by Dani Atkins
‘Tell me,’ he said at last, taking my hand and pulling us towards the bed. We sat on the edge, my feet not quite managing to reach the floor. ‘Tell me everything.’
I rewound the last twenty-four hours – had it really only been that long? This time filling him in on all the details I’d kept hidden the night before. His hands were holding mine as I spoke, so tightly I could see the white outline of every knuckle bone.
‘And then they gave me a CT scan.’ Ryan nodded. There was no asking what that was, or what was its purpose. He knew, because this wasn’t the first time he’d been through this kind of nightmare.
‘When will they have the results?’ His voice was a memory from the past. It was his anxious hospital voice, and I’d thought I’d never hear it again.
‘I’ve already had them,’ I said.
‘Are you here alone?’ Dr Higgins had asked when he’d returned to see me that afternoon. The question told me all that I needed to know. There was no need for him to flip open the buff-coloured folder cradled in his arm to reveal the test results.
‘I haven’t been able to reach my husband yet.’
‘Would you rather we wait until he’s here with you?’
It had to be bad for him to suggest that. ‘No. Tell me now.’
Dr Higgins had sat on the edge of the bed, in exactly the same place Ryan would occupy several hours later. His deliberate casualness alarmed me, because it filled in any lingering gaps of hope I was holding on to. Dr Higgins wasn’t a sitting-on-the-bed kind of doctor, unless the news was really bad.
‘Your scans show us something is definitely causing worrying levels of pressure inside your head. As you may know, CT results aren’t detailed enough to give us a full picture, so we’ve scheduled you in for an MRI in the morning. We’ll talk again after that, when I hope to have a far better idea of what we’re dealing with here.’
I stared at him for several seconds, bizarrely focusing my attention on a small grease spot on his pale blue silk tie that definitely hadn’t been there that morning. Whatever he’d eaten for lunch, some of it had spilled on his clothing. Should I be placing my survival in the hands of a man who couldn’t successfully negotiate a pathway to his own mouth?
‘We’re arranging for a bed for you up on Neuro,’ advised Dr Higgins, his voice soft and sympathetic.
‘Couldn’t I just go home and come back tomorrow for the MRI? I have a little girl,’ I added, as though that might earn me some special dispensation.
The stoop temporarily disappeared as his spine straightened. ‘No. I’m afraid that won’t be possible. The level of pressure is concerning us, and we need to keep you monitored. I’m sorry, but leaving at this time could be extremely dangerous.’
‘Dangerous?’ echoed Ryan, his voice almost as disbelieving as my own had been. How was it possible to go from not knowing anything was wrong, to critical care in the blink of an eye . . . or the blurring of an eye, to be more precise?
Once again Ryan pulled me into his arms. ‘Whatever it is, we’ll deal with it. You’re young and strong and healthy. Whatever it is they find, we’ll fight it together, and beat it together.’
I wanted to believe him. I wanted to believe that Maddie hadn’t used up all the available miracles in his life . . . but I was very much afraid that she just might have done.
Maddie
There was a bittersweet quality to the hours I spent with Hope waiting for Ryan to arrive. As much as I treasured the time alone with her, doing normal everyday things like watching children’s TV programmes, making her dinner, and then giving her a bath in a tub so full of bubbles it was hard to find her among the frothy white peaks, I was only marking time. And dodging questions – not terribly effectively, as it turned out.
‘But where are Mummy and Daddy right now?’ Hope asked, and for the first time I heard the wobble of uncertainty in her voice. Up until then it had all been an exciting adventure, but she was tired, and ready to go home to her own cosy bedroom. And the longer the evening went on without word from either Chloe or Ryan, the more afraid I was that normal wasn’t going to be a part of her life in the foreseeable future.
I wrapped her in a big fluffy towel and combed through her hair, breathing in the clean smell of it as I dried and carefully plaited it. She yawned sleepily, and surprisingly when I suggested she lie down on my bed until her daddy arrived to collect her, she didn’t put up an argument.
‘I think Elsa is scared,’ she whispered into my neck as I tucked her up in my bed, dressed in one of my old T-shirts for a nightdress. ‘She’ll be frightened without Mummy in the house.’ Her bright blue eyes were sparkling with tears. ‘Mummy’s the only one who knows how to look after her properly,’ Hope declared, her small voice cracking.
‘Your mummy will be home very soon to look after both you and Elsa,’ I replied, kicking off my shoes and climbing up onto the bed beside her. ‘Why don’t you close your eyes for a minute, and I bet when you open them again, your daddy will be here to take you home.’
I switched on one of the bedside lamps, bathing the room in a warm soft golden glow.
‘Will you stay here with me, until he gets here? Will you stay with me, Maddie?’
I kissed the smooth velvet of her forehead. ‘Forever and always,’ I promised, knowing those words would have meant so much more to her if they’d come from her other mother’s lips.
It was almost nine o’clock when I finally heard the knock on my door. I carefully removed my arm from where it had been cradling Hope, and inched slowly off the bed, so I wouldn’t disturb her.
Ryan’s hand was raised to knock again when I pulled open the front door. I’d seen him look ill on the night we discovered that neither of us could handle tequila; I’d seen him exhausted after working through the night on an important presentation; and I’d seen him worried, the way he’d always looked whenever morning sickness had me racing for the bathroom. But I don’t think I’d ever seen all those emotions on his face at the same time. Until now.
I held the door open wide and he half-walked, half-stumbled into the narrow hallway.
Are you all right? hovered on my lips, but I was sensible enough not to ask it. He obviously was not. I walked to the kitchen and he followed me, collapsing heavily onto one of the pine chairs.
I made tea in silence, memory serving me well as to how he took it. I placed the cup on the table in front of him. ‘Drink,’ I commanded.
He raised his head, and I saw a tell-tale ring of red circling his eyes. Extreme tiredness could do that, as could many hours spent behind the wheel of a car. I didn’t believe either of those reasons had put that redness there.
‘Where’s Hope?’ he asked, scanning the room, as though she might possibly be concealed in one of the kitchen cabinets. I put that one down to his preoccupied state of mind, rather than a judgement on my parenting skills.
‘She’s fast asleep in my bed.’
He nodded, satisfied. ‘What did you tell her?’
‘Nothing, really. Except what Chloe said to me: that she’d been delayed and that you would be coming to pick her up later.’
He took a sip of the tea, not seeming to notice it was probably far too hot to drink.
‘Which hospital is she in, Ryan?’
He spilled the tea as he put the cup back down with a jerky hand.
‘Who said Chloe was in a hospital?’
My eyes spoke for me. He gave a small sound, which was the closest I think he was going to get to a laugh for a considerable period of time.
‘Queen Mary’s.’
‘What’s wrong with her?’
He looked towards the door, checking our daughter hadn’t put in an unfortunate, ill-timed appearance. The frame was empty.
‘They think it might be a brain tumour. She’s having an MRI tomorrow, and after that an angiogram. We’ll know more after that.’
I crossed over to the place where he sat. His head was bent, the hair I’d run my hands through a thousand times was disheve
lled and awry. His shoulders were shaking, not much, but enough for me to know he was crying. My hand reached out tentatively and touched his back. He turned to me with a low animal-like moan, which was largely muffled as he buried his face against my stomach.
The man I had loved and lost was in my arms, crying in fear of losing the woman he now loved, and I couldn’t think of a weirder or more bizarre situation for any of us to be in. There were no rules or guidelines of how we should behave. So I did the only thing that I could. I let my arms find their way around the familiar shape of him, and I held him close as he wept.
Chapter 17
Chloe
I thought having a CT scan was the most frightening thing I’d ever done; that was until the next day when they wheeled me down for an MRI. The operators dutifully ask all patients if they’re claustrophobic before they begin, but unless you’ve ever been stuck inside a narrow tunnel, with a noise like a jet engine taking off beside you, you probably don’t know that you are, until it’s too late.
‘The headphones we give you will muffle the noise,’ the operator said kindly, leading me towards the machine which looked like something out of one of those science-fiction films Ryan was so fond of watching. ‘Did you bring a CD to listen to?’
I shook my head. I hadn’t even brought a toothbrush, a nightdress, or a change of underwear with me. I was woefully unprepared for absolutely everything that was happening to me. But as I walked on shaky legs towards the enormous scanner, I suddenly remembered that there was a CD in my handbag, though it wasn’t mine.
The operator was far too professional to look surprised when she took the flat plastic case from me, but I still felt the need to justify my slightly peculiar taste in music. ‘It’s my daughter’s, she likes to listen to it on the journey to school.’ I glanced over at the MRI with apprehension. ‘Maybe it’ll make me feel like she’s close by, if I hear it playing.’
So, while the machine took detailed images of my brain, revealing the sizeable tumour that had been stealthily growing in the meninges inside my skull, I hummed brokenly along to the soundtrack, until I could no longer hear the deafening cacophony of machinery, but instead heard Hope’s voice singing lustily through the headphones that she was Moana. Nothing in my own CD collection could possibly have given me greater comfort.
Ryan was waiting for me by the time they wheeled me back up to the ward. I was the one who was sick, but he looked absolutely terrible.
‘You don’t look well,’ I said, my hand grazing down his unshaved cheek, as he pulled back from our kiss.
‘Isn’t that what I’m meant to say?’
My smile was sad. ‘Did you get any sleep?’
For a moment I could see him consider lying, before he shook his head. ‘No. Turns out I can’t do it unless you’re there beside me.’
I found his hand on the mattress and threaded my fingers through his. ‘Me neither,’ I said softly. ‘How was Hope when you took her to school this morning?’
‘Better, after she’d spoken to you,’ Ryan answered honestly.
It had been hard to find a way of explaining why I had suddenly disappeared, without even saying goodbye to her. You’re just not meant to do that to a six-year-old. I looked over at Ryan, who was doing a very poor job of hiding his own fears from me. You also shouldn’t do it to a thirty-six-year-old, as it turns out.
‘But why are you in hospital, Mummy? You’re not sick. You’re not throwing up or sneezing.’ Hope’s yardstick for good health was a little different to the one the neurology department used. ‘Can’t you have some Calpol and come home?’
I’d smiled into my phone at her treatment plan. ‘I don’t think that works very well on grown-ups, Pumpkin. I think the doctors want me to stay here and get some stronger medicine to make me well.’
‘Will it taste bad?’
I laughed, even though I felt like crying. Hearing her voice and not being able to reach out and hug her was a new kind of torture I was afraid I might have to get used to. For a moment I felt like I was walking in Maddie’s shoes, and they weren’t comfortable at all. ‘It’ll probably taste very bad indeed,’ I confirmed.
‘Maddie’s going to pick her up again after school,’ Ryan said, as though just thinking about her had summoned up her presence into my hospital room. He saw the beginnings of a protest on my face, and shot it down before I had formed the words. ‘I’m not leaving your side today. Whatever tests they have to do, whatever conversations the doctors want to have, I’m going to be right there beside you.’
I was glad of that later on when they performed the lumbar puncture. Curled up like a foetus on the bed, waiting for the needle to be inserted between the bones at the base of my spine, I could feel my fear level rising, like lava in a volcano.
‘Look at me. Don’t look anywhere else. Just at me.’ The pressure in my back faded away as his hands gripped mine and I lost myself in the brilliant deep blue depths of his eyes. The room was full of doctors, nurses, and technicians, but none of them heard the words of love that Ryan’s eyes silently declared. Only me.
Maddie
‘I didn’t take you for a chicken-nugget kind of a girl.’
I spun around, still holding the frozen packet, as though I’d been caught red-handed by the nutrition police.
Mitch was grinning, so widely I could actually see his mouth beneath the dense foliage of his beard. He had nice teeth, I noticed; even, and very white.
I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised to run into him here once again. It was, after all, the closest supermarket to both of our homes. ‘We have to stop meeting like this,’ he said cheesily.
‘Do people still use that line?’ I asked, and then instantly regretted my sassy response when his face began to turn tomato red, as though he had – just maybe – been flirting with me. No, surely not? Not Mitch. I felt awkward and clumsy, like a mean girl who’d been cruel to the nerdy kid in the class. ‘Do you know if these are any good?’ I asked, thrusting the bag of nuggets towards him.
He seemed more than happy with the conversational diversion. ‘Nutritionally . . . not so much. Taste-wise, Sam loves ’em.’ The grin came back, and I was relieved to see I’d not chased it out of town completely. ‘I do too, come to that.’
It was enough of a recommendation for me. I dropped the nuggets into my basket, where they fell on top of the smiley-face potato thingies, the packets of sweets, and the two cartoon DVDs I’d picked up from the entertainment aisle.
‘I’m going to be taking care of Hope after school today,’ I explained unnecessarily.
Mitch smiled, and his eyes crinkled into the folds that were always present beside them. He must either squint or smile a lot for them to be that deep, I thought distractedly, entirely missing what he was saying.
‘Sorry?’ I said, tearing my eyes away from his face and hoping I hadn’t been staring rudely.
‘I said you must be happy about that.’
I gave a slightly uncomfortable shrug. ‘Yes and no. Her mum – I mean, Chloe – isn’t well. She’s in hospital, which is why they’ve asked me to step in. It seems wrong to be happy that because of that I get to spend some more time with Hope,’ I added guiltily.
‘You’re a nice person, Maddie. Don’t feel guilty when something good happens to you. You’re owed it.’ For once, his skin didn’t colour, though it was possibly one of the most personal things he’d ever said to me.
I swallowed, surprisingly pleased by his words. ‘Actually, I was going to give you a call later. I was wondering if you had any objection to me decorating the second bedroom. I’d like to make it a bit more appealing for Hope, if she ever stays over.’ Mitch’s eyebrows were thick and bushy, and they almost disappeared into his hairline at my words. ‘Not that there’s anything wrong with your grandmother’s choice of decor,’ I added hurriedly.
Mitch shook his head and his hair settled messily back into place; it was getting rather long and shaggy, and I wondered if he knew he was overdue for a haircu
t. Was there anyone in his life to tell him that, I wondered. We’d spoken of many things, but I had no idea if he currently had a girlfriend.
‘Do you know how to do it?’
‘How to do what?’ I asked artlessly.
‘Decorate.’
I must have looked taken aback. ‘You put paint on a brush, and then put the brush on the walls. How hard can it be?’
He laughed, and several people half an aisle away turned their heads at the deep rumbling explosion of sound. ‘Yeah, I thought as much. I tell you what: you pick out the colour scheme, or wallpaper or whatever, and I’ll do the decorating. I’ve got some leave coming up that I have to either take or lose.’
‘Oh no,’ I said, hoping he hadn’t thought I’d been angling for him to volunteer all along. ‘I wouldn’t want to put you to the trouble.’
‘It’s no trouble,’ Mitch assured me, reaching into the freezer cabinet and plucking up his own packet of nuggets with a boyish grin. ‘I’m only protecting my investment. I’m going to need to let the flat out after you’ve gone.’
‘I’m not planning on going anywhere for a while.’
He smiled, looking suddenly far more at ease. ‘That’s good to know.’ And then, as though hearing his own words through another’s ears, he added hurriedly: ‘From a landlord’s point of view.’
Not quite so many heads turned when I walked into the school playground for the second day running. Hope was one of the first out the door, one arm raised in the air, as though she was about to ask a question. Tightly gripped in her hand was a colourful piece of artwork, fluttering above her head like a flag. An extremely colourful flag, I observed, noting that many of her small friends were carrying similar paintings aloft. In my totally unbiased opinion, Hope’s was definitely the best.
Even as she threw her arms around me in an enthusiastic hug, I could see Hope’s eyes scanning the crowd of parents, and I knew without asking what, or rather who, she was looking for.
‘I thought Mummy would be here with you today,’ she confessed quietly, her lower lip trembling on the admission. ‘I wanted to show her my painting.’