‘What now?’ Ben whispered.
‘Would I be right in thinking they only let family in?’
‘Yes.’
‘Piece of piss, then. I’m family.’
Before Ben could protest, I’d marched up to the nurses’ desk. A large, matronly woman with curly, grey hair looked up. ‘I’ve just heard that my daughter’s been in an accident,’ I announced.
‘Name?’
‘Shannon O’Co… Kitteridge. Shannon Kitteridge.’
‘You’re her mother?’
‘Yes. I’ve been abroad. I’ve just got back or I’d have been here sooner.’ I hated the way the lies tripped off my tongue but, over the years, I’d got used to telling white lies to hide the truth about my past. I heard Ben gulp beside me.
‘And you are…?’ she said, glancing at Ben.
‘Shannon’s stepdaddy,’ I said.
‘I’ll need to get a doctor to speak to you before you can see her. Give me a minute. You can take a seat over there.’ She pointed to some plastic chairs nearby, then picked up a phone.
‘What if she’s calling Security?’ Ben hissed once we’d sat down.
‘We’re hardly a threat, are we?’ I whispered back. ‘We’re sitting down like good children, patiently waiting for the doctor.’
‘I don’t like telling lies.’
‘Neither do I, but needs must. Besides, the only lie was about you being her stepfather. I am her mum, even if only biologically.’
Six or seven excruciatingly slow minutes passed while we waited. Eventually, a petite Indian woman appeared, holding a clipboard. ‘Mrs Kitteridge?’ she asked, barely glancing up from her paperwork.
Ben and I both stood up. ‘Clare,’ I said, avoiding another lie or an awkward explanation.
‘I’m Dr Maahi Kaur. I’m treating your daughter.’ She flicked through a few sheets of paper on the clipboard, then tucked it under her arm and looked at me for the first time, with a gentle smile. ‘There’s no mistaking the family resemblance.’
My stomach did a somersault. Shannon looked like me? I knew from the photo of her at six months old that she’d inherited the blonde hair, but I had no idea how she’d developed.
‘And you’re the father?’ Dr Kaur asked, turning to Ben.
His cheeks reddened slightly. ‘Stepfather.’
Dr Kaur nodded. ‘Shannon has been in a serious RTC. She’s suffered a severe head trauma, broken arm and broken ankle. The ankle and arm will mend, but the head trauma is the greatest concern. In cases like this, it’s always vital to do our best to reduce any swelling that could cause damage to the brain. She’s therefore in an induced coma to allow this to happen.’
Brain damage? I gripped onto Ben’s arm. I had questions. Lots of questions. I needed to be strong. ‘How long is she likely to be in a coma?’
‘It’s hard to say. The swelling has gone down, which is a positive sign, but her young body has been through such a lot that we don’t want to bring her round too quickly.’
‘She will pull through, though?’
I held my breath as I waited for Dr Kaur’s response.
‘We would expect so. She’s young, healthy and strong. She’s definitely a fighter. What we can’t say is whether there will be any lasting damage until she comes round. All head traumas carry risks. We do our best to reduce those risks, but there are no guarantees. Do you have any other questions?’
I shook my head. I probably did. I probably had loads. For now, I just wanted to see my little girl.
‘Nurse Wilson will direct you to Shannon. Please ask her if you think of anything else.’
‘Thank you,’ I whispered.
We followed Nurse Wilson down a corridor and into what appeared to be a private room.
‘All the tubes and monitors can be pretty scary to see,’ she warned. ‘She’s actually doing better than you might think from looking at them all.’
But I wasn’t looking at the tubes and monitors. I was looking at the baby girl who’d grown into a beautiful young woman. Long, blonde hair was scraped back from her forehead. Bruises and small cuts covered her face, but I could still see that she was the spit of me when I was her age. It was uncanny.
‘I’ll leave you to it.’ Nurse Wilson shuffled out of the room.
‘The doctor was right,’ Ben said. ‘She’s just like you.’
I stared at Shannon for a while, searching for any similarities to Daran, but it was hard to tell amongst the injuries and tubes. Please let her be all right. Please. Please don’t let me find her, then take her away from me.
‘How does it feel, seeing her after all these years?’ Ben whispered.
‘Like I’m in a dream. I can’t get my head around it. She was a tiny baby, and now…’ I shook my head. ‘Do you think she’ll be okay?’
‘I thought the doctor sounded quite positive.’
‘Did you? I hope you’re right.’
I stared at Shannon again, unsure whether to talk to her or touch her hand. I turned to Ben. ‘I don’t know what to do now that we’re here. I feel like an intruder.’
‘In what way?’
I started to chew on the skin around my thumbnail again, and Ben gently slapped my hand away. ‘If Shannon had wanted to find me, she could have. I know that I have no legal right to look for her until she’s 18, but she could have searched me out at any point and she hasn’t. As far as she’s concerned, I’m a stranger who abandoned her at birth and wants nothing to do with her. I don’t have a right to be here, Ben, staring at her while she’s in a coma fighting for her life. She doesn’t get to choose whether she’s ready to meet me or not. It’s not fair on her. In typical “me” style, I’ve just barged back into her life without thinking through the consequences. I’ve lied to a nurse and a doctor, and I’ve dragged you into that lie.’
‘Don’t worry about me. I wanted to come. What do you want to do, then?’
‘I think we’d better go. I really shouldn’t be here.’
‘No, you shouldn’t,’ said a man’s voice. ‘So why the hell are you?’
Chapter 19
Bollocks! We’d been sprung! I spun around, heart thumping, expecting to see a security guard or even a policeman. Instead, I found myself face to face with a broad-chested Zac Efron lookalike of roughly 17 or 18, leaning on a pair of crutches. He shook a dark fringe out of his piercing, blue eyes. Just like Shannon, his face was covered in tiny cuts and bruises, and he had some Steri-Strips across his right cheek. He had to be the boyfriend.
‘Hi. My name’s—’
‘I know who you are.’
‘You do?’
‘My leg may be busted, but my eyes still work.’
‘I’m Clare.’ Too many years in PR kicked in and I walked towards him with my hand outstretched.
‘Callum.’ He showed no sign of returning the handshake, although, to be fair to him, his movement was slightly impeded by the crutches. Could I have been any more of an eejit? I let my hand dangle by my side again and shuffled backwards slightly. ‘Shannon’s fiancé,’ he added.
‘Oh! Congratulations.’ It seemed a bit of a cheesy thing to say in the circumstances, but what was the protocol for the first time the absent mum meets the fiancé of the daughter she thought was dead?
‘How did you find her?’ he asked.
I glanced towards Ben.
‘I did some research,’ Ben said.
‘Who are you, like? The police?’
Ben shook his head. ‘Just a friend. I’m Ben. Hi.’
Silence.
‘We came as soon as we found out,’ I said.
‘Really? How kind of you to rush to your daughter’s side in her hour of need. Except, it’s not her first hour of need, is it? It’s not like you gave a shit when her parents died and she was in and out of foster homes. She needed you then. She do
esn’t need you now. She’s got me. I’m her family now. I’m, like, all she needs.’
Ouch. ‘I’m sorry she’s had it tough. But there’s a good reason why I’ve only just appeared.’
Callum flicked his hair out of his eyes again. ‘Don’t tell me. Let me guess. You’ve been living overseas? No, that’s not it. Erm … You’ve been working on your career and it’s taken this long to earn enough to buy a home for you and Shannon?’ He shook his head. ‘No, that’s not it either. I know! Your husband and kids wouldn’t understand if you admitted that you’d shagged the local priest and got knocked up at 16?’
I gasped. ‘You know about Daran?’
‘Shannon’s family – her real family – didn’t keep secrets from her. She knew she was adopted, and she got it. What she didn’t get was why you never tried to find her when her dad died. She wrote to you every week for months and—’
‘I didn’t get any letters.’
‘Liar! You ignored her at first, like, but then you wrote back, telling her that you were happily married with two little kiddies and you didn’t want a mistake from your past to ruin your perfect life. Can you imagine what that did to her? She’d just lost her parents and now her biological mother had rejected her for the second time.’
I felt sick. Great-Aunt Nuala. She must have written back. Or Ma. Or Da.
‘Where did she send the letters?’ I whispered.
‘I don’t bloody know. Does it matter, like?’
I shrugged. ‘Probably not. Any of them could have done it. The point is that I never got any letters and I certainly didn’t write to Shannon.’ I stood up a little straighter. ‘You’ve said your piece, Callum, and now it’s my turn. I want you to sit down and rest your leg, though.’
‘I’m fine here and I’m not interested in your excuses. You can leave.’
I folded my arms and fixed my hardest stare on him, reminding myself that he wasn’t Da; he was an angry teenager who’d been through a traumatic experience and I didn’t need to be afraid of him. ‘I’m not going anywhere till you’ve heard me out. Sit down.’
‘No!’
‘Bollocks to you. Stand, then. I don’t care. But you will listen. If you still want me to go after you’ve heard me out, I’ll go, although please know that I’ll be back. Now that I’ve found her, I’m not walking away that easily.’
Callum looked as if he were about to object but sat down anyway in the seat next to the bed, no doubt grateful at being able to relieve some of the pain.
‘Right. Good. Glad you’ve seen sense. You said that Shannon’s family never lied to her. Well, Shannon’s very lucky because mine did nothing but lie to me. There’s an incredibly good reason why I never tried to find her, and it has nothing to do with being married with kids, because I’m not married and the only child I have is right there fighting for her life. The reason why I never tried to find her is that, until three weeks ago, I believed that she’d died two hours after she was born. How’s that for a good excuse?’
Callum’s mouth opened and he looked from me to Ben and back to me again, as if searching for signs that I was winding him up. ‘You’ve just made that up!’
‘I wish I had.’ I yanked open my bag, rummaged for a moment, then thrust Great-Aunt Nuala’s letter into his hands. ‘Imagine my surprise when this arrived.’
Callum looked at the letter and shrugged. ‘You want me to read this?’
‘Be my guest. You can see first-hand what a delightful family I have.’
I watched Callum’s eyes widen as he read the letter, then went back to the beginning and reread it. He put the peach sheets back into the envelope and handed it to me, keeping his eyes on Shannon the whole time. He took hold of her hand and kissed it. ‘I think I should tell them. You would if you were awake and you’d just read that.’
My heartbeat quickened. What could he possibly tell us? If it was something serious about her injury, Dr Kaur would have told us already, wouldn’t she?
Still holding Shannon’s hand, Callum twisted around and looked at me. ‘I need to show you something.’
He lifted the crutches up and heaved himself out of the seat. ‘Follow me.’
‘Where are we going?’
‘You’ll soon find out.’
‘But what about Shannon?’
‘Not being funny, but she isn’t going anywhere, is she?’
In silence, Ben and I followed him along a corridor, down in a lift, along another corridor and up in another lift. I’d stopped looking at the various hospital signs, as most didn’t mean anything to me and those that did conjured up terrifying possibilities of serious surgery and terminal illness.
‘Back so soon?’ A young redheaded nurse with a Geordie accent looked up from some paperwork as Callum hopped towards the nurses’ station. ‘Did youse leave summat behind?’
‘No. I found something. A couple of unexpected visitors. Are we okay to…?’
She nodded. ‘Oh, aye. You know your way.’
‘Thanks, Kelly.’
I followed Callum into a small room containing four plastic cribs, three of which contained babies. He stopped by the first one on the left and nodded towards the sleeping baby.
‘Shannon and me have a little surprise for you. This is Luke. Your grandson.’
Chapter 20
‘Sweet Jesus!’ I looked over at Ben as he fastened his seat belt. ‘I certainly wasn’t expecting that. You really didn’t know?’
‘Of course not!’ He started the engine. ‘You don’t seriously think I’d keep something huge like that from you, do you?’
I shook my head. ‘No.’
Ben reversed his car out of the parking space. ‘Where to now? My place? Your place? The pub?’
‘The offie, then yours. Can I stay over?’
‘Of course.’
I watched his profile as he concentrated on finding the exit of the hospital car park, noticing the way his cheekbones tightened and his nose wrinkled each time someone pulled out in front of him. I’d have beeped my horn and screeched expletives, but Ben was definitely more in control of his emotions. ‘I’m glad you were with me, Ben. Tonight was above and beyond. Thank you.’
He glanced in my direction. ‘Any time. And it wasn’t above and beyond. It’s what friends do for each other. Besides, you’re going to need a lot more looking-after going forward.’
‘What do you mean?’
I stared at him as he waited to pull onto the main road.
‘You can pretend you’re concentrating on the traffic till the cows come home, Saint Ben, but you’ll have to explain a comment like that, so you will.’
A van driver flashed us out. Ben pulled onto the main road, grinning.
‘Will you just come out with it, you eejit? I know you’re dying to.’
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’
‘You liar!’ I lightly nudged him in the ribs. ‘I know exactly what’s making you laugh just now, and you’re a mean boy.’
Ben laughed out loud. ‘I’m sorry. I can’t help it. I know it’s completely inappropriate, given how poorly Shannon is, but I can’t not acknowledge that you’re a grandma. Granny Irish. That’s hilarious!’
‘It’s not! It’s bloody terrifying!’
‘I can’t help picturing you with a blue rinse, brogues and a shopping trolley. A tartan one. Ooh, and a Yorkshire Terrier tucked under your arm.’
‘Ben!’
‘Perhaps one of those plastic headscarf things and horn-rimmed specs dangling from a chain.’
‘Christ, Ben! Could you be more stereotypical about the elderly? Next you’re going to suggest I’ll have yellow teeth and smell of wee.’
‘If the cap fits…’
‘Ben! If you weren’t driving this car…!’
But I had to admit, it was pretty funny. Petrifying, ye
t funny. Thirty-three years old and already a grandmother. Imagine Ma and Da’s faces if they knew! It would be all ‘like mother, like daughter’. Maybe I’d feel brave enough to confront Da again one day and tell him. I shuddered. It wasn’t going to happen. The man still terrified me. There was no way I’d be able to face him again, even though the expression on his face would be absolutely priceless.
‘Do you think Callum meant what he said about wanting me to be part of Luke’s life?’ I said.
‘Of course he did. I know he was angry when he first saw you, but wouldn’t you be, in his situation? He clearly loves Shannon and, in his eyes, you’d abandoned her when she most needed you. Now he knows that’s not true. He seems like a really decent lad.’
‘I know. She’s picked well there.’ I stared out of the window for a while. ‘What will I do if Shannon’s not as understanding as Callum when she wakes up?’
‘You’ll work that Irish charm and bring her round in time.’
‘And what if she doesn’t come round?’
‘I’m sure she will. You’ll just need to be patient with her.’
I shook my head. ‘No. I meant what if she doesn’t come round, as in: what if she doesn’t wake up?’
‘She will.’
‘What if she doesn’t?’
Ben stopped at a red light and turned around to look at me. ‘Then we’ll cross that bridge together. Come on, Clare. This isn’t like you. You’re always the strong, positive one. I know this evening has been a hell of a shock, but you’ve got to think positively. Shannon’s made it through the worst part already. I know she’s not out of the woods yet but she’s well on her way. She’s already battled her way through the thick forest of thorns and now she’s just got a little copse to navigate through.’
I had to laugh at his analogy. ‘Did you just make that shite up?’
He smiled. ‘Yes. Did you like it?’
‘It was dire. But I get it, and you’re right. I guess I’m just not feeling so strong at the moment. It’s been a hell of a year so far.’
Dreaming About Daran (Whitsborough BayTrilogy Book 3) Page 12