My laughter fizzles out. My breath catches. No way.
I back up.
How did I not notice it earlier? Those noses. They’re identical. Tess’s is a smaller version, obviously, but the roman straightness, the slight kink at the top, the slope of the brow—they’re the same.
My heart beats a drumroll as I move around them, studying their features from every angle. The tilt of their heads, the way they both laugh, the funny wee dimple in their left cheeks . . . And those eyes. Tess’s have the same dark intensity, the same almond shape. It’s all the same.
I’d stake my life on it. Tess is Nate’s daughter.
Chapter Forty-Three
I can’t seem to drag my eyes away from them. All this time . . . all these years . . . Uncle Nate is Tess’s dad?
I hadn’t stopped to think about it, but she doesn’t really have a look of Geoff about her.
Does Nate know?
Does Geoff?
And if they do, did I tell them myself or did I leave them to work it out for themselves?
Damn my amnesia-riddled brain. This is information I needed to know. How do I have any hope of saving myself, returning to my life, being a complete person, or even a vaguely functional one, if I don’t know critical stuff like this?
As if to taunt me, another flashback hits me.
Mum’s face, shocked and disbelieving. “You’re marrying Geoff? Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
“Very sure.”
Mum wringing her hands. “But . . . what about Nathan?”
“What about him?” Feigning indifference. “He’s gone. My baby will have two parents. That, at least, I can ensure.”
Mum’s voice soft. Her expression sad. “Darling, Nathan is nothing like your father.”
“No?” My voice hard, my heart harder. “Then where is he?”
Regret slices through me. Oh, if only I’d had the courage to wait, the maturity to see the wonderful life my mother gave me, the confidence to know I could do the same if Nate didn’t return.
Poor Nate. Does he look at Tess and see himself? Has it been clear to him all along? My stomach flips. Did he stay in my life all these years because he knew?
I make my dazed way back down the corridor. And Geoff. Has he watched Tess grow, resenting her unmistakable resemblance to Nate and what that must mean for him?
My gut churns. It’s a big fat mess, whichever way I look at it.
My gut churns more when I see who’s outside my room.
Cynthia.
Stunningly turned out as always, she’s chatting up the policeman. And he’s lapping it up, of course, as would any red-blooded male presented with a cleavage like that.
I sidle closer, wondering as I do why I’m being so cautious; it’s not like they can see me.
“How is she today?” Cynthia glances past him into the room, then bats her eyes at him.
I stare. What’s she up to? This guy is so not her type.
“Comfortable.” The cop shrugs, gives Cynthia a lopsided smile. “Not that I’m a medical expert.”
She tinkles a laugh, runs a finger along his arm.
She moves her head close and lowers her voice. “I hear if she’s breathing it’s a really good sign.”
He chuckles, and is it just me or did he just sniff her hair?
She looks up at him, all doe-eyed goo.
He clears his throat and drags his gaze away from her cleavage.
“I could really do with a coffee,” she murmurs. “Any suggestions?”
“There’s a café downstairs, but if you’re happy with instant there’s a guest kitchen on the ward.” He indicates the general direction.
“Instant’s fine, but . . .” Cynthia looks delicately confused. “Kitchen, you say?”
“It’s easy to find. Turn left up there, cut through, take a quick right and you’ll see it.”
How Cynthia manages to make confusion look sexy I don’t know, but she does.
He raises an eyebrow. “Clear as mud, huh?”
She sparkles her eyes at him. Does a slow, admitting-it nod. “Any chance you could get it for me? I’d be eternally grateful.”
My heart plunges floorwards. Shite.
“No!” I cry. “Don’t do it!”
But he’s all lusted up and raring to go. “For you? No problem.”
If only he knew just how big a problem it could be. But she tells him how she likes her coffee and off he goes, oblivious of the danger.
Seconds later Cynthia’s in my room, hands on hips, looking down on Faith-in-the-bed.
“Let’s get this over with,” she says.
My pulse gallops. My chest is tight. “Cynthia, please. Don’t do this.”
“You and I both know you’re not coming back,” she says. “As it is you’re just wasting oxygen.”
Her smile chills me. This is it. She’s calm; dead calm.
“Cynthia,” I say, hoping by some miracle she can hear me, “you can’t kill me. It’s wrong. I’m your friend, remember?”
She trails her fingers from my wrist to my shoulder. Her touch is a glacial slide along my veins.
“I thought you were my BFF. But Best Friends Forever don’t do what you did.”
She draws her thumb along my jugular vein. I shiver. My eyes are riveted to the freshly-painted nail; deathly purple elegance.
“They don’t do this, either,” she says, pushing down on my vein as if feeling for a pulse.
It’s there all right. It’s leaping around like a frightened rabbit.
She increases the pressure and all the while she studies Faith-in-the-bed’s face, head to one side, like a scientist observing a lab rat.
Harder and harder she pushes, and as her thumb digs up under Faith-in-the-bed’s jaw, deep in her neck, the echo shrieks through to me.
No! I can’t even get the word out, so intense is the pressure.
Logic tells me the ventilator’s intubation tube will prevent me suffocating—but, God help me, much more of this and her thumb will push through to my spine.
Although Faith-in-the-bed remains impassive, I’m anything but. It’s no surprise when the monitor’s alarm sounds.
“I don’t think we need that noise,” she says, and with her free hand she taps at the monitor. The alarm silences.
And now I know why she touched the monitor yesterday. She was practising.
Pressure blends into pain and at last I understand. My death was never going to be enough for Cynthia: she wants to feel my life extinguish in her hands.
And then, as suddenly as she started, she stops. A smile plays around her lips.
She inhales deeply, as if the air has a particularly attractive bouquet, then leans close to Faith-in-the-bed. “Mmm. Was that exciting?”
My heart pounds. My breath comes in ragged, grateful gasps. I’ve never missed the monitor’s alarm more.
She straightens, and walks to the foot of the bed. “You know, I really enjoyed that photo shoot. There you were, trying for a sexy shot to lure Geoff back, and I was even helping you do it. So ironic, don’t you think? The mistress helping the wife? Only—whoopsie!”
She trails her hand along the bed-end. “The look on your face! You never saw it coming, did you?”
Where’s Nate? I shove my head out into the corridor. Panic riots in my chest. I can’t see him. But I daren’t leave. I whip down and stand next to Faith-in-the-bed.
Cynthia saunters back to the head of the bed. We’re facing each other across my body.
“That was the best bit,” she says conversationally. “Your surprise. And fear.”
She kisses Faith’s cheek, and it sets off full-body, can’t-control-this shivers in me.
“Do you feel it?” she murmurs. “The fear? Or are you too far gone to feel anything?”
No, I’m not—and yes, I bloody feel it. I’m paralysed with fear. Satisfied, Cynthia? I’m screaming inside, need to pee, want to throw up. But I’ll save all that for the morgue.
“Cynthia, p
lease,” I plead. “Don’t do this. He’s yours. Take him. Geoff isn’t mine. He never was,” I add, and as I say it I know in my heart it’s true. We were never right for each other. Love has nothing to do with duty. Love isn’t methodical or practical or sensible or making the best of a bad situation. Love is a fire in your soul that burns without cause.
For me, it’s Nate. It’s always been Nate. And I have to stop Cynthia or I’ll never have a chance to show him what he means to me.
“This won’t take long,” says Cynthia.
With a quick glance at the door—nobody there—she rips the tape from Faith-in-the-bed’s face and removes the mouth tube.
My heart slams into my throat. “No!”
The alarm sounds again, but Cynthia stifles it with a few quick taps. Business-like, she takes a pillow in both hands.
I throw myself at my body. Cynthia covers Faith-in-the-bed’s face and pushes down, a hand each side of her head. And I’m under the pillow, overlapping with Faith-in-the-bed, pushing back with everything I’ve got, fighting to live.
Fighting . . .
Everything slows. Can’t see, can’t breathe, can’t move.
Primal panic rips through me. Stop! I push back with all my might, and her hold loosens. I turn my head side-on, gasping for air, but my lungs feel like hot, heavy bricks.
“I don’t have time for this,” she hisses, and the pressure increases tenfold.
Crap. I can’t hold her off. I’m slipping, sliding, down through Faith-in-the-bed. This isn’t going to end well. So much for circles of protection.
And then—warmth. Golden light envelopes me. This is it, I think, but somehow, miraculously, I fling the pillow aside and behind Cynthia’s murdering-madwoman face I see . . . Gran? Oh, thank God.
Our eyes lock. I don’t have the energy to speak, but it doesn’t matter. I know she’s absorbing my thoughts.
Out in the corridor, I hear Tess chatting animatedly to Nate. They’re on their way back.
Cynthia hears, too. Her expression is a rictus of fury.
“Die, damn you,” she snarls.
She shoves the pillow over my face again, putting her full body weight behind it.
The pillow’s bad enough, but without the ventilator I’m like a landed fish. I strain to breathe, but my lungs have forgotten how. I’m choking. On fire. Need air.
Unable to fight Cynthia from below, I whirl out from under and attack her from behind. But it’s no good. I can’t stop her. She’s doesn’t even falter.
A sob catches in my throat. I reach for Faith-in-the-bed. Live, dammit, live! This isn’t the way it’s meant to be. I’m not ready to go.
The alarm sounds again. Fuck! I look wildly at the monitor, the door, Cynthia.
Please don’t let her be the last person I see.
A hazy image appears in the doorway. I reach for it. Help me! Please! The image solidifies.
“Tess!” I scream, but it’s as if I’m talking underwater. My words are bubbles of incoherent nonsense.
“Mummy?”
With a primeval roar Nate surges into the room.
“No!” Comprehension loads Tess’s voice with fear. “Mummy!”
As if in slow motion I’m pulled back, back, back towards my body until I’m merging with Faith-in-the-bed.
It feels as bad as the last time; lethal, like sinking in quicksand. Fight it and I’ll be dead even faster.
Gran’s eyes meet mine, and I read such infinite sadness there I know this is it. It’s over.
My heart races, faster and faster. I gasp for breath, in and in, in and in, forgetting to exhale in my panic.
Red-raw pressure in my chest, tight and hard.
Gran. It hurts.
Deep, hollow grief.
Look after Tess.
Noise. Commotion. Desperate clawing need.
Golden-white light. Stillness. Peace.
Gran, hand outstretched. “Faith. Darling girl.”
Then blessed release as I float away in a haze of never-after.
Chapter Forty-Four
Through cotton wool I hear screeching, enraged and feral. “No!”
The word plops into my consciousness like a stone in a pool, sending lazy ripples through my skull.
“Leave her!” shrieks the banshee. “Stop!”
Would someone shut her up?
Oh man. Serious head-spins. They’re almost on a par with that monster hangover I earned back in College after enough rum to sink a sailor.
“Let her die! You bastard. No!”
Cynthia.
Crap. Cynthia.
A wave of sheer, mind-numbing terror grips me. The cotton wool disperses, exposing me to every ear-splitting, insidious, heartbreaking word.
“That bitch!” Heavy breathing, and what sounds like a scuffle. “She doesn’t deserve to live!”
Am I alive or dead? Who knows, but either way this is Hell because I can’t see. Everything is black; coffin-in-the-ground black. My other senses are on overdrive, though. My head feels like it’s about to explode, and Cynthia’s hatred is smothering me like maggots all over my skin.
“Let her die!” Cynthia shrieks, so close I take a backward step.
Only it doesn’t work, I haven’t moved an inch, and her next words are right in my ear.
“Die, bitch!”
Suddenly I’m shivering and can’t seem to stop.
“Someone get rid of her.” The words, terse and low, come from my right—I think . . . it’s hard to tell. “I need to concentrate.”
Wrestling . . . a masculine grunt . . . a high-decibel shriek from Cynthia.
“No! Let me go!”
A man speaks over her, emotionless in the face of her tirade. “You have the right to re—”
“Fuck off! Cu—”
The door shuts on Cynthia’s R-rated invective, and my panic gradually abates. The cotton wool returns and everything fades to zero.
# # #
I wake, heart pounding, breathing rapid, a scream building in my throat. It takes a moment to realise the metallic chill I’m feeling hasn’t actually pierced my skin. It’s cold, but not deadly. I force my breathing slower, and the scream dissolves.
That’s what it is: a stethoscope.
The stillness around me feels unnatural. How many people are in the room? I so wish I could see.
Finally the stethoscope is removed, bedding arranged, curtains pulled. Which perhaps explains the stillness. Sunlight lightens my darkness to grey.
Beside me, an authoritative male voice says, “She seems stable. I’m optimistic she’s going to pull through.”
Relief trills through me. I’m not dead.
I tune out the excited rush of responses, hope flaring in my heart. I’m alive. The rest can be worked out. I’m not sure exactly how I go about waking up, but with Sylvia and Tess and Nate on my side, hopefully I’ll get time to work it out.
“… close call, though,” the man, clearly a doctor, is saying. “Too close.”
“Thank Christ,” says another male voice, and my pulse kicks up before my brain’s even processed who it is. Nate. “I would never have forgiven myself.”
“She’s lucky you showed up when you did,” says the doctor. “Any later and it might have been a very different outcome.”
The silence is heavy, broken only by the scratch of pen on paper. Doc must be writing up my notes, I guess.
Finally Mum speaks, and the sound of her voice is so welcome my throat swells.
“Nathan, I don’t know how to thank you. Words aren’t enough.”
“You don’t have to thank me, Kathy.” Nate’s voice is gruff.
“I do, though.” It’s Geoff. He clears his throat. “Thanks, Sutherland. And I owe you an apology, too. Seems I’ve been wrong on several counts lately.”
For these two men to be extending an olive branch to each other . . . that’s a big deal. I gulp back tears.
“I think we all have,” says Nate.
Geoff sounds dazed. “How
could she . . .”
He trails off, pauses. “I can’t believe Cynthia did this. Any of it. I . . .” He sighs. “I’m at a complete loss. They were friends.”
Nobody answers. There’s nothing to say, really. The revelations of the past day have been quite a shock to everyone—me included.
In the silence I hear movement. The door opens, the Doc talks in hushed tones to someone in the corridor, and the door clicks closed again.
“Does shaking hands mean you’re friends now?” asks Tess brightly, and at the sound of her sure, sweet voice my heart aches.
Nate’s voice is warm. “Guess so, Tessabelle.”
“Yay! Are you coming for dinner soon?” Then, without even drawing breath, “Can I say hello to Mummy now?”
“Is that okay, Doc?” asks Geoff.
“Yes,” he replies, closer to the bed now.
“You can hold her hand if you like,” he adds, clearly to Tess because a moment later her small hand is clasping my right hand.
Maybe it’s because I can’t see, but I feel her touch as if I’m right there, no dilution of the sensation at all. It’s wonderful. She plays a squeezing game, giggling at some fish joke Nate shares with her, and I wish she knew how special this moment is for me.
A few feet away, Nate lowers his voice. “Jesus. I thought I had Faith’s back, you know. I’ve had this room under surveillance a few days now, and under guard since last night.”
“You did everything you could,” murmurs Mum.
“How the fuck did she slip past him?” I hear the agitation in Nate’s voice. “Thank God I was on my way back.”
“Faith’s a very lucky woman,” says the doctor.
Lucky? What part of this debacle has been lucky? This is sheer bad karma.
“I’ll leave you in peace shortly,” he continues, “but first, a word of caution. Faith seems to be none the worse for her . . .” He searches for the right word. “. . . scare, but please don’t read too much into this. There’s not actually been any improvement in her condition.”
“But she hasn’t deteriorated?” asks Mum.
“No.” I hear the smile in the doctor’s voice. “No deterioration either. In essence, we’re back to where we were.”
The Trouble With Dying Page 32