A Sky Full of Stars

by Dani Atkins

  His words were like jagged pieces of glass tearing the fabric of Alex’s world apart.

  ‘We need some time,’ Todd insisted, taking command in a way that Alex was no longer capable of.

  *

  ‘You knew, didn’t you?’ Alex asked hoarsely as they walked on leaden feet down the corridor, back to Lisa’s room.

  If he lived to be a hundred, Alex would never forget the way Todd turned slowly to face him, his eyes full of pain. ‘You did too, didn’t you?’

  Alex nodded as he stumbled blindly towards the bed. Todd backed awkwardly out of the room, mumbling something about having to ‘sort things out’. Alex didn’t even look up.

  ‘I’m back, sweetheart,’ he said, his voice cracking as he realised he’d never again call out those words to her as he unlocked their front door. Never again would he hear the sound of her laughter filling the house or look into her beautiful blue eyes and see his love for her reflected back at him. There were thousands of I love yous he’d never get the chance to say, and the weight of a future without her made his legs buckle.

  Ignoring the chair beside the bed, he somehow managed to perch on the edge of the mattress and slide his arms beneath his motionless wife. Very carefully he pulled her towards him, into her favourite sleeping position with her cheek resting against his chest.

  The rain was still falling; tears pouring down the window pane. He watched it cascading down the glass as her chest rose and fell against him, the very last time he would hold her like this.

  ‘It’s raining,’ he whispered to the precious, silent shell in his arms. She would leave him today, in the rain. Which perhaps was how it was always meant to be, because that was how they’d met – in the rain…

  *

  If Alex hadn’t been such a piss-poor excuse for a boyfriend, he would never have met Lisa. He’d been seeing Anna for a month or so, having met her through work, and seven dates in he’d thought they were both on the same page. But apparently they’d been reading entirely different books. Alex’s relationship manual hadn’t made it clear he was supposed to be putting in way more effort by this point. It was probably a valid criticism. He did have a habit of forgetting to phone when he said he would or turning up late for their dates.

  In an effort to prove he wasn’t a total loser, he’d decided to surprise Anna that night. He’d bought a tartan picnic blanket, a bottle of overpriced red wine and two tickets for an open-air performance of Romeo and Juliet.

  He’d texted her the details that afternoon, and fifteen minutes before anyone had the chance to tell them what had been going on recently in Fair Verona, Anna had texted him back. Dumping him. It was probably deserved, although he could have done without the bonus information that she was now sleeping with her flatmate who she’d secretly fancied all along.

  The actors were about to go on and it was too late to disrupt nearby members of the audience by gathering up his belongings, so Alex popped the cork on the wine, lay back down on the blanket and did his best to look as though he was interested in the play. He’d leave after the first half, he promised himself. But by the second act he’d made the surprising discovery that he rather liked Shakespeare after all. Who knew?

  The rain had come hard and fast, startling both the audience and the actors. This was no light summer shower; it was a downpour of biblical proportions. Juliet was still gamely up on her balcony when the stage manager came on to announce they were going to have to stop the performance.

  People were running in every direction, like they’d never seen rain before. Abandoning his sodden picnic blanket, Alex picked up the bottle of wine and ran for shelter beneath the boughs of a tall oak tree. He shook himself like a dog and was still wiping water from his eyes when he was joined by another equally drenched audience member.

  ‘May I?’ she asked, indicating the dry spot beneath the branches, as though he had exclusive rights to the space.

  Alex shrugged. ‘Feel free.’

  She smiled at him, pushing her saturated hair back from her face. It was shoulder length and probably blonde when dry. They stood side by side and watched the rain. She was tall, almost the same height as him, and she had that toned look that meant she probably knew what the inside of a gym looked like. She was one hundred per cent not his type. Alex always went for short, curvy brunettes – like Anna, he thought with a wry twist of his lips.

  ‘Do you think it will stop soon?’

  He leant forward beyond the cover of the foliage. If anything, it was coming down even harder now.

  ‘I don’t think so. It looks like it’s set in for the rest of the evening.’

  ‘Damn,’ she said, and then flushed charmingly as though she’d said something really filthy. Was that when he looked at her, properly looked at her, for the first time and realised he liked what he saw?

  She was wearing a long filmy skirt that the rain had plastered to her thighs and a strappy T-shirt that made it pretty obvious she hadn’t bothered putting on a bra beneath it. With an effort, Alex forced his attention to stray no further south than her chin.

  ‘Are you cold?’ he asked, which was a pretty unnecessary question as her teeth were chattering away like a set of maracas. Not giving her a chance to answer, he slipped off his denim jacket and draped it around her shoulders.

  She smiled gratefully up at him and his insides did a very curious flip. All at once he really didn’t want it to stop raining; he wanted it to keep on pouring down so they’d have to stay beneath this tree for the rest of the night.

  ‘So, is the tale of star-crossed lovers one of your favourites?’ he asked, aware he sounded like an idiot but unable to help himself. He just wanted to keep her there, talking to him.

  She was kind enough not to laugh at his clumsy attempt to chat her up. ‘Anything to do with stars is okay with me,’ she had said intriguingly. ‘I study astronomy.’

  ‘Ahh. Interesting. I’m a Virgo, by the way.’ Was it too soon to be that flirty, Alex wondered? He didn’t care. There was something about this girl.

  ‘Astronomy, not astrology,’ she corrected, her lips only just managing not to break into a smile.

  ‘I knew that.’

  Their eyes met and it was far harder than it should have been to look away.

  ‘I’m Alex, by the way.’

  ‘Lisa.’

  He looked up at the sky, which was still wonderfully full of rain.

  ‘Do you fancy making a run for it? There’s a pub on the other side of the common, where we could get dry… and maybe have a drink?’ His heart was thumping nervously like it was the first time he’d ever asked anyone out.

  She didn’t hesitate – which wasn’t like her at all, she confided later.

  The ground was wet and dangerously slippery, and to keep her from falling he held out his hand to her and she took it. By the time they reached the pub, Alex already knew he never wanted to let it go.

  *

  ‘They want to talk to us again,’ Todd said gently, his hand on Alex’s arm.

  ‘Why? What else is there for them to say?’

  Todd’s hold was firm but insistent. He was in full coping mode, and Alex imagined he felt better for having something to do. He had phoned everyone who needed to be told and then spent a long time in the corridor, speaking on his mobile to Dee. Alex knew he was being given time to say goodbye. If it had been decades, it still wouldn’t have been long enough.

  When Todd returned with red-rimmed eyes, he was at least able to reassure his brother that Connor was playing happily with his cousin Maisie. The young boy had been told nothing about the accident.

  ‘How am I going to break it to him?’ Alex asked, his voice cracking on every word. ‘How do you explain something like this to a child?’

  ‘One step at a time,’ Todd said wisely. ‘Let’s get the hospital formalities done first.’

  *

  ‘You knew nothing about this, Mr Stevens? Lisa never mentioned it?’

  Alex shook his head dumbly, his
thoughts in freefall. The conversation had blindsided him. The woman with Dr Lloyd-Gordon was a specialist nurse, whose softly spoken words had pierced him like javelins. ‘You were unaware that your wife had signed up to the Organ Donor Register?’

  Alex’s horrified glance had darted to his brother.

  ‘She never discussed her wishes with you?’ Gillian, the specialist nurse, probed.

  ‘No, never.’ Alex’s answer was emphatic.

  What he hadn’t expected was the quiet contradiction from his older brother. ‘Actually, that’s not strictly true. There was that time a year or so ago, round at our place, when the subject came up.’

  Snippets of that long-forgotten conversation floated like flotsam through Alex’s memory. Lisa had been talking about something on the news to do with a new opt-out system. He shook his head, trying to shake the years off the throwaway remarks. He could recall her saying, ‘If anything ever happened to me—’ before he’d quickly interrupted her, hating even the thought of a world without Lisa in it. ‘Well, I doubt anyone will have much use for my liver, not once I’ve finished with it.’ It was a feeble joke, and the fear in his voice had given away his true feelings.

  ‘Why wouldn’t she have told me she’d signed up to be an organ donor? How come I had to hear about it from a specialist nurse?’

  Todd was quiet for a moment. ‘I imagine Lisa didn’t say anything to you because she knew how weird you get about medical shit.’

  Alex looked down, examining his hands, which were clenched into fists on his knees.

  ‘What if I object? What if I say I don’t want her put through all that?’

  Todd sighed. ‘I’ll support you whatever you decide. But do you really want to go against something Lisa felt so passionate about that she signed up in secret rather than upset you? Even if we do try to legally oppose it – which I’m not sure we can – do you want to stop her from helping people when that’s what she did all her life? It was how she was with everyone. Lisa had the biggest and most generous heart—’

  Todd bit his lip at his unfortunate choice of words and fell abruptly silent. But when he looked up, there was something new on Alex’s face, something that looked very much like pride.

  ‘Yes, she did,’ he agreed softly.

  7

  Molly

  It felt strange going to bed that night without having to set the alarm for a six o’clock start. The future stretched ahead of me like an unmarked road, and it wasn’t a journey I was particularly looking forward to. I glanced over at the empty side of the bed, and for the first time in a very long while I found myself missing the man who used to lie there.

  Tom and I had been uni housemates who’d become an item in our final year and moved in together after graduation, without ever pausing to question if we should. University relationships are a bit like holiday romances, some manage to last in the real world, and some don’t. We had six years together, but by the last two all that was left between us was friendship. We separated amicably, vowing that we’d keep in touch. Of course, we didn’t. But perhaps that was just as well, because six months later I fell sick. Tom was one of the good guys, and if he’d still been in my life when I’d received my diagnosis, he would never have gone. And that would have been bad for both of us.

  *

  Bizarrely, even if you’re the sickest person in your entire family, when the phone rings in the middle of the night you automatically start cataloguing your elderly relatives, wondering which one of them you might have lost. Not Mum, please don’t let it be Mum, I prayed silently as I threw back the duvet and rushed out into the hallway. ‘I’m coming! I’m coming!’ I told the phone as I hurried as fast as I could towards the staircase. For someone who never ran anywhere any more, I made surprisingly good time as I pushed my body faster than it wanted to go. Even so, I got there one ring too late and stared in dismay at the now silent handset. But before I could punch in the code to see if I recognised the number, I heard Nina Simone’s distinctive voice filtering down from my bedroom, declaring, as ever, that she was ‘feeling good’. It had been my father’s favourite song, and whenever my mobile’s ringtone sounded, it made him feel that little bit closer.

  I hurried back up the stairs and just managed to snatch up the phone from where it was charging on my bedside table. I was wheezing badly, and fear had turned my voice into an inarticulate gasp. Fortunately, the caller spoke first.

  ‘Is that Molly? Molly Kendall?’

  Stupidly I nodded, before remembering I needed to attempt some kind of verbal response. We ended up speaking at exactly the same time, so I caught only the tail end of the woman’s sentence.

  ‘… get to the hospital.’

  There had been an accident. There must have been. Had Mum had a fall, or maybe in a cruel twist of irony, she’d had a heart attack? She was the right age after all, and God knows she was permanently stressed. About me, a guilty voice silently reminded me. It’s not meant to be you, Mum, I thought, as I sank down shakily onto the bed.

  ‘Sorry. Can you say that again?’

  ‘This is Mount Crescent Hospital, Molly. We need you to get here as soon as possible. We have a potential donor heart.’

  *

  The cab was there within twenty minutes. Just enough time for me to reach into my wardrobe and pull out the first thing my searching fingers fastened upon. My chest felt tight, but for once I wasn’t panicked by the sensation. It had been so long since I’d felt this kind of excitement, I almost didn’t recognise the emotion.

  Having previously shot down my mother’s hopeful prediction that the call could be just minutes away, I reached now for my mobile, fully prepared to eat a large slice of humble pie. Figuratively speaking, that is, because from this moment on I was nil-by-mouth. If my leaping around the room days hadn’t been long gone, I would definitely have been doing a happy dance right there in my bedroom.

  Mum answered her phone on the first ring, due to either insomnia or being permanently on high alert for bad news. Neither was good for her health. Perhaps after this we’d both have a chance to get well again. She made me repeat my news three times, and I truly don’t think it sank in until the final telling. ‘I can’t believe it! I thought we’d have to wait… Are you sure that’s what they said, Molly?’

  My laugh sounded fragile, like glass breaking in a nearby room. I could feel how easily it might get away from me. I took a deep breath and tightened my grip on myself. ‘I don’t think it’s the kind of thing they prank you about, Mum, not when you already have a dodgy heart.’

  Her voice was suddenly thick with the tears she was struggling to hold back. ‘It’s so soon. They’ve only just put you on the list. Can it really be happening tonight?’

  Something cold gushed like a geyser from my stomach all the way up to the back of my throat. ‘Yes, it can.’

  There was a pause as the enormity of the moment travelled the distance of the phone line between us. Mum was the first to break it. If my default setting was humour, hers was always practicality.

  ‘How are you getting to the hospital? You’re not planning on driving yourself, are you?’

  ‘No. I’ve called for a taxi; it’ll be here in a few minutes.’

  ‘Then I’ll meet you at the hospital, sweetheart.’

  It was two thirty in the morning, and while the sensible part of me knew I should be telling my seventy-year-old mother to stay in her own home and wait for news, there was another part of me that didn’t want to do this without her. Apparently thirty-one isn’t too old to discover that you still need your mum by your side after all.

  *

  ‘Would you mind carrying my case to the car for me? I’m sorry, but I can’t manage it myself.’

  The driver bent down and swung up my bag with such ease I wondered if I’d mistakenly forgotten to pack anything inside it. He paused in the yellow pool of light from a nearby street lamp and studied me. I could practically see the equation forming in his eyes. Young woman; clearly nervously ex
cited; calling for a cab to take her to the hospital in the middle of the night.

  ‘If you don’t mind me asking, you’re not about to have a baby, are you? Because I’ve had someone give birth in the back of my cab once, and, no disrespect, but I’d prefer not to go through that ever again.’

  Even as I reassured my driver that I wasn’t about to turn him into a reluctant midwife, I was mentally consigning the baggy top I was wearing to the charity shop. ‘I’m definitely not having a baby,’ I told him. There was something in my voice that didn’t sound quite right. It wasn’t just nerves or suppressed excitement, it was something else hiding behind those emotions, elusively just out of reach. ‘Although in a way it is almost like being born again,’ I continued. ‘You see, I’m getting a new heart tonight.’

  The driver didn’t look like the kind of man who was often lost for words, but my reply made his mouth drop open and it took several seconds before he remembered how to close it. He took a step back, looking at me in the way I imagine a bomb squad might survey an unexploded device.

  ‘Should I carry you to the car too?’ His eyes darted around and beyond me, presumably hoping to spot a previously unseen companion who’d be accompanying us to the hospital.

  Sorry, my friend, it’s just you and me. ‘I’m fine to walk.’

  It was the first time I’d ever had a cabbie triple-check I was safely buckled up before he drove off. He was still shaking his head and muttering to himself as he checked his rear-view mirror twice before pulling out into the totally deserted street. He drove like an eighty-year-old on a driving test or a man transporting nitro-glycerine. This was one fare I didn’t imagine he’d forget in a hurry, and I could almost hear him regaling the story over something artery-damaging in a greasy-spoon cafe come breakfast-time.

  Even though I didn’t need it, he insisted on taking my elbow and supporting me all the way into the cardiology department. He was so invested in my care that I actually had to remind him that I still owed him money for the ride. In a sappy film he’d have told me to forget it, but real life isn’t like a Hollywood script. Paying him felt delightfully normal, in a night that was anything but.