The Proud Italian

by Alison Roberts

  ‘Are you sure you want to do this? We’ve never done any decorating ourselves. We might be better to get some experts to come and do it for us.’

  ‘That would take ages. Mel says that good firms are booked up months in advance. And it’s easy…’

  Rafael didn’t look convinced.

  ‘Ella’s due for her biopsy in a few days. If it’s good news then we’re going to be allowed to take her home soon. Don’t you want us to have her room all ready for her?’

  They were both assuming that the news would be good. How could it not be when Ella was looking so well? The time that Abbie and Rafael had spent with their daughter over the last few days since the wedding had been a joy.

  The time they had found to be together at home had also been a joy. They had started talking properly about the immediate future. About wanting to get the garden sorted so that Ella could play out there and use her swing in the summer. About turning the room they’d never had the chance to really use as a nursery into a bedroom fit for a princess.

  ‘You really want to do this, don’t you?’

  Abbie nodded. It wasn’t just to have a pretty new room ready for their daughter. This was something they could do together. Another way to build on the foundations they were laying for their future together.

  ‘I’ve already found a colour that would be perfect. Look…’

  ‘Dio.’ Rafael eyed the square Abbie was pointing to. ‘It’s very…pink, isn’t it?’

  ‘It’s exactly the same shade as that ballerina bear you gave her. There’s a catalogue here of friezes you can get and there’s one with pink teddies on it.’ Abbie shuffled through the handful of pamphlets she held. ‘And I thought we could do silver stars on the ceiling. You get a template and you can spray paint them on and put glitter on while the paint’s still wet.’

  Rafael closed his eyes for a moment.

  ‘We can do this, Rafe. Maybe it won’t be perfect but does that really matter?’

  She watched him take a deep breath. ‘When do you want to start?’

  ‘Tonight. After Ella’s settled. We could get some take-aways from our favourite Italian restaurant to have after we’ve done some painting.’

  By eleven that night, there was a deep-dish lasagne still in the oven that had probably dried out to the point of being inedible. Abbie had streaks of pink paint on her nose and in her hair and the one wall they had finished painting looked terrible, with splotches of its original colour showing through all over the place.

  ‘It just needs another coat,’ Abbie said. But she looked close to tears.

  Rafael wanted to say that he knew it would have been a better idea to get the experts in but he bit his tongue and kept scrubbing at the drips of paint on the polished wooden floor.

  In the silence that followed he glanced up to see Abbie just standing, looking dejectedly at the wall. A roller dangled from one hand. Her shoulders were slumped. The pink stripe in her hair had come from pushing stray strands back towards her ponytail. The ancient T-shirt of his that she was wearing to cover her clothes might not be something she would ever wear in public but her stance reminded him of when he’d seen her again after her long absence.

  When she’d been standing outside Ella’s room and he’d realised how hard it had all been for her. He’d wanted to put his arms around her then and tell her how much he loved her. That everything would be all right. That he would never let life be this hard for her again.

  He hadn’t been able to bridge the gulf between them then.

  But he could now.

  What did it matter if there were pink marks left on these floorboards? Rafael got to his feet. He stood behind Abbie and wrapped his arms around her, loving the way she leaned back into him without hesitation.

  ‘Paint always looks bad before it dries,’ he said with conviction.

  ‘How do you know that? Have you ever painted a wall before?’

  ‘I just know,’ Rafael said. ‘And if it doesn’t look good when it dries, then we’ll just give it another coat. And another and another until it looks perfect.’

  Abbie groaned. ‘Why do rooms need to have four walls?’

  Rafael laughed. ‘We need to eat. And then we need to shower.’ He held up the cloth he was still holding in one hand. ‘I can get all that pink paint off your skin. I have been practising.’

  ‘I’m too tired to eat. Couldn’t we just go to bed?’

  Tempting. But it would have to wait. Rafael shook his head. ‘Food,’ he said.

  ‘Is that an order?’ Abbie was smiling as she swivelled in his arms to look up at him but then her smile faltered. What had been intended as a joke had an undercurrent that had the potential to reopen old wounds. Her mouth twisted into a grimace. ‘I’m too tired to think,’ she sighed. ‘I hope it’s an order.’ Her smile reappeared. ‘Feed me. Please?’

  The following evening Rafael made sure they ate before they started work on Ella’s room. Thai food tonight, instead of Italian. Maybe they could do Turkish or good old English fish and chips next time.

  There were parts of this project that were very enjoyable. Cleaning up afterwards, for example. Long, hot showers where they could soap each other’s skin and linger in one spot.

  ‘Pink paint,’ he’d say. How Abbie might have got so much pink paint on her breasts was open to debate but she didn’t seem to mind his ministrations.

  He certainly hadn’t dripped any pink paint inside his trousers but he wasn’t going to complain about Abbie’s attention to certain parts of his anatomy either.

  It even worked when they were out of the shower. When he wanted to take his time to taste her skin.

  ‘Must have missed a bit,’ he would murmur as he licked. ‘Pink paint.’

  It made Abbie giggle and the code slipped into that special place that was the private language of people who loved each other. A way of saying so much with only a look or a word or two that would make no sense to anybody else.

  Eating together was another very enjoyable part of these snatched hours together. Not just because they could share the food and the feeling of home but because it meant they could talk about their days the way they’d done when they’d first known each other.

  ‘It’s a giant mole.’ Abbie had a new patient to tell him about on the night they finally finished the last coat of pink paint. ‘Covering her whole lower leg. I’m going to insert saline pouches under the skin of her good leg and we’ll inflate them gradually over the next few months until we get enough new skin.’

  ‘And then you’ll remove the mole?’

  ‘Yes. And we’ll keep the skin attached to its source until it’s established a blood supply and got locked into its new location. Means we’ll have to keep the legs splinted together for quite a while but it’ll be worth it. Her mother’s happy to do it.’

  Rafael had news to share on the night they glued the teddy-bear frieze into position halfway up the walls.

  ‘Anoosheh met her adoptive parents today. She’s going to have brothers and sisters and they’ve got a pet rabbit. She’s very excited.’

  ‘That’s fantastic. You must be so happy about that.’

  ‘I am.’ It had, in fact, been surprising how happy the news had made him feel. Even more so than the excellent result that was appearing from the first major surgery the little girl had needed.

  Maybe he was changing. Learning to see things more like Abbie?

  ‘Ooh…’ Abbie paused in her task of trying to get the air bubbles out from beneath the strip of frieze. ‘Do you think Ella would like a pet rabbit?’

  ‘She has Ears. I don’t think we need to rush into getting a real one.’

  ‘No… I guess not. I just thought it might be a nice birthday present.’

  ‘She’s had her birthday.’

  ‘Yes, but we were in New York. And she was too sick to celebrate. I thought…maybe we could have another birthday party? When she gets home?’

  ‘Coming home will be enough to celebrate all by itself
, won’t it?’

  Abbie was standing very still now. Her eyes were huge. She opened her mouth to say something but nothing came out so she nodded instead.

  Rafael couldn’t find anything to say to fill the silence either. Perhaps it was because Ella was due to have her bone-marrow biopsy tomorrow. He stepped forward to take the sponge out of Abbie’s hand. What did it matter if there were air bubbles under the frieze for ever? It was time they stopped working and went to bed. Time they held each other for a while and gathered strength for what would undoubtedly be a tense day.

  This was the first major procedure that Rafael had seen Ella undergo since before they’d left for New York.

  How would he handle it?

  Would he even want to be present?

  Apparently he wanted to be more than simply present. It was Rafael who held Ella in Theatre as the powerful sedative took hold and Abbie could sense his tension skyrocket as their baby lost consciousness.

  Rafael was curled protectively over their daughter as her head lolled sideways, using the crook of his elbow to support her neck and his hand to catch the tiny arm that flopped like a rag doll’s.

  Abbie could remember the first time she’d held Ella under the same circumstances and that terrible moment when she’d gone so boneless and still in her arms. The awful thought that she couldn’t hold back.

  This is what it will feel like when she dies…

  Was that what Rafael was thinking as he laid Ella down on the bed so gently? Abbie’s throat tightened painfully. A nurse made sure that the little head was positioned well on the special pillow and the young registrar assisting the oncology consultant tilted Ella’s head back to ensure that her airway was protected.

  Rafael came to stand beside Abbie as they prepared Ella for aspirating the sample of her bone marrow that would tell them what was happening on a cellular level. A lab technician was arranging a series of slides on the top of a trolley that she would prepare as soon as the sample had been obtained. Another trolley was covered with the bone-marrow aspiration kit, which included intimidating items like long needles with handle-type attachments, along with the usual plastic syringes, needles and a scalpel.

  Ella was moved carefully into a recovery-type position, with her knees flexed, and then the skin over the back of her hip was swabbed with disinfectant and covered with a sterile drape that had a small square window in it.

  ‘So, it’s the posterior iliac crest that’s being used.’ Rafael’s voice sounded tight. ‘The last time I saw this, it was the tibia that was used.’

  Was he trying to distance himself from what was going on by looking at it in a professional sense? Was it the only form of protection he thought he had?

  ‘It’s been the iliac crest for the last few times,’ Abbie responded. ‘The tibia’s only a suitable site for very young babies. It’s too hard to get the sample and there’s the risk of causing a fracture.’ Her voice was just as tight. She hated watching this.

  Her tone must have carried because the consultant looked up from where she was infiltrating the area around Ella’s hip with local anaesthetic.

  ‘You don’t have to stay,’ she said, with a sympathetic smile. ‘You could go for a walk maybe. Or get a coffee. We’ll come and get you as soon as it’s all over. Ella’s sound asleep. She doesn’t know if you’re here or not.’

  ‘We know.’ The words were ground out of Rafael as if uttering them was painful.

  There was no professional distance in insisting that they stay in the room. Abbie knew that there was nowhere for Rafael to hide in that moment. That he was vulnerable. She also knew that there was another way to protect yourself. One that she had yearned for so often when she’d been in New York.

  Could she get over the resentment of not having it and offer it to Rafael right now?

  Of course she could. She loved him, didn’t she?

  Abbie reached for his hand and squeezed it, offering some of her own strength. An acknowledgment that she understood exactly how he was feeling. That they were in this together.

  She offered an encouraging smile, too, as her hand was squeezed back, hard enough to crush her fingers painfully. She was sure the results of this test were going to be good. That putting Ella through this procedure was worthwhile.

  Impossible not to feel a little sick, though, watching that big needle around the stylet being twisted into their baby’s hip bone. The top of the needle was unscrewed and the stylet removed and then a syringe was attached. You could almost feel the pain that the suction that was needed to try and aspirate the bone marrow would have caused if the patient had been conscious. That first attempt wasn’t successful, so the stylet had to go back in and the needle advanced a little further.

  And all the time Abbie could feel how tense Rafael was. Closing her eyes, she got a real sense of the struggle he must have gone through when Ella had been so tiny. How gut-wrenching it had been for him to see his baby undergoing this kind of procedure when the professional side of his brain must have been not only trying to protect him but arming him with the statistics of how remote the possibility of a cure was.

  Whereas Abbie had focussed only on any tiny gleam of hope. When the only protection she’d had had been the comfort of Rafael’s arms. Had she given as much comfort as she’d received?

  Probably not. Rafael had taken on board the suffering of the woman he loved as well as their baby’s suffering.

  No wonder he’d reached breaking point. When it had all become too much.

  Abbie tightened her grip on Rafael’s hand. As gruelling as this was, she had never felt closer to him. She could only hope that he was feeling the same.

  Rafael had to consciously control the pressure he was putting into holding Abbie’s hand because he knew that if he squeezed as hard as he wanted to he would cause her physical pain.

  And causing pain to someone he loved was simply abhorrent to him, whether that pain was physical or emotional.

  He loved Abbie with all his heart and he’d never wanted to cause her pain by not being there to support her when she was watching things like this. But his love for Ella was different. She was an actual part of his heart. Of his soul. He could feel her pain as keenly as if this procedure and the countless others that had come before this one were being performed on him.

  And how could anyone justify continuing to inflict pain like that when the likelihood of success was so remote?

  The weight of that pain and the darkness hovering in the future had been all that Rafael had been able to see.

  But Abbie had been able to see the glimmer of hope and, this time, Rafael could see it too. If these results were good, Ella’s central line would be taken out tomorrow. They would be able to take her home very, very soon.

  He turned his head and, as if sensing the subtle movement, Abbie looked up and caught his gaze.

  The love he could see in her eyes made his throat tighten so much he couldn’t take a new breath but he could feel his lips curl in a gentle smile as his gaze clung to hers.

  I love you, too, was the silent message. I think I understand now.

  The second attempt at aspiration was successful. The lab technician was dotting what looked like dark blood onto the slides and then using another slide to smear the sample over the glass. They would be ready for staining and microscopic examination of the cells in no time at all. The registrar was holding test tubes with additional small amounts of the bone marrow, tipping them end to end to mix the anticoagulant and make sure that these samples didn’t clot and become useless.

  They would have the results very quickly.

  And it was all over. The needle was out and the nurse had a dressing she was using to apply pressure to the almost invisible wound. The registrar was drawing up the medication to reverse the sedation.

  Ella was a little grizzly as she began waking up properly.

  ‘You carry her back to the ward,’ Abbie said to Rafael. ‘She’s probably hungry more than anything after being nil by mouth t
his morning. I’ll bet she lets you give her a bottle when we get her settled back in her room.’

  Rafael was more than happy to oblige. He carried Ella in his arms, jiggling her gently to try and comfort her. Even being back in her room with Ears and ballerina bear didn’t seem to distract her and she made it very clear she wasn’t interested in having a bottle, from either her father or her mother.

  She was still unhappy half an hour later.

  ‘Is she in pain, do you think?’

  Abbie shook her head. ‘They put lots more local in when they finish the procedure and she’s got paracetamol on board. I’ve never seen her react like this after an aspiration before. Try her with the bottle again.’

  ‘You try first this time.’

  But Ella wouldn’t drink her milk, even with Abbie holding the bottle and cuddling her in the chair. She pushed it away with her little fists and cried harder.

  Rafael tried reading her a story and making animal noises but it couldn’t provide a distraction and it only made him feel foolish so he gave up. Abbie tried singing songs but petered out just as quickly. Even her beloved toy Ears was roundly rejected time and again and he ended up abandoned on the floor.

  Ella was exhausted but still whimpering when the oncology consultant came to visit.

  ‘The news couldn’t be better,’ the consultant told them. ‘There’s no evidence of the cancer whatsoever and the new T cells are still there, ready to fight any recurrence.’

  Abbie burst into tears at the news. Rafael had to swallow very hard before he could produce any words.

  ‘Thank you,’ was all he could manage. ‘Thank you so much.’

  But the consultant’s smile was fading already. ‘She’s not sounding too happy, is she?’

  ‘She’s been like this ever since the aspiration,’ Abbie said. ‘I don’t understand. She’s never reacted like this before.’