by Amy Andrews
‘Thanks, G.,’ said Daniel, ‘I’ll take that as a compliment.’
‘No, I mean it, Danny. I’m proud of you. I really am.’
Daniel stopped eating and put his knife and fork down. This was high praise indeed from John. He thought he saw a shimmer of tears in the old man’s eyes and felt humbled. Disappointing his grandfather had always been one of his biggest regrets. ‘I appreciate that, G. I really do.’
Sophie watched the exchange, feeling a little teary herself. Having been privy to a lot of the commotion that Daniel’s decision had caused, she understood the magnitude of John’s statement.
She knew Daniel had struggled about letting his grandfather down. In fact, at one stage he had felt so pressured that he had confided in her he was going to give in, give up his dreams and follow the Monday path.
‘No!’ She had been horrified. ‘This is hard for you. You love John and don’t want to disappoint him, but this is your life, Daniel. You have to do what’s right for you.’
He had been eighteen then. And frankly, after yesterday, she had never been gladder that he had listened to a squirt of a kid, a twelve-year-old, and fulfilled his dream.
Life after Max’s choking episode settled back to normal. Or as near normal as it could with John’s rehabilitation dictating their days. His physical therapy became a family project.
Tina, the physio, was a tough taskmaster and just what a cantankerous old man needed. John was impatient with his weakness, wanting to move as quickly through his therapy as possible to a full recovery.
Tina knew he had to learn to crawl before he could walk and kept him on task with her persistence and iron will. John was stubborn but Tina was more so. She was also canny, involving everyone to keep her client on the straight and narrow.
Max loved ‘helping’ John and the little boy seemed to be the only one who could soothe John when his frustration got the better of him. Tina used Max to full advantage to bully John into just one more set of exercises.
The phone rang one morning after breakfast and Daniel picked it up. It was Tina.
‘Something’s come up and I can’t make it today. I’d scheduled some hydrotherapy for John this morning. Are any of you free to do that with him? He was really looking forward to it. He knows the exercises.’
‘I don’t go on shift till tonight—I’ll do it.’
‘You may need a hand, getting him in and out,’ she said, and rang off.
Daniel got changed into his swimmers and went looking for John. Martin, John’s nurse, who came every morning for an hour, had helped his patient get ready for the pool. He handed the wheelchair over to Daniel and left as he was already running late for his next client.
Sophie and Max were in the water when they arrived. The pool had been fully modified for Michael, who had swum every day, even in winter. It was fortuitous for John as it meant he could have regular hydrotherapy at home.
Daniel discarded his shirt and adjusted the waist drawstring on his boardies. A wet and smiling Sophie propelled herself out of the pool in one fluid movement, the water sluicing off her body like a waterfall. She sat on the edge and wrung the excess water out of her hair.
‘Want a hand?’ she called, keeping one eye on Max who was splashing around in the deep end, the yellow floaties attached to his upper arms keeping him above water.
She was wearing a bikini. A very tiny bikini. And it was the first time Daniel had seen her with so little on in a long time. Would it actually stay attached to her body if she helped?
Sophie walked towards him and he was struck by how her body had changed over the years. Her breasts seemed fuller, her hips slightly rounder. Her waist more obvious. She looked fantastic. The leanness of four years ago had been replaced by subtle curves—very womanly.
Maybe that was the difference. She was no longer a girl. She’d grown into a woman. She’d nurtured a baby in her womb, suckled him at her breast. She was a mother and had flowered accordingly. And he liked it! He liked it a lot.
She came close and between the three of them they got John into the pool. If there was one thing they both knew well, it was the manual handling of patients. Their jobs involved a lot of lifting and safe techniques were essential to prevent back injuries.
Sophie left them to it, joining Max at the other end of the pool. Daniel tried hard to concentrate on John’s exercises. He knew water was an excellent medium to work on arm and leg strength—the exercise aided by the natural buoyancy. Still, the splashing and the giggling from the deep end was distracting.
‘Why don’t you go and join them?’ said John.
‘Hmm? What?’ said Daniel.
‘I’m perfectly capable of doing this myself, Danny, boy. The stroke didn’t affect my intelligence.’
‘Tina wouldn’t approve of me shirking my responsibilities.’
‘I won’t tell her if you don’t.’
‘Unca Dan, Unca Dan.’
Daniel hesitated midway through manipulating John’s arm through the water. He really didn’t want to turn round.
‘Go,’ John insisted.
‘Unca Da-a-an,’ Max called again.
Daniel sighed as his grandfather winked at him. ‘Stay close to the edge in case you lose your balance,’ said Daniel.
‘Aye, aye, Danny, boy.’ John saluted him with his good arm.
Daniel rolled his eyes at his grandfather and pushed himself off the wall with his toes, swimming leisurely towards his insistent nephew. He ducked under the water as he approached and came up underneath Max, lifting him out of the water and tossing him. The floaties ensured he bobbed harmlessly in the water and the little boy squealed for more.
‘He’ll never tire of it,’ warned Sophie, laughing at their antics.
She swam down to John, feeling a tad superfluous. Max had taken to his Uncle Dan like a duck to water. He’d always been a boy who had identified with men. Max had grown up with several strong male role models and, apart from her and Sally and his grandmother, he much preferred male company.
He had adored Michael. His little face had lit up every time Michael had come into the room and, with him being a stay-at-home dad, they had formed a deep bond. If Sophie could find one positive aspect of Michael’s death it was that, at two years of age, Max had been too young to fully understand. Just over two years later Max had no recall of the man who had been his father in every way that mattered.
Sophie watched John go through his exercises, helping him occasionally as he required. It was amazing how much he had improved in the last month. John’s doctors and even Tina were certain he would always have a residual weakness due to the extent of the stroke, but John was determined to reduce the deficit to something only he was aware of.
John watched Sophie pretending to keep him company but not fooling him in the slightest. The squealing and laughter and splashing hadn’t abated and he could read the wistful look in her eyes as easily as he had always been able to read her expressions.
‘He’ll make a great father,’ John commented.
‘Hmm,’ said Sophie noncommittally, her eyes not leaving the other end. If only John knew the half of it!
‘When are you going to tell Daniel he’s Max’s father?’
That got her attention! Her head snapped back to face him instantly.
‘Wh-what?’ said Sophie. John knew? But how?
‘I’m not stupid, Sophie,’ said John gently, to soften the blow.
‘Stupid, no. Wrong, definitely.’ Sophie gathered her wits. She hadn’t kept Max’s paternity a secret for four years to baulk the first time someone called her on it.
‘You don’t think I knew what was going on between you and Daniel just before the accident?’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she spluttered turning her face away. She felt slightly dizzy from the rush of blood to her head.
‘I know you thought you were being discreet but it was written all over both of your faces.’
‘You’re wrong, John,’
she denied again. Her heart pounded. Had they been that obvious?
‘I may be old but I know what young love looks like, my dear. You two had it bad.’
Sophie looked back at him again. She thought they’d hidden it so well. She didn’t know what to say. It seemed pointless to continue to deny it when he so obviously knew what had happened. John’s face told her the game was up. She should have been horrified, but perversely she wasn’t. She was, what? Relieved?
John watched the play of emotions on her face and recognised the moment she surrendered. ‘And then the accident happened and you and Michael announced your engagement and your pregnancy, and I put two and two together.’
‘Why did you never say anything?’ she asked quietly. The raucous noises from the deep end of the pool faded as she conceded. It was just her and John and this conversation. And the surprising lightening of a burden.
‘Because for the first time in a month Michael was happy. We’d been very worried about him. You know how terribly depressed he’d been and suddenly he was his old self again. You gave him a reason to live. You and Max. I didn’t have the heart to mess with that, and I knew that Daniel and you had quarrelled and that you would love Michael just as you always had. I knew Michael needed you much more than Daniel. It makes me ashamed to admit it to you now but it seemed better to stay silent at the time.’
Sophie swallowed the lump rising in her throat. She could hear her heart pounding and was amazed to see that the water surrounding her wasn’t vibrating in unison.
‘Who else knows?’ she asked quietly.
‘Just me,’ said John, ‘although I suspect that Sally has an inkling. But we’ve never really spoken about it. Edward and Wendy were on the lecture circuit in Europe at the time of your affair and the accident, so they were unaware of what was happening.’
Sophie nodded, remembering that awful time. She’d come back to Arabella late at night after being out with some friends to find two policemen at the door talking to John. She’d never forget the dreadful feeling of foreboding that had settled in her gut.
‘What?’ she had said to John. One look at his stricken face had confirmed her worst fears. She had felt her legs buckle and one of the policemen had grabbed her around the waist as she had sagged against him.
They had charged up to St Jude’s. The information had been sketchy. Just that both Daniel and Michael had been involved in a serious car accident and had been admitted to hospital, badly injured.
Sophie’s overwhelming relief to find Daniel relatively unscathed had been tempered by Michael’s critical status. It had been so hard to believe her dearest friend was lying so still and so close to death in St Jude’s specialised spinal unit.
As the days had gone by and the three of them had maintained a bedside vigil, her relationship with Daniel had been put on hold. Edward and Wendy had rushed back from Europe just as Michael had improved enough to be out of Intensive Care. But with his paraplegia confirmed, Michael entered a dark depression.
He was alive, yes, but losing the use of his legs had been a major blow and his mood was difficult. But she went to see him every day, hoping by sheer force of will alone that she could make a difference to his life. She couldn’t desert her best friend in his hour of need.
It was at the same time she discovered she was pregnant. It was the worst timing possible. The Monday family were dealing with enough, without putting this on their plate as well. What would Daniel think?
They’d seen each other rarely in the month since the accident and their time together was tempered with guilt. Guilt that they were both walking around, able to enjoy themselves, while the one other person who meant the world to both of them couldn’t.
Daniel felt it most acutely. He had been driving the car and Sophie watched as guilt tore at his soul. It didn’t matter that they had been struck by a car that had veered into their path from the other side of the road. It didn’t matter that no one else blamed him for the accident, least of all Michael. His brother was crippled and that was all that mattered to Daniel. Injured in a car that he had been driving!
Daniel’s self-reproach made him difficult to face about her news. Sophie still hadn’t told him when she burst into tears one morning in front of Michael, who had been particularly cantankerous and impatient. It had probably been the jolt Michael needed to jar him out of his self-pity. He certainly looked startled as he tried to comfort her and she blurted out her awful secret.
He was just like the old Michael, her dear, dear friend. He told her it would be OK and not to worry, and if Daniel didn’t realise what a lucky man he was then he’d marry her and they’d bring up the baby together.
She laughed through her tears at his suggestion. But then Daniel rejected her love so callously later that night she found herself crying all over Michael again and he restated his proposal.
She dismissed the idea but when he explained how happy it would make him and she looked into his eager face, smiling for the first time in a month, she felt the strings of their longstanding friendship pull tight. It was the perfect solution.
‘Michael made me promise I wouldn’t tell,’ she said quietly to John, coming back from the past.
‘I can understand that,’ said John, swishing his arms back and forth, using the natural resistance of the water. ‘But he’s dead now, Sophie. Do you think he meant you to take the secret to your grave?’
Had he? She didn’t know any more. And just how did you have that kind of conversation anyway? ‘It doesn’t get any easier to tell him, you know?’
‘Of course, my dear, of course. And whether you do or not makes no difference to me, but I think maybe he deserves to know. Look at him,’ he said, nodding towards Daniel frolicking merrily with his son. ‘Look at Max. Maybe he also deserves a father?’
‘He doesn’t love me, John. We don’t love each other.’
‘And you and Michael did I suppose?’
He’d caught her out there. Michael had loved her. As a man. As a husband. Even though their marriage had been totally non-sexual, due to the level of Michael’s paraplegia, he had never made any secret of the depth of his feelings for her. And he had understood her position. That she had loved him as a friend. A best friend. But that was all it would ever be for her.
‘This is different, John.’
‘Why? Because you still love him?’
‘No,’ she said. Because she didn’t. Any love she may have felt for him once upon a time had died a painful death. ‘Because it is. It just is.’
‘Mummy!’
Max’s excited yell interrupted the conversation.
Sophie and John turned to look at Max. He was standing on his uncle’s shoulders, Daniel’s big hands were holding Max by his thighs, steadying him. ‘Watch me dive, Mummy.’
With that, he pushed off Daniel’s shoulders like a little spring, holding both of his hands out in front of him with a diver’s poise. He disappeared under the water briefly before the flotation devices on his arms bobbed him to the surface again.
Max beamed as his audience broke into spontaneous applause. ‘That’s definitely a ten, Maxy,’ said John proudly.
Sophie caught Daniel’s eye and they stared wordlessly at each other for a few moments.
‘He’s a chip off the old block,’ said Daniel, as he held a squirming Max tightly in his arms.
Michael had been a champion diver at school. ‘Yes,’ said Sophie, burying herself even deeper in the lie. ‘I guess he is.’
Sophie checked her watch. It was nine p.m. Only two hours to go until the late shift was over. Her feet ached from being on them for seven hours solid and she yawned as the familiar pool-induced tiredness she’d been fending off all day crept into her bones.
After splashing around for another hour, she and Max had got out of the pool. Max had fallen asleep as soon she had put him down for his midday nap. She’d known how he’d felt. The sun and the exercise had been conducive to sleep but Sophie had had to go to work and had resisted th
e temptation to lie down with her son.
The shift had been frantic and had helped to keep Sophie’s mind off John’s startling revelation. Two car accidents had kept them on their toes and despite their best efforts they had been unable to save two teenagers from dying.
It had been heavy going with the families and Sophie could still feel the chill down her spine as a mother’s grief had reverberated around the walls of the department. It was like that sometimes. Some shifts just sucked.
It was always difficult to remain aloof from the tragedies that could occur here, and something they all struggled with but tonight held a particular element of reality for Sophie. It was hard not draw comparisons with Michael and Daniel’s accident.
Michael had been left a paraplegic. Daniel had spent every day since haunted by his guilt. But they had lived. And it took a night like tonight to really make her see how lucky they had been. Yes, Michael had suffered. But…what if they had both died?
How much more awful and tragic would it have been to lose her best friend and her lover in one dreadful blow? To have never seen Daniel’s face again or talked to him or been near him. To have never had his son.
She closed her eyes, sickened by the notion, the cries of anguished mothers filtering through her disturbed thoughts. Just because she was over him, it didn’t mean she wanted to live in a world where there was no Daniel.
It was with a heavy heart that she finally got the chance to take a teabreak. She didn’t feel much like sitting alone in the tearoom so she sat down at the triage desk and started to load backlogged data onto the computer.
Looking at the stats, Sophie wasn’t surprised to see that seventy-six patients had been triaged over the course of the shift. She took a sip of hot tea and glanced over to the empty waiting area—a most satisfying sight!
‘Here she is,’ said Todd, motioning to Leah. The two of them stood before her with silly grins.
‘Hey, guys. What are you up to?’ she asked, feeling the dullness leave her chest at the mischievousness in their eyes.
‘Sophie Monday, may we present the Todd and Leah tap show,’ said Todd in his very best radio DJ voice.