A Marriage In The Making

by Natalie Fox

  Karis’s heart shredded. Fiesta wanted rid of her. Josh was in safe hands and she wasn’t needed any more.

  Fiesta swung her round at the door, holding her arms to steady her as she was shaking so hard. ‘Karis, listen to me. Go out the back for quickness, to the cottage. Grab a bag of things for Daniel, Josh and yourself. You’ll have to stay overnight in Castries at the very least. I know you’ll want to make sure Tara is OK with Saffron but make it quick; the helicopter with a doctor and nurse is on it’s way.’

  ‘My…my things?’ Karis gasped at her.

  Fiesta smiled and gently squeezed her arms. ‘Josh needs you and Daniel too. You are going to have to be strong for them both. Now get going.’

  Karis flew like the wind.

  She explained quickly to Saffron what had happened and Saffron only paused long enough to let out a wail of distress and then chant out some West Indian incantation before rushing around to pack for Karis. Karis stood by her daughter’s cot, trying desperately to calm herself but up against too many odds. She couldn’t stop shaking. Mercifully the dear child was sleeping and oblivious of all that was going on. She had a small smile of contentment curling her pink lips and Karis knew she was safe and silently blessed Saffron for being there for her.

  ‘I hate leaving her, Saffron. The trip to the island was different. It was OK to leave her then but now…now everything is so…so desperate and—’

  ‘That child knows me like she knows you,’ Saffron chortled. ‘Now you get going and bring that boy back safe and well. You tell him I’ll have his favourite pumpkin pie waiting for him.’

  Karis hugged her before speeding back to the plantation house with a bulging holdall.

  Breathless, she scooted in the back way just as the drone of a helicopter approached. She stopped in horror in the doorway, ice-cold perspiration trickling down her back.

  ‘I’ll come with you, Daniel; you’ll need me.’

  Simone was standing stroking Daniel’s arm as he gazed down at his son. ‘We should have left earlier as I suggested, then none of this would have happened.’

  Daniel let out a ragged sigh. ‘You’re right. I blame myself.’

  Simone squeezed his arm lovingly. ‘I knew you’d see reason. Forget all this nonsense now. We’re going to be just fine.’

  Numb with shock, Karis let the holdall slip to the floor. Simone was going with Daniel and Josh to the hospital and—The front door burst open and Fiesta came in with a doctor and a nurse. Daniel stepped back from his son. There was talk, none of which Karis could take in because of the blood rushing in her head. People were suddenly milling around and Josh was being lifted. Karis stumbled forward, blindly, wanting to be with Josh…

  ‘You’re not needed now.’

  Her arm was grasped to hold her back and suddenly she was facing the ice-cold gaze of Simone.

  ‘You never were needed,’ Simone whispered fiercely under her breath. ‘You were used, but you must have known that, a bright little thing like you.’

  Karis’s mouth dropped open in confusion. Josh was on a small stretcher, Daniel talking to the doctor, Fiesta with the nurse. They were going, leaving…

  Simone smiled cruelly. ‘But then perhaps you didn’t,’ she simpered. ‘Let me put you straight now. Daniel used you as long as it took to win his son back. He has him now, and me, and don’t you believe otherwise. You only have one thing to console yourself with: he doesn’t blame you for Josh’s illness, he blames himself for being such a fool.’

  Blindly Karis backed off, shaking with shock and her insides balled with pain. She heard her name called by Daniel but it didn’t register. It registered with Simone, though; she stiffened and swung round and suddenly Fiesta was at Simone’s elbow, holding her back and pushing Karis forward with her other hand.

  ‘Go, Karis,’ Fiesta urged.

  Karis stood by the window of the room next to Josh’s. Tense and desperate, she waited for Daniel to come back. He’d acted like a man possessed on arrival at the hospital, rushing doctors into action, arranging for a room to be made available for them close to Josh. In the whirlwind of activity she had been surplus to requirements, standing back, drawing back from where she wasn’t needed. She’d heard the word ‘meningitis’ whispered and had nearly fainted and then Daniel had wrapped his arm around her shoulders and guided her to this room where he had left her, urging her to rest till she was needed.

  Rest? How could she rest? She’d paced the room a hundred times, refusing to think about what Simone had said as they’d left because Josh was more important. But when would she be needed? And who would need her? Daniel was coping well enough without her and Josh…Josh was in a coma—

  ‘Daniel!’ she sobbed, and flew across the room to him, flinging herself into his arms at the sight of his pale, drawn face.

  He held her, smoothing her wild hair, murmuring to her softly, ‘It’s all right, darling, it’s all right.’

  ‘Oh, it’s not. They…they said meningitis…’

  He held her back from him, framed her pinched face in his hands. She saw him through a sea of desperate tears. Through his own despair he managed a small smile for her.

  ‘We got him here in time,’ he whispered. ‘They’ve drawn off the spinal fluid to relieve the pressure on the brain—’

  ‘Oh, no,’ were the only words she could mouth before sliding down into a dark, warm pit.

  Daniel was holding a paper cup of water to her lips when she came round. He was supporting her on the edge of the bed, holding her with one arm around her shoulders and the other urging her to drink.

  ‘I…I’m supposed to be strong for you,’ she uttered weakly after sipping the ice-cool water. ‘And here I am, fainting all over the place.’ She lifted her head, her eyes wide and distraught. ‘I’m letting you down and I’ve let Josh down and—’

  ‘You saved Josh’s life, Karis,’ he told her earnestly. ‘It was you who said we had to get him back. I thought…I thought he’d just overdone it. If—’

  ‘No, Daniel,’ she pleaded. She knew what he was thinking and it didn’t bear thinking about. ‘How is he?’

  ‘Sleeping. The doctor said he’ll be drowsy for some time but he’s going to be fine. It’s a viral form, not so dangerous, and he’s strong and—’

  Karis’s brain started working furiously, her heart pumping wildly. A virus! Tara! Tara had been all right when she’d left, sleeping peacefully, safe with Saffron, but…And the children at the party! Josh had slept with other children that night She tried to get up from the edge of the bed, her head spinning. Daniel held onto her.

  ‘Tara is all right,’ he insisted, holding her and turning her to face him. ‘When the doctor told me it was a virus I immediately called Levos. Fiesta assured me Tara is just fine and so are the rest of the children on the island. She had her suspicions about Josh’s symptoms and checked on them all after we left. As an added precaution I’ve sent a doctor and nurse over to make sure, though Josh’s doctor thinks Josh was just unlucky. He could have picked it up from the sea, swimming.’

  ‘H-how did you know what I was thinking?’ she said weakly, her whole body sagging with relief. He’d thought of everything: Tara, the other children on the island…

  He smiled. ‘Because, in case you haven’t noticed, I’m a parent myself.’

  ‘Oh, Daniel,’ she breathed, ‘you’re a wonderful father.’ His first thought after Josh had been her own daughter and then the children of the staff on the island. She was overwhelmed with love for him.

  ‘And you’re wonderful too,’ he told her tenderly. ‘Now, let’s get ourselves sorted out’

  Gently he drew her up to her feet and smiled. ‘Look at the pair of us—no shoes, still in shabby shorts and looking like a couple of pirates down on our luck. I think we’d better get ourselves freshened up before we see Josh.’

  She nodded through her smiles and tears. She felt terrible and obviously looked it too and he looked no better.

  ‘There’s a shower room
just there. I’ll go and arrange some food—’

  ‘Oh, I couldn’t eat—’

  ‘You must and you will. We are going to need your strength—’

  Her head shot up. The crisis wasn’t over yet and…

  ‘Stop panicking,’ Daniel told her reassuringly. ‘Josh is going to be just fine. I wouldn’t lie to you, Karis.’ He bent and kissed her forehead lightly before leaving the room.

  As he closed the door after him Karis let out a ragged sigh of exhaustion. He was right; they needed their strength to see Josh through this. The poor little boy would wake up in a strange hospital and want his…want his father at his side. It all rushed at her then and she went to the shower room because if she didn’t flood herself with cool water she would flood herself with all the things she didn’t want to think about.

  But it was hopeless. As she kicked off her grubby shorts the little sapphire ring fell from the pocket, spun across the tiled floor and pinged against the wall tiles. In horror Karis gazed at it, words spinning through her head, Daniel’s and Simone’s, Simone’s and Daniel’s. He’d just said he wouldn’t lie to her but he meant he wouldn’t lie to her about Josh. Because he had deceived her, making her believe he cared, and then he had given the ring to her as a thank-you, a parting gift. She had seen him with Simone, reconciled, him agreeing with her that she was right and he was a fool.

  In desperation Karis turned on the shower, stepped under the fierce jet and still it wouldn’t go away—the nightmare of Simone’s parting words. She had been used; she wasn’t needed any more. Yet Daniel had called for her when they had been rushing for the helicopter—but no…only because he needed her some more, while Josh was sick. When he was better…She switched off the shower and stepped out.

  ‘I managed to get some sandwiches and tea. Have you finished with the shower?’

  Karis was combing out her wet hair by the window and jumped when he came back into the room with a tray.

  ‘Yes,’ she murmured.

  ‘Feel better?’ he asked before snatching a couple of towels from a pile on the bed.

  ‘Much better,’ she lied. How could she feel better when everything was so awful? Darling Josh so ill and her life in ruins once more. How could he worry about sandwiches and tea and whether the shower was free? Because he was trying to hide his deep concern for his son, she reasoned; because his son was his life and he would do anything for him.

  And I must too, Karis vowed as she flung down her comb. I must be strong for Josh’s sake and not think of myself.

  She was sitting cross-legged on the bed sipping tea when he came out, tousling his hair with a towel, another knotted around his waist. She’d laid out fresh clothes for him on the other bed, light cotton trousers and a shirt, all newly laundered and without his smell, she knew, because she had pressed them to her face.

  She couldn’t look as he dressed, openly in front of her, as if they belonged to each other, man and wife, lovers, as once they had been. She didn’t want her loss rubbed in, didn’t want to see the wonderful body that had once been hers to love and to hold. It couldn’t be so again, not ever.

  ‘Mr and Mrs Kennedy, your son is asking for you,’ a nurse said as she popped her head around the door.

  Karis stared at her and then looked away in embarrassment. They thought they were married and Josh was their son. She gulped at her tea.

  ‘Karis,’ Daniel urged, and when she looked he was holding out his hand to her.

  ‘H-he wants you,’ she husked painfully.

  ‘He’s asking for his mummy and daddy,’ the nurse told them with a smile.

  Karis’s heart squeezed tightly. The nurse was mistaken; he couldn’t have said that; Josh had no mummy. Oh, no, he was delirious, drifting back in time, not knowing his mother was dead, wanting his mother so much and thinking she was still alive.

  ‘Karis,’ Daniel urged again, this time more insistently.

  She stared blankly at Daniel. She was desperate to see the boy but not like this, with him expecting his own mother to walk in. Fear gripped her and she couldn’t move, not a muscle.

  Daniel came across the room and snatched at her wrist. ‘What’s got into you?’

  She couldn’t answer but she made the effort for him. She went with Daniel, numb with grief, legs moving without conscious motivation, Daniel clutching at her wrist to steady her.

  ‘Daddy.’ Josh smiled weakly from the bed, as pale as the sheet he was lying on.

  Karis froze in the doorway of the cool, dimly lit room, her senses reeling with a mixture of joy for Daniel and sorrow for herself. It was the very first time she had heard the boy call his father ‘Daddy’. Daniel went to the bedside and took his son’s hand in his.

  ‘I’m here, son,’ Karis heard him say in a low voice thick with love and relief.

  Suddenly Daniel looked across at Karis and she saw his eyes were filled with tears and her own welled in happiness for him.

  ‘Where’s Mummy?’ Josh whispered.

  ‘She’s here, Josh,’ Daniel told him softly. ‘Right by the door.’

  A gasp caught in Karis’s throat. Oh, he was wrong, so very wrong in doing this. This wasn’t fair to Josh and it wasn’t fair to her. She had to get out but she couldn’t move. She seemed paralysed in some awful nightmare.

  ‘I can’t see her. Kari, I want you,’ Josh moaned.

  Karis hesitated, her head whirling. Then she moved forward slowly. Josh knew. The little boy knew the difference. She wasn’t his mother but in his confused state perhaps he thought of her as his own. Suddenly she was at the other side of the bed and Josh was reaching for her hand and she took it and he clung to the two of them. His father one side of him, his…Karis the other.

  ‘Where’s my sister?’ he asked.

  ‘Tara’s with Saffron,’ Daniel said quickly. ‘They are both waiting for you to get better, Josh. We’ll be going back soon, very soon.’

  ‘I want to go now…’ he murmured, and then he drifted into sleep again.

  ‘Leave him now,’ the nurse said from behind them. ‘He needs to sleep. You’ll see a remarkable difference in him in the morning.’

  In a daze Karis left the room and stood in the corridor, leaning against a cool wall and taking deep breaths to calm herself. It was night-time, she realised, glancing towards the window; it was pitch-dark outside. Time had stopped; the world outside went on, but her life had stopped. Daniel was still in Josh’s room, talking to the nurse in soft whispers. She had to get out, had to get away. She wasn’t needed any more. She didn’t belong.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Daniel grated from the doorway of the room next to Josh’s.

  ‘Going back to Levos,’ she told him through thin lips, stuffing the holdall with her clothes.

  She heard him close the door behind him and step towards her.

  ‘I told you, Tara is all right and in good hands. You are needed here—’

  ‘Yes, needed!’ she exploded in a croaky whisper, the horrors of the day rising inside her and engulfing her with pain and anguish. ‘Not wanted but needed. There’s a world of difference, you know—but then perhaps you don’t; perhaps you are so blinded with concern for your son you can’t even distinguish between right and wrong.’ Her trembling hand came up and indicated the room next door. ‘What you did just now was wrong, Daniel, very wrong. You led that sick boy to believe I was his mother and I’m not and…and I never will be—’

  ‘You will be.’

  ‘He was delirious and didn’t know what he was saying—’

  ‘He was not delirious.’

  ‘You can’t lie to children, you can’t cheat them,’ she sobbed.

  ‘No one is cheating anyone.’

  She threw the holdall at him then and crumpled to the bed in floods of tears, burying her face in her hands. ‘You cheated me and…and you are cheating Josh. Simone should be here, not me.’

  He took her in his arms but she struggled, beating her clenched fists on his chest till she was weak with the ex
ertion.

  ‘Go on,’ he murmured. ‘Punish me till you have no strength left. I deserve it for cheating you.’

  She stopped, the strength draining from her, her fists still balled but suddenly useless.

  ‘You admit it, then,’ she said hoarsely, her eyes green pools of pain. ‘You rat, you admit it—’

  ‘I’m at fault, darling. I’ve failed miserably in not convincing you of my love for you. If that’s cheating, I’m guilty.’

  She tried to focus her tear-filled eyes on his face. Love? He’d said he loved her?

  Suddenly she pulled away from him, her heart tearing. She got to her feet, trembling from head to toe but battling to stay stable and strong enough to speak.

  ‘Oh, no, Daniel Kennedy. You don’t love me; you never have. You used me…because of Josh. It was all for Josh and still is for Josh.’

  ‘And didn’t I accuse you of the same thing?’ he challenged, getting to his feet to face her. ‘Didn’t I suggest that you had loved me because of Josh?’

  ‘I didn’t love you because of Josh. I loved you for you—’

  Her voice gave out and she bit her lip, the realisation of what she had said slapping her in the face. Her face crumpled and she turned blindly away but he caught her and held her hard against him.

  ‘Oh, darling. I’ve loved you for ever. I wanted to get you to that island on our own to tell you all I felt inside. I was angry when you refused to go, throwing Simone at me the way you did. Then I realised just how terribly insecure you were, putting up the barriers, defending yourself from hurt.’

  He tilted her chin to gaze down into her eyes, which were misty pools of distress. ‘Karis, I love you and want you in my life. I need you too, not for Josh, for me, because I can’t bear the thought of life without you.’

  Oh, she wanted to believe him. How easy it should be to close those doubts away but her insecurity went so deep. Somehow Simone’s cruel words had only emphasised what she had been thinking herself—that Daniel had used her to win his son’s love back. She had done that for him. He had his son’s love but now Josh had been taken ill and she was needed again.