The Aura

by Carrie Bedford

  “The tow truck will take you,” said the policeman, with a glance of disapproval at the Renault driver. “I’m sure it won’t be long before it gets here.”

  In my previous life, I’d had little to no contact with policemen. Now, in the last few weeks, I’d spent time in a police station, had coffee with a detective, had my fingerprints taken. Any awe and veneration I’d had for the uniform was quickly dissipating.

  “You’re not listening,” I said. “I have to get to the ER. Right now.”

  The policeman’s head shot up from the ticket he was writing. His eyes locked with mine, but I didn’t flinch. Finally, he nodded. “I’ll take you there myself. Two minutes.”

  I told the taxi driver I’d talk with his boss to make sure he got paid and, feeling a little sorry about leaving him to deal with the crazed Renault driver and the tow truck, I got in the back seat of the police Range Rover.

  “ER at Radcliffe?” the policeman verified.

  When I nodded, he turned on his lights and siren and pulled out into traffic. I tried calling Leo again but got no answer. Aidan’s phone also clicked to voicemail. I hoped the two boys were safely at the hospital by now. My heart raced.

  It was only a few minutes before we were at the hospital entrance. “Hope things go okay, miss,” the officer said.

  Thanking him for the lift, I hurried inside, blinking in the dazzlingly bright lights. The ER waiting room was busy. People waited on plastic chairs, some of them watching a flat panel television hung on the wall, others dozing or looking at their mobile phones. A baby screamed. I tried Leo’s number again while joining the back of a line at the registration desk.

  “Come on, Leo. Check your phone,” I said, realizing I was talking out loud. After five minutes, I’d had enough of waiting, and walked up to the desk, to the muttered annoyance of the people standing in line.

  “I need to find my nephews. One was brought in with appendicitis. Aidan Benedict. And his little brother is here somewhere.”

  “Please wait your turn, ma’am,” the receptionist replied, raising her bulbous yellow-brown eyes to stare at me. Her sallow skin was very wrinkled, folding its way down her face to a pendulous dewlap. She reminded me of an iguana.

  I leaned forward over the counter, eighteen inches of formica that separated those who waited from those who controlled how long they would wait.

  “I want to know where my nephews are. Please check your computer and tell me. Now.”

  The lizard woman harrumphed, but pecked at the keyboard with long green-painted nails.

  “What was the name again?”

  I told her and she peered at the screen. “Benedict. Yes, he’s been admitted and is on his way to surgery.”

  “Where?”

  “You can’t go down there,” she began and then rolled her reptilian eyes, as if to acknowledge that I would extract the information from her one way or another. “One floor down, Suite B, but they won’t let you in. There’s a waiting room where …”

  I hurried towards the elevator, punching the call button impatiently. When it finally arrived, I had to wait for two nurses to push out a gurney, its occupant as pale as death and perforated with tubes. An aura floated above the man’s head, and I turned away, unable to give him a second thought. I was too focused on Aidan.

  The elevator moved slowly down one floor, hissed to a halt, and the doors opened slowly on to a long, brightly lit corridor. A sign in front of me indicated Suite B was to the left. My boots squeaked on the linoleum floor as I hurried past closed doors, finally reaching a room marked with a B.

  The door was shut and I stopped dead in front of it. Aidan was on the other side, on the operating table. I wished I could send him a message, letting him know I was there. Now I’d arrived, I didn’t know what to do. I leaned against the wall, suddenly aware that my shoulder hurt where the seatbelt had tightened over it. Going back upstairs was pointless; I had to find Gabe. The thought of the little boy being alone somewhere in this vast hospital made me feel sick.

  A nurse in greens scrubs strode towards me, a few dark hairs bristling out from a white surgical cap. Her furrowed brow reminded me of my high school principal on a bad day.

  “Can I help you?” the nurse asked.

  “I’m looking for my nephews,” I said, standing up straight. “Aidan Benedict, and his brother Gabe.”

  “You’re the aunt,” she said. She was wearing a nametag with ‘Cindy’ printed on it. “Come with me.”

  She led the way further down the corridor to another door, which she pushed open, standing back to let me go in first.

  “Aunt Kate!” Gabe jumped out of a chair and threw himself at me. His little body was trembling.

  The nurse smiled, some of her scariness melted away. “This is Maude, one of our volunteers,” she said, introducing me to a kind-looking woman in her sixties. “She’s been keeping Gabe company.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “Do you know how Aidan is doing?”

  “He’s just gone into surgery.” Cindy said. “It could be a while before we know anything; I’ll come back as soon as I have any information.”

  Maude quietly withdrew, leaving Gabe and me alone in the small room. There were four or five chairs upholstered in brown fabric, along with a table that held a pile of dog-eared magazines and a tub of plastic toys.

  “Are you okay?” I asked him. He nodded, but it was an uncertain gesture. Taking my hand, he pulled me over to a chair, and then sat in the one next to me, leaning into me over the wooden armrest.

  “How was Aidan doing when they took him into surgery?”

  “Not too good. He was really white and he wouldn’t talk to me. Just sort of groaning a lot. At least he stopped being sick before the ambulance men came.” Gabe shivered. I tightened my arm around his shoulder.

  “He’ll be okay, I promise. We need to find your Dad somehow. Did he tell you where the dinner was being held?”

  Gabe scrunched up his face in thought. “Well, he took his fancy gown and cap with him, which usually that means it’s at one of the colleges. He said he would keep his phone on and we could text him but he never answered. I called twice and texted a lot.”

  “OK, I’ll try calling the Porter at his college to see if he can give us any help.”

  Damn, I should have thought of that earlier. I made some calls, finally reaching a master who said he knew where Leo was. Unaware of the urgency, he started to tell me that the dinner was being held in honor of some visiting mathematician from Sweden, but I cut him off.

  “Please find Leo. It’s very urgent. Ask him to call his sister.” I gave him the number. Gabe looked as though he was going to cry.

  “Your Dad will be here soon, don’t worry. Do you want to look at a comic? They seem to have a few.”

  “Uh huh.” He nestled closer against me. I had to shift him slightly to get to my phone when it rang.

  “What’s the problem, Kate?” Leo’s voice was low. I heard voices and the clinking of plates and glasses in the background. There was no mistaking the ill-concealed irritation in his voice.

  “It’s Aidan,” I said. “He’s okay, but he’s in surgery. Appendicitis. Can you come? I’m at the hospital with Gabe.”

  “Oh my God,” said Leo. There was a long pause. “My phone battery died. I didn’t realize until the Porter came to tell me to call you. I’m using a colleague’s phone. I’m really sorry. Is Aidan okay?”

  “We don’t know anything yet. Just come as fast as you can.”

  “I’m on my way.”

  “Your Dad’s coming,” I said to Gabe. “He won’t be long now.”

  He leaned his head on my shoulder and I stroked his hair. “Will Aidan be all right?” he asked after a while. “I’m scared.”

  “He’ll be fine. The doctors know what they’re doing and they perform these operations all the time.”

  “He’ll have a scar, won’t he? I bet it’ll be bigger than the one on my elbow. Do you want to see it?”

 
I laughed. I’d seen it before; it was the result of a fall from a bike when he was little. “Yes, show me,” I said, happy to keep him occupied and his thoughts off Aidan.

  I heard the squeak of shoes on the lino floor in the hallway and stood up, expecting Leo. It was Cindy, her expression serious.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “Aidan’s appendix had ruptured, so there is some infection. The doctors are working on it.”

  “Oh my God. Is it serious?”

  “Peritonitis is always serious, but he’s in good hands. The best, really. Doctor Patel has handled many, many of these cases.”

  The doctor’s experience was no consolation. My stomach clenched as though a wire had tightened around it.

  “There’s a cafeteria on the third floor and a vending machine on the second,” she said, with a glance at Gabe. “Perhaps a drink or a snack would help to pass the time?”

  Before I could explain that we were waiting for Aidan’s father, Leo arrived in a rush, out of breath and red in the cheeks. He held out his arms to Gabe, who ran into them, tears streaming down his cheeks. The two of them hugged for a minute, then Leo pushed him gently back so he could talk to the nurse.

  “Do we know anything about Aidan?”

  Cindy told him everything. When she mentioned the peritonitis, Leo’s face blanched. He sat down with his head in his hands. After a minute, he looked up.

  “Can I see the doctor?”

  “Not yet. These surgeries can take a while. Please be patient,” she said.

  “That’s funny,” said Gabe. “Aidan is the patient, but we have to be patient.”

  It was the first time he’d smiled since I’d arrived. I thought of explaining the origin of the word to him, but it seemed like too many words for my tired brain to string together.

  Ruffling Gabe’s hair, Leo turned to me. “How did you end up here?”

  I gave him a succinct version of how I’d talked to Gabe, called for an ambulance, and got a taxi up from London.

  “I’m so sorry.” Leo paced the room. “I should have noticed that Aidan was sick before I left. I should have checked my phone during the evening. I can’t believe I let my phone run out of power and didn’t even know. Stupid of me.”

  I tried to reassure him. “It’s not your fault, Leo. Aidan would be in surgery even if your phone had been working.”

  “He wouldn’t be if it weren’t for you, Kate. You were the one that checked in and got him to the hospital. If you hadn’t done that, God knows what would have happened to him. Thank you.”

  I felt the coldness in my veins melt away with Leo’s words. All the conflict of the past weeks was gone. In spite of my fear for Aidan, I felt a little better, happy that Leo and I were not fighting any more.

  Time passed very slowly. Gabe sat on the brown carpet, pushing legos around with no real interest. Leo paced, sat for a while, and paced some more. I stared at a magazine, but didn’t read a single word. Finally, the door opened. A nurse in green scrubs poked her head around it. “Dr. Benedict? Your son is out of surgery. You will be able to see him in a few minutes. The doctor would like a word with you first.”

  Leo squeezed my hand before hurrying after Cindy, leaving Gabe and me alone again. It was past midnight. Gabe should have been in bed.

  When Leo returned a few minutes later, he looked pale and drawn.

  “How is he?” I asked. “You should sit down. You look a bit wobbly.”

  “He’s okay. Recovery will be slow because of the damage done by the ruptured appendix, which released a lot of bacteria. They have him hooked up to IVs for fluids and antibiotics and are moving him to a room now.” Leo rubbed his eyes with his fist. “It was hard… he looked so fragile.”

  “I need to see him,” I said.

  “You need to get home to bed. You can see him in the morning.”

  “No.” When I shook my head, I felt as though a wave of water had sloshed from one ear to the other. I flicked a glance at Gabe, who was clutching a handful of lego bricks and looking at us both intently.

  “I really need to see him now.” I had to see if the aura had disappeared, but didn’t want to say anything in front of Gabe. I saw understanding dawning on Leo’s face.

  “Okay. Just for a minute,” he said.

  The trek to Aidan’s room took forever, along corridors, in elevators, and through more corridors that were lined with doors open to darkened rooms where patients slept.

  Aidan’s room was still lit and partitioned into two by a curtain. Low voices murmured on the other side. He was asleep, propped up, his face as white as the pillows. Several IV tubes ran into his arm. Gabe reached for my hand and squeezed it. “He looks really sick,” he said in a whisper.

  I leaned over and stroked the hair back from Aidan’s forehead. His skin was cold and dry. I gazed at him, at the area around his head. The air was as still and motionless as he was, not a tremble or flicker of the aura remaining. I gave Leo a big smile. He expelled a huge breath and smiled back. He had never wanted to believe in the aura, but he obviously had, whether consciously or not. We would need to talk about it, but not yet. Not until Aidan was well.

  Leo drove Gabe and me back home. I’d said I’d stay for a day or two, so that Leo could sit with Aidan at the hospital. When we got to the house, I carried Gabe from the car. He was worn out, but he woke up enough to ask me to sleep in his room, so I straightened the duvet on Aidan’s bed and crawled in. It was soothing to sleep under the glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling.

  When I woke up, the curtains were dappled with daylight, but I snuggled deeper under the duvet and closed my eyes, dozing until Gabe crept into the room with a mug of tea for me.

  I was sore from the fender bender, but felt my shoulder loosening up under a hot shower. I went downstairs to help Gabe, who was making bacon sandwiches for breakfast. We passed the day on the sofa, watching cartoons and drinking hot chocolate. Leo came by in the evening with takeout Indian and updates on Aidan, who was still sleeping a lot, knocked out by the morphine.

  On Sunday afternoon, Leo made arrangements for his girlfriend to look after Gabe, and I headed back to London on the train. I was anxious to see Josh. I wished we hadn’t fought over the glass panels; not, I reflected, that they were really the cause of the problem. The aura was the issue. I didn’t blame Josh for needing some time to come to terms with it, but I missed him. I missed the way he looked at me when he thought I wasn’t watching, the way his dark brown hair curled against the back of his neck. I missed him and I needed him, in a way that I’d never let myself need anyone before. But I had an uneasy feeling that he was slipping away from me. The aura visions were making me behave differently. I didn’t like this new me. How could I expect Josh to?

  And there was Nick. I’d texted him a couple of times and he’d responded, so I knew he was alive. But for how much longer? I needed to see him, to assess the aura to see if it was any stronger. I couldn’t let him die.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  I texted Josh when I got off the train at Paddington Station, but he didn’t answer. Disappointed, I stopped at a convenience store on the corner of my street, where I bought a microwaveable lasagna. It didn’t look very appetizing, but I needed to eat something. I had no energy to cook.

  I was about to turn the microwave on when the phone rang. When I heard Josh’s voice, I felt a thrill of relief.

  “I’ll bring food and we can have dinner together?” he offered.

  Happy, I threw the lasagna in the bin and ran around, tidying up.

  The sound of the doorbell was jarring in the silence of the apartment. I glanced at the clock. It was only six, even though the rain-soaked darkness made it seem much later. When I opened the front door, Josh wrapped his arms around me. I leaned into him, feeling the dampness of his coat through my thin silk shirt.

  “I’ve been really worried about you,” he said, taking off his coat, which was dripping water that pooled into dark spots on the beige carpet. With the image
of the bloodstains on Rebecca’s carpet flashing in front of my eyes, I took a step back.

  “Are you okay?” Josh asked.

  “Not really. A lot has happened.”

  “Why don’t you sit while I heat up this food and make us some drinks.”

  We moved to the kitchen, Josh pulling out a counter stool for me to sit on before turning his attention to a bottle of white wine. He handed me a glass.

  “I’m sorry about your nephew. How’s he doing?”

  I’d told Josh some of the story by text. Now I filled in the details of Aidan’s appendicitis and surgery. “He’s going to be fine, but it was frightening for a while.”

  I left Aidan’s aura out of the story. There was no need to bring it up and risk spoiling the newfound harmony between us.

  “Any updates on Rebecca?” Josh asked. “I thought the funeral would have been sooner.”

  “It was delayed because of the autopsy. The police think it was murder.”

  A look of shock crossed Josh’s face. “Murder? But who and how? I thought it was an accident?”

  I told him about my own suspicions, the autopsy findings, and my meeting with Clarke. Josh put his hand over mine and held it there while I talked. I didn’t say anything about Clarke’s concerns for my safety.

  When I finished, we sat in silence for a while. I heard the clock ticking in the living room and the muted sound of traffic from the street below.

  “Kate, I need to apologize to you,” Josh said. “I got mad about the glass panels, which was really stupid of me. I know you weren’t going around me to Alan.” He sighed. “It’s no excuse, but I’ve been running on fumes for more than a month now. Alan’s working me really hard. Not just me, but Laura and Jim too. I get the feeling there’s something going on that we don’t know about.”

  “Something wrong at the top, do you think?”

  “I’m not sure. I’ll tell you if I learn anything.”

  He paused, took a sip of wine. “How’s Nick doing?”

  “I don’t know. I make excuses to check in on him by sending him messages. So far, so good, but I haven’t seen him for a week. I need to do that soon to check if the aura is any stronger. That reminds me. I saw Gary a few days ago.”