‘You don’t know that. I’m sure they’d run tests for any nasty head wound, in case the bump had caused internal damage. Look, it’s late there. Try and get some rest and hold off your panic until you have some answers. You won’t be any good to Emma if you’re exhausted.’
‘Rest?’ Flick sighed—her body might be fatigued, but how could she rest in their lovely hotel room with Emma in hospital? ‘I don’t think I can.’
‘Then how about you tell me what you’ve been up to the last couple of days, before all this drama?’
Unable to think about anything except the debacle with Jeremy, her chest tightened. She didn’t know yet whether she wanted to tell Seb about her old friend, so she thought hard to think of something else. Central Park felt like years ago now. ‘We’ve done a little shopping. We visited some boutiques on Fifth Ave.’
‘Ooh, I bet they were fancy.’ It sounded more like a question than a statement but she moved on quickly, not wanting to talk to Seb about fashion. ‘And then we did the tourist thing and took photos from the Top of the Rock. I’ll post them on Facebook later. We also went to Central Park, which was even more beautiful than I imagined.’
They talked some more of New York and then she asked him about home. ‘How are the kids? We’ve talked on the phone. Zoe sounds busy with uni and wedding stuff but you know what Toby’s like; one-word answers if I’m lucky.’
Seb chuckled. ‘They’re both great. Zoe had her next dress fitting and looks amazing. I took a couple of photos for you, I’ll send them.’
‘Thanks,’ she said, wondering if he’d really taken them for her or so he could look back on them later and fawn over the gown. ‘And is Toby doing all his homework, eating properly, changing his socks daily?’
‘Yes. I haven’t had to remind him about any of those things so far. Maybe we’re doing okay at this parenthood gig.’
‘Maybe.’ Although Flick couldn’t help but wonder if that would be the assessment once Seb came out of the closet. Was that even the expression when someone came out to the world as transgender?
They talked some more, this time about Seb’s work, until he said, ‘I’m sorry, sweetheart, but I have to go. I promised Toby I’d pick him up from soccer practice.’
Flick flinched a little at the endearment, but found herself reluctant to let her husband go. His voice had calmed her in a way nothing else could.
‘Okay.’ She took a deep breath, psyching herself up to disconnect. ‘I’ll call you when I have news about Emma. If it’s late your time, I’ll send a text.’
‘Call me whatever time it is,’ Seb said. ‘I’m here for you, and Emma, and Neve, whatever the outcome.’
‘Thanks.’ Flick felt her throat closing over and had to disconnect before she broke down. ‘Talk to you tomorrow.’
She went to the toilet and brushed her teeth before heading back into the bedroom. Light was starting to creep in through the curtains but Neve was dead to the world. Flick needed to try and get a little sleep as well or she’d never get through the day ahead. She set her alarm for a few hours’ time and then climbed into bed and closed her eyes.
*
According to the hotel’s concierge, they could take the subway to the hospital, but not wanting the stress of having to work out tickets and decipher maps, they grabbed a yellow cab instead.
‘I feel like the walking dead,’ Neve said, dark sunglasses covering her eyes as the two of them settled into the back seat.
‘Tell me about it.’ Flick took a sip of the coffee they’d just bought from Starbucks—when in Rome. Her tastebuds hated her but the rest of her body needed caffeine almost as much as it needed sleep.
When her alarm had woken them at nine o’clock, Neve and Flick had moaned and groaned as they dragged themselves out of bed feeling as if they hadn’t slept at all. Barely any words had been spoken as they took turns using the bathroom, dressed and then headed downstairs to the hotel restaurant for a quick bite to eat.
‘You were on the phone to Seb quite a while,’ Neve said now as they traversed the streets of Manhattan.
It sounded an innocent enough comment, but Flick knew it to be anything but. How could she explain that although Seb had detonated a bomb in her life, she couldn’t just switch off her feelings for him? She hated Sofia right now, but Seb… Her feelings for him were so complicated even she didn’t understand them.
‘I wanted to check how the kids were going.’
‘I see,’ Neve said, her tone suggesting that she didn’t buy that excuse for one second. ‘So that was all you talked about?’
Flick nodded tersely. ‘Yep, the kids and Emma. Emma is his friend as well and I knew he’d be concerned.’
‘You don’t have to justify your phone calls to me. I just want you to know that I’m here if there’s anything you want to talk about.’
‘Thanks, but I just want to concentrate on Emma. Hopefully we’ll be able to break her out and continue with our holiday.’ That reminded her of the reason they’d come to New York in the first place. ‘And what are you going to do about James?’
Neve sighed. ‘I’m going to ask him to meet me in a public place. I’m not going to shower first, I won’t wear make-up or brush my hair and I’ll put on the ugliest underwear I have; that way he won’t be tempted to jump my bones again and even if by some miracle he is, I’ll remember what I’m wearing underneath.’
Flick laughed at her friend’s logic. She was highly doubtful that Neve even owned ugly underwear. ‘Do you want me to come with you this time?’
‘Maybe; let’s see what’s happening with Emma. She’s our priority right now.’
Flick couldn’t disagree with that. ‘Do you think we should have taken the subway?’ she asked as she glanced at the gridlock of traffic ahead of them. ‘I would have thought rush hour was over.’
‘I get the feeling it’s always rush hour in New York.’
It took a lot longer to get to the hospital than it had when Flick had taken Emma the night before, and when they finally found their way to the ward, Emma wasn’t there.
‘You her friends?’ asked a dark-skinned nurse with gorgeous curly hair tied back and a bright smile on her face. ‘She’s listed a Felicity Bell and Genevieve Turner as next of kin.’
They nodded at this news. ‘That’s us.’
‘Mrs McLoughlin is currently having some tests. Maybe go grab yourselves some coffee. Have a cheesecake or something.’
‘How long will she be?’ Neve asked.
The nurse shrugged. ‘Sorry, I couldn’t tell you. All depends on what they find.’
‘So, the sooner she returns the better?’ Flick asked.
‘I didn’t say that.’ Without another word, the nurse crossed over to the bony-faced old man in the bed next to Emma’s.
‘She meant it, though,’ Neve whispered. ‘What shall we do?’
‘I don’t want to leave in case she comes back and we’re not here.’
Neve agreed and sat down on the plastic chair next to Emma’s bed. Flick dropped her bag onto the floor and climbed onto the bed. The nurse raised her eyebrows when she went across to the two patients on the other side of the room, but she left soon after without saying a word.
Before long they were both asleep, Neve slumped in the chair with her legs resting up on the bed. They awoke a few hours later to the noise of Emma being wheeled back into the cubicle.
‘Sorry.’ Flick sprang from the bed, wiping her mouth in case of drool as an orderly assisted Emma out of the wheelchair.
‘Hey.’ Emma lifted a hand to wave but her face was pale and her eyes red. ‘I’m fine,’ she snapped at the orderly as she shook herself free from his grasp and then perched on the very edge of the bed. ‘Whole load of fuss for nothing, I’m sure.’
Without a word, the orderly took his wheelchair and left.
‘Did you manage to get any rest in here last night?’ Flick asked.
‘Crazily enough, I had the best night’s sleep I’ve had in an age—th
ey have better painkillers here and I slept like a baby.’ Emma smiled as if some of the drugs might still be in her system, then sighed. ‘I’m sorry I’ve ruined your holiday.’
Neve snorted, glanced at Flick and then looked back to Emma. ‘Don’t worry. We’re doing a good enough job of that on our own. You’re not the only one who had an eventful night.’
Emma frowned and looked from one of them to the next. ‘What do you mean?’
Flick twisted a lock of hair around her finger, unsure whether to say anything about the Jeremy debacle. ‘You go first,’ she told Neve.
Neve sighed but as she opened her mouth, two men entered. One of them didn’t look much older than Toby, but if the stethoscope around his neck was anything to go by, he was a doctor.
‘I’m Doctor Radcliffe and this is Doctor Samuels,’ said the older of the two. He had blond, short hair and three-day stubble, whereas the other man had ginger hair and looked as if he didn’t need to shave yet.
‘You guys were quick,’ Flick said without thinking.
‘I had to wait for a while before someone could bring me back,’ Emma said.
Dr Samuels smiled at her but it wasn’t a happy smile, more an apologetic, sympathetic smile. Flick held her breath as she waited for him to talk.
‘Good afternoon, Mrs McLoughlin, I presume?’ When Emma nodded he continued. ‘We have the results of your initial testing. Would you like your friends to stay while we discuss them?’
Flick’s stomach went rock hard. Doctors always asked you to bring someone with you when they wanted to deliver bad news. She looked to Neve and they exchanged a worried glance.
‘Yes.’ Emma’s voice was barely a whisper but she nodded. ‘I want them both here.’
‘Okay,’ Dr Samuels said as Flick and Neve positioned themselves on either side of Emma’s bed, each taking hold of one of her hands.
Chapter Thirty-two
Emma
Emma knew the moment the doctors entered the room that they weren’t there to bring good news. In a hospital as large and busy as this one, if her results had been all clear, they’d probably have let the orderly tell her. She gripped her friends’ hands tightly as Dr Radcliffe closed the cubicle’s curtain and they both stepped closer to the bed.
‘I see you’re on holidays from Australia,’ Dr Samuels said, glancing down at his clipboard. ‘I’ve always wanted to visit there.’
He didn’t look very old, so he couldn’t have wished this for very long, but Emma didn’t want to make small talk about places to sightsee right now. When she didn’t take his bait, he cleared his throat and continued.
‘As you’re aware, we ran some tests because we were concerned about why you fell last night. We’re fairly certain now that you did have a seizure. You told the ER doctor that you’ve never had one before, is that correct?’
‘Yes. That’s right.’ She nodded impatiently. Did he have to go over everything she already knew?
‘I’m sorry to have to tell you but the results of our tests so far have indicated that you have a mass on your brain. This is likely what caused the seizure.’
Dr Samuels may as well have punched Emma in the head, so great was her shock and the ringing in her ears. No, it couldn’t be true. Maybe she hadn’t heard him correctly. She glanced at Flick and then at Neve—both of them looked close to tears as they clutched her hands tightly. Her skin tingled as if a thousand ants were crawling all over her. Slowly, she turned back to face the solemn-looking men.
‘You mean … I have … brain cancer or something?’
Dr Radcliffe took over. ‘Initial results show that you have a tumour in your brain but we won’t know whether it’s benign or cancerous until we do further testing.’
Emma couldn’t decide whether to cry or laugh. This had to be some kind of sick joke. Wasn’t it bad enough that she was missing the twins’ fifteenth birthday? What more did the gods want to throw at her? ‘What are the chances that this … this mass thing is cancerous?’
‘There’s no point speculating,’ said Dr Radcliffe, which Emma felt certain was code for highly likely but we don’t want to stress you any further.
As the possibility she might have a serious illness descended, her bones went numb. She heard words come out of her mouth but it was like someone else was speaking them. ‘And if it’s benign? What happens then? You take it out?’ Her heart picked up speed. ‘How long will that take? I have to get back to Australia, back to my kids, my job. My mortgage. My life. And any kind of brain surgery is dangerous, right?’
‘Shh, Em, it’ll be all right, I’m sure.’
At Flick’s attempt to placate her, she snatched her hands back and clutched them to her chest. ‘You don’t know that. Oh God, who is going to look after the kids if I die?’ The idea of Chanel taking her place …
She shuddered, so full of sudden rage she didn’t anticipate the tear that snuck up on her and trickled down her cheek. She swiped at it. What an utter nightmare!
‘We’re going to take this one step at a time, Mrs McLoughlin,’ said one of the doctors—she’d forgotten which one was which. ‘I’d like you to have an MRI scan this afternoon. This scan uses magnetic field and radio waves to take pictures inside your head. From the MRI we should get a clearer picture of the lesion—its size, location and if it is extending into any critical areas—which will in turn help us to determine how we treat it.’
‘How long will all this take? I told you, I’ve got to go back to Australia.’
‘The MRI itself will take about an hour, but the results may be a few days, although I’ll try and put a rush on it considering your circumstances,’ promised the doctor. ‘We can discharge you once the examination is complete, but we don’t recommend you travel home until we know exactly what we are dealing with. Do you have any questions?’
Emma stared blankly at the men. Questions? Oh, she had plenty: Why me? Was it something I ate as a child? Or something that happened to me? How long has it been up there invading my body?
She tried to count back, to remember when she’d started getting the headaches. Surely it couldn’t be too long or she’d have seen someone about them before now. Another awful thought struck—if she had gone to a doctor straight away, could she have prevented this from happening?
Her stomach churned with regret and self-reproach and she vowed never to ignore a health matter again; that’s if she recovered from this one. And geez, how long would recovery take? Even if her tumour wasn’t malignant, she guessed there’d be brain surgery or some kind of treatment. She’d need to take time off work—time she could ill afford. At the thought of the mortgage, worry entered Emma’s head. Back home in Australia, she had health insurance—something she always resented paying because they’d never needed it—but that policy wouldn’t cover her here, would it?
She looked to Flick, who’d organised her flight and visa. ‘Do we have travel insurance?’ How many horror stories had she heard in the business about clients who decided against taking out insurance and then had an accident or got sick when they went away and ended up having to shell out tens of thousands of dollars? Why hadn’t she checked before she’d blindly followed her friends onto a plane?
‘Relax.’ Flick reached out to take her hand again. ‘Of course we do. Patrick was very thorough when I booked our tickets. He refused to give me your passport number unless I agreed to full cover for the both of us.’
Bless Patrick. He was such a kind-hearted, lovely man—why couldn’t she have married someone like him?
‘Please, don’t worry about money right now,’ Flick said, bringing Emma back to the issue at hand.
‘Okay. I’ll try.’ But worrying about money had become a habit and in some ways it was less scary than worrying about her health.
One of the doctors clapped his hands together. ‘Right, if you don’t have any further questions, we’ll be off. Someone will be down shortly to take you for the scan and we’ll be in touch as soon as we get the results. In the meantime, t
ry not to worry too much, don’t over-exert yourself but try to enjoy your holiday.’
Was this guy a comedian in his spare time? How was she supposed to relax and have fun, taking happy snaps of the Statue of Liberty and the Brooklyn Bridge, when she was possibly giving The Big C free rent inside her head?
Cancer—it had taken her mother from her. Was it coming for her now?
When she just stared blankly at the doctors, they smiled uncomfortably and then retreated. Neither Emma nor either of her friends thanked them for their visit. Medicine, she guessed, could be a fairly thankless job.
The small disinfectant-smelling cubicle, with its beige curtains and uncomfortable bed, remained silent for a few long moments. When Emma couldn’t stand the thoughts inside her head anymore, she broke the silence. ‘Well, sorry about this. Way to ruin a fun girls’ trip, hey? Bet you’re wishing you didn’t drag me along now.’
There was a lump in her throat that felt the size of a basketball but she didn’t want to fall apart. These were her closest friends in the world, but if she started crying, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to stop. She wanted to feel the snuggly embrace of her babies; she wished Caleb and the twins were here, yet also thanked God that they were not.
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Flick said, bending over to envelop her in her arms. ‘We don’t care about anything but you getting well.’
‘Yes.’ Neve wrapped her arms around the two of them. ‘Is there anything we can get for you before your MRI?’
‘No, I’m fine.’ Hah—what a ridiculous choice of word! Emma manoeuvred herself free and her friends stood awkwardly on either side of the bed, their solemn faces staring down at her. ‘Seriously, cheer up you two, I’m not dead yet.’ But the word dead caught in her throat. She had a sudden impulse to grab her phone and google brain tumours. The internet wouldn’t pussyfoot about like those doctors; the internet would tell her the worst case scenario. Call her morbid, but that’s what she wanted to know.
‘Don’t make jokes like that.’ Neve looked shocked and nothing much shocked Neve.
The Art of Keeping Secrets Page 24