by Anna Bloom
“Hannnnnnnnaaaaaaah!”
Okay. I’m not offended at all.
“Hey, Jack.”
He waved at me, but instantly grabbed Hannah and started pulling her towards the front room. Hannah’s smile said it all. This was so much better than a lame party with Jackson.
Liam poked his head around from the kitchen, his phone under his ear. “Ronnie, what do you want, cod or haddock? I’m just ringing through.”
“Oh. Ugh. Haddock?”
Lennie pushed him out the way. “White wine, Ronnie?”
These guys moved at a hundred miles an hour, never missing a beat. I’d barely stepped over the threshold and already fielded quick fire questions.
“Um white, I guess, with fish?”
Lennie scrunched her face. “Are there rules?”
“So my mum says.”
Please tell me I haven’t been drinking white wine only with fish all these years just because my mum told me another one of her old wives tales.
“Who cares?” She ducked back into the kitchen barely stopping. Then a clink of glasses followed.
“Where’s Matthew?” I looked at the pegs by the front door, searching for his jacket, or anything that told me he was here.
I couldn’t wait a single minute longer to tell him about the small blue box in my overnight bag. Enough time had been wasted now.
If I thought about it for longer than a few seconds without pushing it out of my mind, then a flicker of excitement kindled within me.
Matthew and I had created something together. I could feel it, knew it in my heart and soul. I wanted to see the look on his face, the short sharp shock followed by the awe I knew he’d have. Fate might have dealt us something unexpected and world changing.
“He’s been out with a supplier for the shop all afternoon.”
“Still?” I glanced at my watch. At nearly six I’d have thought it would be done by now.
“I know, but Julie messed him around, so he’s running late, and I think he’s going to get Hugo for the boys.”
“Oh right, okay.”
“Come in, come in. He’s going to be so pleased you're here.” Lynn tugged me by the arm towards the kitchen and I let her tow me along.
Lennie and Ruth were in their places at the kitchen table. Ryan had his back turned mashing something with a plastic spoon into a toddler sized bowl. “Is this right?” He thrust the bowl under Lennie’s nose, and she pulled a face.
“How do you manage to make it look so unappetising?”
He shot her a glare. “Well I’m sorry I’m not so skilled at mushing banana as you.” He bashed at the bowl some more. “Beth!” He shouted. “Pudding’s ready.”
Hannah came in, carrying Beth on her hip and my heart stuttered in my chest, squeezing hard. “I can feed her.” She held a hand out for the bowl.
“Thank fuck. That looked like sick.” Ryan thrust everything at Hannah who sang loudly to cover up Ryan’s language.
“Right, food will be here in half an hour.” Liam came and kissed my cheek. “McDougall is happier this week. You ready to meet another client next week?”
“It will be Fred, he’s senior management now.” I didn’t add that I couldn’t be arsed because literally one more thing on my plate would tip me over the edge.
Lynn watched me carefully. “How’s the house hunting going, Ronnie?” She pulled out the same chair I’d sat on during my first visit to her house, and I realised that I’d been designated a space at her table. I sank into it, claiming it with a steady exhalation of breath.
“Badly.” I winced and tried not to make eye contact. Kind of hard with everyone staring at me.
Lennie slid me a glass of wine, but I didn’t bother to touch it. I doubted anyone would notice. How anyone noticed anything with this constant chatter going on would never cease to amaze me. Somehow three different full conversations would go on at once with everyone involved in each one. I definitely didn’t have that life skill—hardly a surprise.
“What happened to the party?” Lynn buttered slices of white bread with about an inch of butter per slice.
“Boys is what happened.”
Ruth cut off her conversation. “Oh no. Not that Jackson boy?”
I shrugged. “Yeah, I think so. A friendship gone bad, I believe.”
“I’m not looking forward to the teenage years.” She gulped a sip of wine. “Lennie, won’t it be awful?”
“No chance of having any boys around Beth.” Ryan growled.
“Oh, don’t be such a stupid oaf.” Lennie punched him in the stomach from where she was sat, and not lightly.
“I’m just saying, I’ll have my shotgun ready.”
We all laughed at his affronted expression and I nearly accidentally reached for my glass, before reminding myself of the small box that rather urgently needed attention.
Come on, Matthew, for goodness' sake.
“You were lucky with the flights then?” Lynn asked.
“Yeah, apparently not many people want to come to Scotland,” I teased.
Ryan opened his mouth to respond, cut off by the front door ringing. “Bet he’s forgotten his keys again.” He moved for the door. “Aye, don’t all get up at once, I’ll get the door.”
I breathed a sigh of relief knowing I’d soon be able to touch Matthew, kiss him, hold him. Plan an unexpected future with him.
I waited to listen to the sound of the brothers sounding off at one another as they walked back through.
The table grew quiet, an unease settling amongst us.
Ryan walked back in, his eyes wide. Automatically, I clutched at my stomach, a sharp pain twisting deep inside. “Mam, it’s Matthew.” Ryan’s gaze sought mine, shadows in its depths. “He’s had an accident. The police are here.”
Grey Skies
Ronnie
Ironically it was the clock on the wall that kept me sane.
The tick and the tock that chased and tormented, ridiculing me for never doing enough at the right time, kept a constant and almost reassuring presence in the room.
The only sound when silence ruled.
My stomach ached; not the pain of a bad meal or like a cramp from my period. But instead a sharp aching slice.
“How long do you think they'll be?” Lynn had her sons with her, but she kindly held onto my hand, squeezing so that her wedding ring pinched into my palm. The grip of a woman who’d already lived through enough.
Liam glanced up, his face bleary, dark shadow on his jaw. He scratched at it, filling the room with a noise other than the clock. “The nurse said that if the other motorist who stopped at the scene hadn’t had a compression blanket, he wouldn’t have made it to the hospital.”
Silence lapsed.
“What’s a compression blanket?” Ryan finally asked. The Carling joker had no jokes left. He’d been slipping out of the waiting room every ten minutes or so, but I think to check in with the rest of the family.
Hannah was fine.
So I’d heard.
I couldn’t talk to her.
I done this conversation once before.
My heart didn’t have it in me to do it again. Different with Matthew, I know. I mean, they’d only just met really and started to connect, but I’d been so pleased with how they were getting on… they had a natural friendship and camaraderie that had seemed almost too good to be true.
It had been too good to be true.
Matthew had come back to leave again. But this time he was going someplace where I couldn’t chase him.
Forever.
“Ronnie, love. You need to breathe.”
Lynn cut into my looping thoughts. My chest tightened with every tick of the clock. Groaning, I lurched forward and wrapped my arms around my legs.
I couldn’t lose him.
This was what it would feel like.
This was my payback for all the things I’d done. Coveting a man who wasn’t mine. For marrying someone I'd never loved. For living my entire life a mute lie.
This was it.
“Liam, try and get a nurse, she’s having a full-scale panic attack.” I tried to focus on Lynn’s words, but they whooshed in and out. In and out. In and out.
Dots danced across the yellow walls of the waiting room.
Too late I realised they were my eyesight darkening.
A ringing buzzed in my ears and I blinked up at the white ceiling, strip lights as bright as day burning my eyes.
Matthew.
His name branded in my brain.
Matthew’s had an accident.
“You okay there, lovey?” A blur of maroon blocked out the light and I blinked to focus on the shape in front of me. A nurse was close, her hand holding my wrist while she looked at a small watch face pinned onto the top of her dark red scrubs.
“Oh, shit.” I tried to pull my hand free.
“Just hold on, I’m checking your vitals.”
“My vitals are fine.”
Using a well-practised firm hand, she shoved me back, and underneath me a plastic surface creaked. “Oh, God. I’m not on a hospital bed, am I?”
“We tend to not like visitors rolling around unconscious on the floor.”
“Unconscious?” I stopped fighting against her grip. “I just went a bit funny that’s all.”
The nurse—I darted a glanced at her badge, Sarah—swept an astute and I’m not taking any shit glance over me. “You were out for a good couple of minutes. Has it happened before?”
My face scrunched into a painful grimace, my right temple ached, and I lifted a hand to rub at it. “No.” I thought for a second and then for the simple fact of not being a lying cow to the kind nurse I adjusted my response. “Hardly ever.”
“Hm.”
“Your blood pressure is very low. I’m going to get you tea and a biscuit and let’s see if we can get you feeling better.”
I clutched at my stomach. A sharp pain speared to the left, near my hip. “I’m really fine. I need to get back to my, to my…” Dark spots danced in my vision. “My boyfriend’s family. He’s been in an accident.”
“I know. Matthew. I’ve heard all about it. His brothers are very loud,” she flickered a smile, “and big.”
“Matthew's the biggest.” Again, a bubble crept up my throat. “I can’t bear it.” I blinked, trying to get rid of the stinging in my eyes, but it just trickled out along my lashes.
“Ronnie?” The nurse soothed my hair. “He’s out of surgery. He came out just as you decided to roll onto the floor.”
My chest heaved, a painful drag of air stuck in my windpipe.
“Is he okay?”
Okay wasn’t the right word? Was he alive? How bad was it? What would happen now? I needed the nurse, Sarah, to give me the answers to the universe, but I would settle for okay.
“The doctor is talking to his mum and brothers.”
So not okay then.
Not okay at all.
“Oh, okay.”
Too many okays were in my head. They were going to explode over the wall in a mash of useless letters.
She patted my hand and it smacked like a killer blow into my heart.
“I don’t understand what happened. He only went to get his dog.”
Oh, God. Ewan and Jack.
“I know. The other brother, the younger one, he spoke to the vets. The dog is okay, apart from a broken leg.”
I nodded.
“You two been together a long time?”
I shook my head, staring at the white sheet of the hospital bed. “Uh no. Just a couple of months.” It sounded so stupid. Such a small amount of time to actually be with him. He’d been mine for weeks, days really.
My breath caught in my throat, the black spots blending into the centre of my vision until I couldn’t see around them.
“Whoa, Ronnie. Where are you going?”
I shook my head, my skin stung with cold sweat, panic blinded to me to everything except pitch black.
“I’ve loved him my whole life.” I held onto the words, pulled them closer so I could use them as a lifebuoy.
Sarah’s maroon uniform came back into view and I found her leaning over the edge of the bed, both her hands clasped around mine. Her lips lifted into a smile that made her pink cheeks bunch into apples.
“That’s very romantic.”
I shook my head. “Not really. I never told him. He never told me. We’ve lived our whole lives apart.”
I shook myself. “Thank you for looking after me, but I really need to go and find Lynn and the others.”
“Ronnie. One cup of tea and a biscuit. When you prove to me you’re safe, I’ll let you up.”
“This is silly.” I grumbled. “It’s just a panic attack.”
She arched an eyebrow. “Maybe.”
Deciding to wait until she left to get the tea before I made a run for it, I settled back down against the pillows.
She was just at the door when the chatter of voices came from the hallway. Gruff notes, similar to Matthew's but not as beautiful or as clear.
“Ronnie!” Lynn walked in, seeming smaller than I remembered her being in her kitchen just hours before. Her face was pale, blotched, and it made my stomach turn to lead.
“Lynn, I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t worry, love. I could see you were struggling. You went a bit quicker than I was expecting.”
“Aye, and face first.” Liam pushed around his mam and gave me an astute sweep of his gaze.
“How’s Matthew?” I sat up straighter. Small talk, always a difficulty of mine, was like trying to swallow hot coals.
Lynn perched on the bed, easing her hip onto the mattress and grabbed my hand. She soothed it for a moment, rubbing her cool palm over the skin.
“Lynn. Please.”
“He’s…” her voice tightened.
I knew what she was going to say. I’d been through this before. The hand holding. The delicate silence that spoke more than words.
Matthew was dead.
He was dead and I didn’t know how I would even face one more minute.
No wait. Hannah. You need to stay focused on Hannah. She needs you.
“They managed to stop the swelling from the head injury.” She heaved in another breath. “And his spine didn’t have the fracture they were first worried about. He’s broken a lot of bones though, severely in some places. His right femur is shattered. It’s going to take a lot of time before they get him anywhere close to walking.”
“He’s not dead?”
The black spots swirled faster and I gripped onto her hand as tight as I could.
“No.” Lynn patted my hand. “It would have been much worse if that motorist hadn’t used the special blanket on his head.”
“Is he awake?”
Lynn shook her head. “No, he’s in an induced coma.”
My whole head tingled as I guess the blood drained from it. Lynn must have seen, because she quickly jumped in to explain. “It’s medically induced so he can recover from the surgery to his skull and because he will be in a lot of pain.”
I nodded, but her words weren’t fitting together in any coherent pattern. “I need to see him. I need to see he’s okay.”
I shook off her grip and tried to sit up. Nausea climbed up my throat and I swallowed it back down. I fought against the black spots and their domineering attempt to take over my brain.
“Ronnie. He’s sleeping, love.”
“No. I need to see him now.”
I blinked up at Ryan, who'd thrown himself into the easy chair by the side of the bed. “Help me please.” I offered my hand, relieved when he got up and seemed keen to help me reach my goal.
He held his hand up to Lynn. “I’m not standing in her way; she looks like she could take me right now.”
He was right. I could. Desperation charged though my veins and despite my wobbly legs, and the spinning in my head making my eyes sting, I stood from the bed.
The side room I’d been placed in after my face plant was
only around the corner from the waiting room we’d initially been in.
“He’s in recovery.” Lynn, deciding I wasn’t going to be held back, bustled ahead. “They'll only let one of us in at a time.”
“Have you been in?” My pulse thudded in my throat and I resisted the urge to throw up.
“Just briefly.” She grabbed my hand. “Ronnie. He’s in a bad way. You need to be ready.”
She said it, but all I could think was that he could be like anything other than dead. I could cope with anything other than that.
“Have you told the boys?”
“Yes, they are both okay. Hannah is amazing with them.”
I nodded, my hand resting on the door. “She’s been through this before, you know. Paul… Paul went skiing for a boy’s weekend and never came back.”
Lynn reached for my face and cupped my cheek. “I know. Matthew told me, years ago.”
I nodded, my eyes aching as though acid had been dropped into them. “He came to find me, you know?”
Lynn smiled. “I know.”
I had a feeling she knew everything. “Are you happy for me to go in for a while? Then I will get back and take Hannah off your hands.”
“Ronnie.” Lynn’s face frowned. “You don’t have to take Hannah anywhere. She’s family.”
“But you hardly know us.”
Lynn shrugged, but Ryan sighed loudly. “I’m aging a hundred years here. Can you just go in already, then you can see that he’s okay and stop passing out all over the place. I’ve got to go and get Hugo from the vets soon, and we're still waiting to hear from the police.”
“Oh, sorry.” I stepped away from the door. “Do you want to go in first? You should, you’re his brother.”
“Oh, good lord. No wonder you two have spent nearly two decades apart moping about each other.”
He pushed on the handle and opened the door, forcing me through the gap just as his words registered about the police… the bloody police… what?
A nurse by the bed looked up, but my feet stuck to the floor. A small room, it only held a bed, a chair, and the nurse’s equipment. On the bed was my six-foot-four Scot with a face like beautiful thunder.