One Minute Later

by Susan Lewis

  He touched a hand to her face and as he kissed her he said, ‘I love you, Vivienne Shager, and whatever they say in there, just remember, nothing’s ever going to change that.’

  At last Vivi and her mother were seated opposite the cardiologist, Saanvi Sharvelle, the softly-spoken Canadian whom they’d last seen several months ago during Vivi’s first visit to the clinic. Since then Dr Sharvelle had presumably overseen the monitoring of Vivi’s progress, and from the way her sharp grey eyes were fixed on the computer screen in front of her now she was still assimilating and assessing the results of today.

  ‘OK,’ she said finally, turning to them. She didn’t smile, or change the tone of her voice as she apologized for making them wait so long, she simply linked her long fingers together and rested them on the desk in front of her.

  ‘I’ve been in regular contact with your team at the transplant centre,’ she told Vivi, ‘and we are all of the same opinion, which is why you’ve been called in today to undergo more tests.’

  Vivi’s mouth was dry; her nerves were so tight that she had no idea how hard she was squeezing her mother’s hand until Gina was forced to ease herself free.

  ‘First of all,’ Dr Sharvelle said evenly, ‘there is a …complication that we weren’t expecting …’

  Vivi reeled and missed the next few words.

  ‘… but before we get into the detail,’ Sharvelle was saying, ‘you need to understand that your decision will affect whether or not you remain on the transplant list.’

  Vivi swallowed drily and glanced at her mother. She knew she’d have to come off the list if she had a VAD, at least for a while; she also knew that some people refused them.

  ‘You’ll continue with the ICD,’ Dr Sharvelle informed her, ‘and the medication, of course …’

  Vivi was finding it impossible to focus. She kept missing words, misunderstanding their meaning, then her mother suddenly gulped on a sob, clasping her hands to her face.

  Vivi stared at the doctor. What had she said? What did all this mean? Oh God, oh God, it was obviously really bad.

  Apparently realizing Vivi hadn’t connected with what she’d been told the doctor began again, this time spelling it out more clearly.

  Vivi was already at the flat by the time Josh came in from the hospital looking tired, but relieved, for David’s suspected stroke had turned out to be a much less serious TIA.

  ‘They’ve decided to keep him in overnight,’ he said, pulling her into his arms, ‘and Nate will collect him in the morning. Now I want to hear about you.’

  She gazed up at him, and wondered if he really was even more handsome than she’d realized, or perhaps it was just that her news was making her see him in a clearer light.

  ‘What?’ he prompted, when she continued to look at him.

  She found herself turning away. Right up until the time he’d come through the door she’d been rehearsing how to tell him what the doctor had said, but she still wasn’t sure that she’d found the right words.

  Taking her arm, he turned her back. ‘What is it?’ he asked darkly, and tilting her chin up so he could see her expression, his own tightened with more unease. ‘Tell me what it is,’ he said urgently.

  She swallowed hard, bracing herself. ‘We’re … we’re going to have a baby,’ she whispered raggedly.

  He stared at her in shock, appearing to have no idea how it could have happened, which might have been funny if the situation weren’t so serious. A beat later she could almost see, even hear, the questions blazing around in his head.

  Answering them before he could ask, she said, ‘They can’t tell me for certain yet if my medication has already caused any damage to the foetus. I have to see an obstetrician tomorrow. We might know more then, but it’ll probably be a few more weeks before they can tell us anything for certain.’

  Taking that in, he swallowed drily as he said, ‘So they’re not saying that you shouldn’t have it?’

  She shook her head. ‘In fact, they’ve already taken me off the warfarin and put me on unfractionated heparin instead – anticoagulants can be a big problem during pregnancy, apparently. A lot will depend on the results of the ultrasound tomorrow. If the obstetrician is happy for things to continue, then they’ll keep a close eye on me throughout. It’ll probably mean having to spend a lot of the time with my feet up, and maybe I’ll even have to stay in hospital until it’s born. It’ll also mean coming off the transplant list, but I want this baby so much, Josh. Tell me you do too.’

  Wrapping her tightly in his arms, he said, ‘Don’t ever doubt it. Not for a single minute. I want it as much as you do, but if it’s going to put you at risk …’

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ she assured him, willing it to be true. It had to be, it just did.

  He drew back to look at her again, and began shaking his head in a way she couldn’t quite understand. ‘This is so not what we expected when we left here this morning,’ he said hoarsely. ‘I thought … I was afraid …’

  ‘I know,’ she whispered, and seeing the tears in his eyes she pulled his mouth to hers. ‘I only wish I could tell you that my heart is healing, but this news … Maybe it’s even better.’

  He seemed unable to answer that, so he simply kissed her again. ‘Does your mother know?’ he asked.

  ‘She was there when Dr Sharvelle told me. Gil knows too, and I’ll have to tell Michelle and Sam, your mother too, but outside our immediate circle I think it’s best not to say anything until we’re more sure of what’s going to happen. If we really can continue with it.’

  He nodded agreement. ‘Do you know how far along you are?’

  ‘About six weeks.’ Her eyes twinkled. ‘It’s what all the increased nausea and tiredness has been about lately. I should have realized. I would have, if it weren’t for everything else.’

  Pulling her to him again, he said, ‘Tell me what you want to do about a wedding. If you’d rather wait until everything’s more certain …’

  With tearful laughter in her voice, she said, ‘I’m not sure. I can hardly think about anything at the moment.’

  Understanding, he lowered his mouth to hers and kissed her deeply. ‘Let’s make a decision after tomorrow,’ he said gruffly. ‘I love you so much. I hope you know that.’

  ‘I love you too, more than I can put into words.’

  They stood together for a long time, feeling the currents of hope and belonging and dread enveloping them. They couldn’t lose this baby, they just couldn’t, but if her drugs had already damaged it, or if it turned into a choice between its life and hers, she knew there probably wouldn’t be a choice at all.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  VIVIENNE

  Two Months Later

  The church bells of St Jude’s-on-the-Lake were ringing out over the countryside, sounding joyous and all-embracing the way they always did at Christmas and Easter and other significant times of the year. The weather was mild and breezy, with occasional rays of bright sunlight breaking from the clouds to paint the surrounding countryside in a fine, sparkling mist.

  A chauffeur-driven car decorated with white ribbons pulled up at the stone-arched gate to the churchyard, the driver got out and then came to open the back door. Vivi stepped out into a flurry of autumn leaves, and paused to look up at the steeple, tall and grey against a milky-white sky. She put a hand to her hair as though to secure the small pearls her mother had carefully laced into the riotous waves, and found herself fighting back a surging ambush of emotion. This was a day that wasn’t supposed to happen, that since her heart had gone into failure she hadn’t dared even dream about, and now here she was, and here it was, and every precious minute of it was real. She had so much to be thankful for, maybe too much …

  ‘Are you OK?’ Gil asked, coming round the car to join her. He looked so distinguished and handsome in his dark grey morning suit, blue paisley waistcoat and cream cravat. A father any daughter could love and feel proud of.

  She nodded and took a steadying breath.
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br />   She knew Josh was already inside, waiting at the altar for her to join him. She pictured him backlit by a towering stained-glass window, dashing and romantic in his dark grey morning suit and bright white shirt, and then she had to stop picturing him for it was bringing tears to her eyes.

  As she and Gil walked along the church path, lined by Deerwood’s residents and neighbours, all oohing and aahing and wishing her well, her eyes went to her goddaughter, Millie, waiting all alone at the door. Dear little Millie with her golden curls and turquoise-blue eyes, she’d insisted she could do this without her mother’s help and it would appear she’d got her way. Vivi smiled and gave her the cue they’d rehearsed. With great importance Millie, in her azure satin dress and princess tiara, turned, went in through the church door and began tossing flowers from her basket as she strode too fast down the aisle.

  Seeing her, the organist ceased his sprightly version of ‘Hey Jude’, presumably a nod to the church’s patron saint, and a moment later the ancient building was filled with a rousing recording of the Trumpet Voluntary, performed by Diane Bish on four organs at Münster Cathedral. Gina and Shelley had found it online, and Josh and Vivi had been happy to indulge them. The detail of the ceremony didn’t matter to them anywhere near as much as what it actually meant.

  As the congregation rose to their feet, every one of them turned to watch Vivi enter on her stepfather’s arm. She was wearing an ivory silk sheath dress to the knee swathed in glistening chiffon, with crystals around the neck and hemline and the small diamond studs Josh had given her last night in her ears. Her bouquet of creamy hellebores and frosted foliage was matched in the larger arrangements throughout the church, and had been created by two of Deerwood’s budding florists.

  The first person Vivi saw as she started forward was Jim Lynskey, sitting in a back pew with his mother and sister, who’d brought him today. He was watching her with a typical young man’s sanguine smile, and she felt an overwhelming affection for him and yet more admiration for how genuinely happy he’d seemed for her when she’d told him her news. She wished with all her fragile heart that she could make a very special miracle happen for him.

  As she walked slowly forward, carried along by the music and feeling as though she was floating in a dream, she saw each of the GaLs, smiling, tearful and glamorous in their designer dresses and stylish hats. Michelle, stunning in a lilac wool two-piece and twenties-style silk boudoir cap, was in front of them with her parents and Sam’s. Gina was at the end of that pew strikingly elegant in a rose-pink lace dress and matching pillbox hat. As she watched Vivi and Gil coming towards her, Vivi could see that she was trying hard not to sob. Beside her Mark was grinning in a way Vivi knew was meant to be comedy cheesy, but was actually an attempt to cover his own tears.

  On the other side of the aisle was Josh’s entire family, all four generations of them, from David the eldest, fully recovered from his TIA, right down to Perry and Selma’s three-month-old baby, Bobby. Even Dodgy the Border collie was there in a smart bow tie, sitting with Nate at the end of a brand-new lead, a peculiarity that Dodgy hadn’t experienced before, but appeared to be suffering with dignity. It seemed Michelle and Sam’s sixteen-month-old, Ash, had gone to join the Raynors, for Vivi spotted him standing on the seat beside Shelley, presumably to get a better view of his father, the best man.

  Then she saw Josh, and as their eyes met her heart seemed to expand and glow and beat only for him. She had never felt more beautiful or happy or loved in her life. He watched her until the moment Gil handed her to him, looking so romantic and smart in his expensively tailored suit, and so much the man she wanted to spend every single minute of the rest of her life with, that she actually sobbed as they turned to the rector.

  The ceremony passed too quickly, a melodious, yet muted chorus of voices, laughter, song and prayer. To her relief she repeated the vows without fault, and smiled when Josh tripped over his own name, and gasped when Sam almost dropped the rings. Their mothers, Gil and Nate came with them to sign the register, and afterwards, as they walked back down the aisle as husband and wife to the very traditional Mendelssohn’s Wedding March, she could only thank the fate that had so dramatically stopped her previous life in order to bring her to this one.

  Later, at Deerwood’s studio barn, as the banqueting tables were cleared and shoes and hats started coming off, the residents’ band began to play Van Morrison’s ‘Days Like This’. Vivi and Josh took the floor with a dance that felt as intimate and exclusive as the look in his eyes. The lyrics were perfect, said everything in words they might not have found themselves, and added even more meaning to what they had already said.

  As the music changed and others joined them, Vivi tried to persuade Jim to his feet. He didn’t want to, though whether he was too shy, or not feeling so good, she couldn’t be sure. She sat with him and his family for a while, holding his hand and thinking of how shocked most of the guests would be if they knew about the apparatus hidden beneath his clothes that was keeping him alive. People rarely knew about those waiting for transplant, it wasn’t displayed in a sign over their heads; it didn’t even show in their faces, or the way they walked or talked.

  ‘Did you try praying?’ Jim asked quietly, during the few moments they were left alone together. He was the only person outside the family that she’d told about the baby, and she was glad that she had. She didn’t want secrets between them; their connection was too special.

  ‘Yes, we did,’ she admitted, ‘but this wasn’t the answer we expected.’ She put a hand over the soft mound of her belly, not visible to anyone yet, apart from her and Josh.

  ‘Do you feel worried about coming off the transplant list?’ Jim queried.

  She sighed shakily. ‘Yes and no. Everything’s so unpredictable, so precarious it could change again in a heartbeat.’

  They both smiled at the lame joke.

  ‘I guess the important thing for me to remember,’ she continued, ‘is to be thankful for what I have, and to take nothing for granted.’

  Looking up as Josh came to join them, she took his hand as he said to Jim, ‘Thanks for coming. It’s meant a lot to us.’

  ‘To me too,’ Jim replied, and because of the way he said it, with so much sincerity and gratitude, Vivi wondered if it would be too gushing to tell him that he felt like family.

  ‘We’ll be in touch next week,’ Josh promised, ‘and if you’re going partying in town tonight with Vivi’s brother, remember …’

  ‘Not to drink?’ Jim cut in helpfully. ‘It’s OK, I don’t risk it. I need my wits about me to read the batteries in case something goes wrong. But I’m looking forward to a night out.’

  Josh nodded, and Vivi knew that, like her, he was thinking of how different this young man’s life should be, could be … ‘What I was going to say,’ Josh continued, ‘is that you’re welcome to crash at our place.’

  Surprised, Jim said, ‘You won’t be there? No, of course, you’re going on honeymoon.’

  ‘We’ll be here, at the farm,’ Josh told him. After such a long and emotional day they’d decided that a walk across the farmyard at the end of it would be as far as Vivi needed to go.

  They turned as the GaLs began calling for them to cut the cake, which turned out to be a spectacular creation courtesy of Deerwood’s amateur bakers, not in the shape of a heart, as Vivi had feared since they had to cut into it, but in the shape of something that resembled a sheep, or was it a horse? Whatever it was, it was beautiful, and different, and looked so scrumptious with all its white-chocolate slopes, toppings and sprinklings that it deserved all the photos people were taking.

  Putting his hand over hers on the knife, Josh waited for the cameras to finish capturing the image and said, ‘Mrs Raynor and I would like to thank …’ He got no further, and laughed as everyone cheered and stamped their feet in approval. Vivi looked up at him, and as he looked back at her the room erupted again.

  ‘Thank you, everyone, for coming,’ he continued when quiet was resto
red. ‘There isn’t anyone here today who isn’t very special to us, whether friend or family …’

  ‘I’m like family,’ Millie reminded him.

  As everyone laughed, he said, ‘You are indeed, and you are also the most beautiful flower girl I’ve ever seen.’

  Millie glowed.

  Looking around at the expectant faces again, he said, ‘We promised no long speeches so this won’t be one, but I want to single out both our mothers, Gina and Shelley, and also our friends Michelle and Sam, to tell them how much we love them, and to say how grateful we are for everything they’ve done to make this such a special day.’

  When the applause died down, Vivi took her turn to speak. ‘We also want to thank my wonderful stepfather, Gil, for being one of the most special people on earth.’ She smiled as he took an extravagant bow, and everyone cheered. ‘My brother, Mark, for being just too darned gorgeous and everything anyone could want in a brother.’ Another cheer, with some banging of tables and wolf whistles. ‘Also my dear, glamorous friends, the GaLs, for coming all this way today. I want to tell you how much all our memories mean to me. When we were at uni, and after, when we were all caught up in ambition and career and more craziness than I should probably go into in front of my new husband and his family, I never imagined for a moment that life had other plans for me. I could wish, of course, that it had chosen another way to throw me in a completely different direction, but how can I be anything but glad now that it did?’ She turned her face up to Josh, and to everyone’s delight he touched his lips to hers. ‘I guess, what I’m trying to say,’ she continued, ‘is that fate has a very peculiar way of doing things, and though I don’t claim to begin to understand it, I do know that while I’ve experienced some of the very worst moments of my life over the past months, I’ve also, thanks to my wonderful husband, experienced the very happiest.’ She swallowed hard as rising emotions tried to steal her voice – and then they won. She could say no more, her throat was too tight and her heart too full.