by Dani Atkins
I nodded. That was the moment when I should have told him. But to do so would mean I’d have to reveal our plans for the following day.
‘Yes, somebody on the ward helped me this afternoon.’
It wasn’t a lie. Not a real one. But my words tasted bitter, like cyanide, as they passed my lips.
I brushed my hair slowly and carefully in front of the mirror Maddie had included in the bag of products she’d brought in. My brushstrokes became hesitant as they reached the part of my skull where I now knew the tumour lived. I could visualise it, lurking beneath the hair, the skin, and the bone, like one of those unexploded Second World War bombs you sometimes hear about on the news. It wasn’t a bad analogy. It could lie there for years – perhaps it had been there for years, but once it was uncovered, once the deadly mechanisms were exposed . . . well, there’s a reason why the bomb-disposal people evacuate everyone from an area, isn’t there?
I pulled the belt of my dressing gown more firmly around my waist, making sure it was secure. Before leaving the ward I picked up the final parting gift Maddie had left behind for me to borrow. Her soft cashmere scarf might look a little bizarre teamed with my fleecy robe, but it would effectively hide the ugly bruises from my daughter’s eyes, and that was all that mattered.
I’d been on edge all day; had almost phoned Maddie at least half a dozen times to call off our plans. All I kept remembering was the terrified three-year-old who’d gone through an agonising spate of night terrors, and the words of the doctors and specialists who’d advised us to remove all sources of anxiety from her world. So we had . . . we’d removed Maddie, and Hope had got better, and that should have made everything all right. But although we never spoke of it, I knew that neither Ryan nor I had felt good about the lies we’d told our daughter.
And today there would be more lies, at least until this evening when I would tell Ryan the truth. It was little wonder my blood pressure readings were worryingly raised whenever they were taken that day. It had been quite a battle to convince the nurses that I was well enough to leave the ward for a short while.
‘If I drop down dead in the foyer, I promise my husband won’t sue the hospital.’ I’d meant it as a joke, but the stony look the ward sister had given me told me she was taking my words seriously. I realised too late that no one around here found the notion of people dropping dead remotely amusing, and suddenly neither did I.
As arranged, Maddie texted me from the hospital car park: We’re here. Are you okay to make your own way down in the lift, or shall we come up and get you?
No. I’ll meet you in the foyer, I texted back, my fingers clumsily misspelling practically every word with nerves. I don’t want Hope anywhere near the ward.
I shuffled in my sheepskin slippers to the lifts, staring back through the glass of the ward doors. One of the nurses was frowning as she watched me wait for the lift. It made me feel like a prisoner doing a very slow and controlled jailbreak.
The lift doors slid open at ground level, and I levered myself away from the support of the carriage wall. The foyer was busy, a hive of people, all dashing in different directions, powered by a frenetic purpose. I’d only been a patient for a little over a week, and already I felt I was no longer part of this world. My illness separated me from them – that and the fact that I was the only one among them wearing pyjamas.
My eyes scanned the sea of people. I heard her before I saw her. There was a cry like the screech of a barn owl, if barn owls were able to talk and could say the word Mummy.
A few heads turned, and then a shape separated from the throng of people and began to hurtle towards me. It was probably corny; it probably looked like a scene lifted straight out of a Lifetime movie, but I didn’t care. I dropped to my knees and held out my arms and Hope flew into them with the force of a pulled magnet.
I’ve no idea if we were drawing a crowd of onlookers, for I kept my eyes tightly shut until I was certain they’d be perfectly dry when I opened them again. I once vowed she’d never see me cry, and my diagnosis had strengthened that resolve rather than weakened it.
‘Mummy,’ Hope exclaimed, several decibels above a normal conversational level. ‘What are you doing here?’
I looked up at Maddie, who from my kneeling position appeared to be about eight foot tall. She held out a pale long-fingered hand, and I gratefully placed mine in it until I was once again standing upright.
Hope twisted in my arms and looked up at Maddie. ‘You said we were going to the shops,’ her small voice was almost an accusation.
There was an impish look on Maddie’s face, one that I’d seen a hundred times before on her daughter’s. ‘There are shops here,’ she said reasonably, nodding in their direction.
‘And then we were going to have burgers.’
Maddie pointed her finger at a nearby franchise, with a familiar bright yellow logo. ‘We certainly are.’
‘This is the hospital where they’re going to make me better, Pumpkin,’ I explained to my clearly confused six-year-old. ‘Upstairs is where all the patients sleep and get their medicine, and down here . . .’
Hope threw her arms back around my legs, like an ardent tree-hugger in the face of a bulldozer. ‘Down here is the place where you can see your mummy,’ she completed happily.
Maddie’s eyes met mine over the top of Hope’s head. ‘It sure is,’ she agreed.
The time went far too quickly. I held Hope’s hand in mine as we strolled around the small collection of shops, unwilling to let go of her for even one minute. I picked up a cute plush dog along with several comics from the racks, and a couple of packets of sweets which in normal circumstances I would have tried to talk her out of. My illness was going to be very bad for her teeth, I could already see that.
I was two customers away from the till before I realised my handbag and purse were securely shut away in the locker beside my bed.
‘I’ll get those,’ said Maddie smoothly, passing the assistant her debit card as they called us up to the till. Suddenly the years fell away and I was back in the past, in a different hospital, in a different shop, buying sweets for Gladys before bumping into Ryan in the hallway. History was repeating itself, and for a moment I felt scared, as if we were stuck in an inescapable spiral in time. She was sick, and now I was; she had Ryan, but now he was mine. But even more frightening was how it had all ended, with Hope believing her mother had died. And this time . . . ? Was this what happened when you tempted fate by telling one too many lies?
‘What would you like to eat?’ I asked, putting my arm around Hope and cuddling her close as I studied the children’s menu.
‘Cheesy burger and fries,’ she shot back. ‘It’s what Daddy bought me the other night.’
‘I see. It’s all coming out now,’ I said with a laugh, thinking of the freezer full of healthy dinners that Ryan was obviously ignoring.
‘I wish you had come with us, Maddie, like Daddy wanted.’
I lifted my head slowly and caught the slightly uncomfortable look on the porcelain-white face opposite me. It really was all coming out now.
‘I couldn’t, sweetie. I had a date,’ she answered, a little too rapidly. Her cheeks flushed pink, but it was impossible to know if that was from a lie, or the memory of the man she’d spent her evening with. Allegedly.
Despite ordering far more food than she normally consumed in one sitting, Hope was insistent that she wanted a milkshake. I was about to steer her towards a healthier choice, when Maddie leant forward and grinned mischievously. ‘That sounds yummy. Why don’t we all have one?’
I didn’t want one, but I also didn’t want to be Boring Mummy, Healthy-Eating Mummy, or Saying-No Mummy. We ordered three milkshakes, and Hope manfully began to suck on the straw so hard her pale cheeks turned red.
Maddie shrugged her shoulders at me over the froth of her strawberry shake. ‘Oh well, I could do with putting on a few more pounds.’
I slid my chocolate milkshake towards me. ‘Please don’t make me hate y
ou any more than I already do,’ I said sweetly.
Her laughter drew several admiring male glances from the surrounding diners. I imagine it always did.
Maddie
‘I owe you an apology, Maddie.’
I stared into his familiar blue eyes and wondered which particular transgression he was referring to. Not telling me I had a daughter; lying to that daughter and telling her I’d died; or not waiting for me to wake up from the coma, and marrying someone else. There were so many to choose from. But in fact, it was none of those.
‘I was wrong trying to keep Hope from seeing her mother,’ Ryan admitted. His voice was low, presumably weighed down by the guilt. And yet he didn’t seem to realise how carelessly he’d hurt me all over again.
‘Which particular mother are you talking about this time?’
Ryan didn’t ‘do’ uncomfortable or blush – at least not like Mitch did – but today he did both.
‘Touché. You’re absolutely right. It appears to be a mistake I keep on making.’ His eyes were deep and sincere as he focused on mine. ‘I promise you, I won’t do it again. Not to either of you.’
A part of me wanted to close the front door on him then. He’d come, he’d said his piece, and presumably the weight was already lifting off his chest. I could send him away . . . only when it came down to it, I couldn’t. I held the door open wider, despite a separate part of my brain warning me: This is probably not a good idea.
‘Do you want to come in? I was just making coffee.’
I didn’t wait to see if he was going to follow, as though that somehow absolved me of responsibility. I padded barefoot back down my hallway to the kitchen.
‘Who’s looking after Hope?’ I asked, glancing at the kitchen clock and realising it was past her bedtime.
‘Megan, the girl who usually sits for us,’ Ryan answered, taking the mug I held out to him.
‘It’s only instant,’ I apologised, remembering how he’d always been a bit of a coffee aficionado. It’s funny how so many small things, things I thought I’d completely forgotten, kept popping up and catching me off guard. It was like walking through a minefield of memories, waiting for the next explosion. I wondered if he felt the same way.
I glanced up over the rim of my mug and caught him studying me. He was one millisecond too late in pulling down the shutters. So he did remember, every bit as clearly as I did.
‘When do they think Chloe can come home?’ I asked, aware we were in danger of straying off the paved surface if we weren’t careful. Chloe’s name brought us straight back onto the highway.
‘Soon I hope, although probably not until after the weekend now.’ He sighed and sounded so lost I almost wanted to get out of my chair and go and put my arms around him. Almost.
‘At least, thanks to you, Hope will now visit her.’ He smiled gently and his face took on that particular expression it only ever wore when he was thinking about our child. ‘You should have seen her on the drive home, Maddie. She was so happy, and I have you to thank for that.’
I gave a small shrug, because I didn’t want him to see how much his words meant to me.
‘I mean it; I’d never have been brave enough to take her in. I was too worried it would remind her . . .’ His words trailed away awkwardly. I nodded to let him know I understood. ‘But somehow you just knew it was the right thing to do. Mother’s instinct, I suppose.’
The effort to keep smiling and not burst into very loud and embarrassing sobs was excruciating. He slid the knife back out of the wound he’d made, not realising he’d stabbed me with his words.
The smile he gave me broke my heart in a thousand different ways. ‘When did you get to be so damn smart?’
‘It must have been while I was sleeping,’ I replied softly.
‘If anyone should ask, you and I are dating.’
The thing I liked about Mitch was that you could drop a huge bomb like that, right into his lap, and he wasn’t the type to leap up and down and make a big fuss. He was far more likely to just look down at it curiously.
‘Are we? That’s nice. Although, I don’t actually remember asking you out.’
Fifteen love. He got in the first blush. I pantomimed fanning my highly pink cheeks and he laughed.
‘Good point. You didn’t,’ I answered.
His bushy eyebrows rose. Take your time, they said; no hurry at all, they assured me; but I would like an explanation.
It was Tuesday morning, and Mitch was going to make a start on the second bedroom. ‘I know you probably haven’t picked things out with Hope yet, but while I’ve got the time off work I’d like to make a start stripping the walls and getting the woodwork painted,’ Mitch had explained over the phone.
He’d caught me at a weak moment, when I’d only just walked in through the door after a last-minute impromptu visit to my parents for the weekend. Perhaps it was seeing Hope rush into Chloe’s arms at the hospital that had suddenly made me yearn to see my own mother again. It didn’t matter whether or not she recognised me. The call to be with her was almost primal, and too strong to ignore.
It was quite the drive for someone who hadn’t been on the road for such a long time, but I found the journey on the long grey stretch of motorway almost cathartic. My dad had been delighted to have me stay, and had immediately gone out and bought an inflatable mattress and a whole new set of bedding. ‘Because now you’ve got your licence back, you can come any old time you want,’ he’d said happily.
‘Not quite at the drop of a hat,’ I replied, giving his hand a warm squeeze. ‘At the moment I’m still picking up Hope from school each day.’ I looked down at my feet, so that his perceptive blue eyes couldn’t see my face. ‘Although I imagine that will come to an abrupt end as soon as Chloe gets out of hospital.’
His arm went around my shoulders. ‘How are you finding that, love? Is it very hard?’
It was a good question, and one I didn’t know how to answer. ‘It’s wonderful . . . and awful, all at the same time. It’s like catching a glimpse of something through a closing door, or having a taste of a meal only to have them whisk the plate away at the last minute.’
Having Hope so close, and yet not really having her at all, was an agony I was still trying to get used to. I looked up and saw in surprise that my dad’s eyes were awash with unshed tears. My words could so easily describe the daily anguish he went through as he watched the woman he loved slip further away from him. We were both helpless to hold on to the people we loved, so we did the only thing that we could, we held on to each other instead.
‘So, this relationship of ours, is it serious?’
I smiled and my lips twitched wickedly. ‘No, I don’t think so. I suspect you’re only after my body.’
Fifteen all; although I hadn’t played fair, because I knew he’d blush at that one.
‘Sorry,’ I apologised, realising that I might have taken it one step too far. Mitch was such easy company that sometimes I forgot our friendship was a new fledgling thing, even though we’d known each other since before my accident.
‘Chloe seemed to be uncomfortable about the amount of time I was spending with Ryan, so I thought it might be better for her recovery if she thought I was seeing someone else.’ It was a martyr’s answer, and I wasn’t even sure if I believed it.
‘I see,’ said Mitch slowly, beginning to remove a selection of DIY equipment from his toolbox and laying it out on the floor of the second bedroom. ‘So are we going to have to go out to dinner with them as a test? Am I going to have to learn a backstory about our relationship, or answer questions on how you take your tea?’
I laughed. ‘Boy, if I didn’t know better, I’d say you’ve been watching a few too many rom coms, my friend.’
‘I love rom coms!’ Mitch declared.
His enthusiastic reply practically made me rock on my heels. Just when I thought I had the measure of this man, he went and surprised me all over again. ‘You do?’ I asked incredulously.
‘Absolute
ly. Picture Perfect, The Wedding Date, Pretty Woman,’ he reeled off, revealing that if he ever went on Mastermind, this should definitely be his chosen subject. ‘They’re all about fake relationships that eventually become real ones.’
Suddenly it felt very hot in the small second bedroom. ‘Well, I’m sure we won’t have to go to those lengths. I only made it as a throwaway remark.’
‘Fair enough,’ Mitch said with a shrug, picking up the wallpaper steamer and plugging it in. ‘Just wanted to get things straight.’
My hand was on the doorknob when he stopped me with one last comment.
‘Extra milky with a half teaspoon of sugar,’ he said. I looked back at him over my shoulder and smiled. ‘It’s how you like your tea,’ he said, before disappearing like a magician behind a cloud of vapour from the steamer.
Chloe
‘I just wish you’d asked me first, that’s all.’
The last thing I wanted to do on my first night home after a fortnight in hospital was to have an argument. But I could feel myself teetering on the edge of one.
‘I honestly didn’t think it would be a problem.’
Maybe it wasn’t, I thought reluctantly; maybe I was the one with the problem. I looked up at him from my position on the settee, propped up by virtually every cushion in the house. From the moment he’d brought me home, Ryan had been treating me as if I was a piece of spun glass wrapped around a ticking bomb. It was an interesting combination.
He crossed the room and perched on the settee by my feet. ‘I only thought as Maddie has been collecting Hope from school for the last few weeks, it made sense to ask her if she could carry on. I don’t want you to overdo things, and you’re not going to be up to driving for a week or two.’
I tried to lift myself out of the moment to question if I was being unreasonable. Was my knee-jerk jealousy over how much time Maddie had spent with Hope clouding my judgement? Yes, it probably was, but that didn’t seem a good enough reason to back down.