awake for most of the night trying to find another more workable solution, but with Christmas only a week away, I didn’t feel I could ask any of my friends if they wanted an invalid house guest for the holidays.
‘I realise there’s nothing I can do to stop you from whistling for a cab to take you home the moment we get down to the street,’ Liam said, which uncannily had been one of my middle-of-the-night solutions. ‘But I really hope you won’t do that.’
I pressed the button to summon the lift, keeping my eyes fixed on the overhead panel as I shook my head. ‘I won’t. Although I still think I could manage on my own.’
Liam gave a soft grunt of disapproval, but fortunately the arrival of the lift cut short an argument I no longer thought I could win.
*
The impulse struck me somewhere between floors four and three as the lift descended to the ground.
‘I’d like to see Noah again before I leave.’
We were the only occupants in the lift, making the carriage as private as a confessional booth.
‘I thought you’d agreed with Izzy that you were going to wait.’
‘I know. And I will. I don’t want to talk to him. I just need to see him – even if it’s only from a distance, to reassure myself that he’s still doing as well as everyone says.’
Liam thought it was a bad idea, I could see that. And yet after a moment of consideration he gave a small nod. ‘Shall I come with you, or would you rather do it alone?’
A strange sensation swept over me. Since Tim’s death I was used to doing things alone: spiders in the bathtub; complicated tax returns; the weekly supermarket shop for one. I’d learnt to cope by myself. But sometimes, when you think life has no more surprises to throw your way, along comes an unexpected friendship, and the ground shifts subtly beneath your feet.
‘I’d really like you to come with me.’
*
It all looked different in daylight. I was walking the right way, but everything felt wrong. No one challenged us; no one questioned our right to be there; but that didn’t stop the overwhelming feeling of being somewhere I didn’t quite belong. Liam walked at my side, carrying my case and saying nothing. We passed recessed bays with quartets of beds; most of them were occupied and surrounded by parents and relatives. Every single bed had a helium balloon tied to its frame.
‘You don’t mind, do you?’ I asked when I saw Liam’s look of surprise.
He smiled. ‘Not at all. I was wondering where the rest of them had gone.’
I’d kept a single red balloon from the cluster, but had asked for the rest to be distributed to the patients on the children’s ward. Coupled with foil-cut decorations, tinsel wreaths and fairy lights, they helped to give the ward a festive cheer, which almost made you forget that there were some very poorly children here. And one of them was mine.
I was heading towards the intensive care unit when I heard the sound of Izzy’s voice coming from a recessed bay immediately ahead of us. It was followed by a low rumble of laughter, which spilled out into the corridor from a voice I was pretty sure was Pete’s. Like a striking python, my hand shot out and grabbed Liam’s arm, bringing him to a stop.
‘What—?’
I shook my head and nodded in the direction of the voices. We stood frozen in the corridor, like misplaced contestants in a game of musical statues. A new sound joined the voices from the bay, higher in pitch and curiously alien. I inched a little further forward, until two of the beds came into view. One of them was Noah’s. I immediately shrank back, although I was sure none of them had been looking our way. The family bubble that encased them looked pretty much impenetrable.
‘What’s that weird noise?’ asked Liam, whispering the question into the fall of my hair. I was blocking his view, but I didn’t move. Couldn’t move. I was rooted to the spot as if I’d been glued there. If either Izzy or Pete had turned to look over their shoulder they would certainly have seen us, but they were completely absorbed with Noah and the antics of the very excitable greyhound, which was whimpering and squealing with joy as it attempted to wriggle into bed with its favourite human.
I hadn’t realised my fingers were still curled like
claws into Liam’s lower arm. The fabric of his jumper was puckered into folds beneath my grip, yet he made no move to shrug me off. Noah’s face disappeared in and out of view, hidden by his parents and the cavorting dog, which was clearly ecstatic to be reunited with its owner.
I drank in the sight of him. I tuned in to the sound of his laughter, trying to capture it and commit it to memory. He looked and sounded so happy. And so loved.
Something happened at that moment. I could feel it shifting inside me, like gears realigning. Curiously, I think my eyes were drier than Liam’s when eventually I tore my gaze away from the bay. ‘Okay. I’ve seen enough. We can go now.’
*
Soft flurries of snow began to fall on our drive from the hospital. According to the weathermen, the odds of having a white Christmas were no longer worth placing a bet on. The pathway up to my front door was already slippery underfoot with a sprinkling of snow, and Liam automatically took my arm, as though I was a frail old lady with a dodgy hip. It was only when I caught sight of my reflection in the bedroom mirror while I hastily packed a suitcase that I realised I did look fragile and weak. My cheeks were pale and ghost-like and I quickly rummaged in my make-up bag for something to remedy that. The haunted look in my eyes wasn’t quite so easy to fix.
While Liam carried my case back down the stairs I emptied my fridge of perishables, unable to shake the feeling that I was leaving something important behind. I crossed to the lounge and took my silver-framed wedding photograph from the top of the piano and slipped it into my handbag. I expected the feeling to settle, but strangely it didn’t.
When I turned around, Liam was watching me from the doorway, an unreadable expression on his face. Almost as though he’d been caught out, he quickly switched the direction of his gaze to the opposite side of the room.
‘That’s an impressive tree you have there,’ he remarked randomly.
‘You don’t have one?’ I asked as I reached beneath the dense Nordic pine branches to pull the fairy-light plug from the wall.