Watching the two of them together, the way Joel’s arm curved protectively around his son’s body, the warmth and reassurance in his voice, the closeness and intimacy between them, Sally suddenly felt like an outsider, unwanted and unnecessary, an intruder into their private circle—a world she no longer had the right to enter. Hot tears stung her eyes and burned her throat.
Over Paul’s shoulder Joel suddenly noticed Sally’s downbent head and the betraying shine of tears in her eyes. Remorsefully he gently started to push Paul to one side and reach for Sally.
He had been unfairly hard on her. It wasn’t her fault she had been too preoccupied this morning to see how ill Cathy had been. It was only fear and panic that had made him speak so savagely to her, the knowledge of how completely helpless and alone he had felt… how much he had needed her.
He called her name softly, but she was already turning away from him and heading towards the ward, walking so quickly that she was almost at the ward doors before he could catch up with her, stiffly holding herself aloof from him as he fell into step beside her.
* * *
‘I’m sure there’s really nothing to worry about,’ the specialist was telling them gently a few minutes later as he met them outside the ward. ‘Although your husband was quite right to bring her in.’
‘I panicked,’ Joel admitted gruffly. ‘I didn’t know what to do when she was in such pain.’ He shook his head, unable to find the words to express what he had felt.
Sally watched him. Reaction had started to set in, her body cold with the realisation not of the fact that Cathy was safe and only suffering from some bug, but what she would now be feeling had her appendix really burst.
As a nurse she knew better than most how important time was in diagnosing an inflamed appendix, so important that minutes and sometimes even seconds could make the difference between life and death. But she had been away, unavailable, oblivious, uncaring, unknowing, unreachable for hours. Hours when the fight for Cathy’s life could have been waged and lost.
A cold, numbing sensation spread through her, her head threatening to burst under the pressure of her thoughts as she tried to imagine how she would have felt walking into the hospital which was so familiar to her to learn that her child had died while she…
What kind of mother was she…? What kind of person…?
‘Sister said that you wanted to keep Cathy in overnight,’ Joel was saying.
‘Yes, but that’s only as a precaution,’ the specialist was reassuring him.
‘I want to stay here with her… tonight…’ Sally announced croakily. ‘I——’
‘I’ll stay,’ Joel interrupted her, reminding her, ‘You’ve got an early shift in the morning…’
‘I really wouldn’t advise either of you to stay. I promise you it isn’t necessary and, besides, I’m afraid we just don’t have the room,’ the specialist informed them. ‘You can see her now, of course.’
Although the nurses had done their best to cheer up the children’s ward, it had a spartan, almost bleak appearance, far too reminiscent of Kenneth’s unnaturally perfect rooms for Sally’s comfort. The knowledge of where she had been and with whom while her child lay ill spread across her conscience like a heavy weight she couldn’t remove.
She needed someone else to help her lift it, she acknowledged, but who was there who could do that… who wanted to do that for her…?
Not Cathy, who lay still and unnaturally quiet in the pristine white bed, averting her face when Sally approached her; and certainly not Joel, who had done everything bar wave a banner to proclaim her an unfit mother.
‘It’s OK, you’re going to be fine,’ she heard Joel saying. ‘But they’re going to keep you in overnight…’
‘Oh, Dad. I was so frightened…’
Sally could hear the emotion in her voice, but when she instinctively reached to take hold of her hand Cathy pulled away from her, ignoring her, her attention fixed on Joel.
‘I know. You and me both,’ Joel responded feelingly. ‘But it’s OK now, and your mum’s here…’
Sally flinched beneath the look Cathy gave her.
‘When they let me leave tomorrow you’ll come for me, won’t you, Dad…?’
Across the bed Joel looked at Sally’s downbent head. He could see how upset she was but now was not the time to tell Cathy off for the way she was behaving.
He might be flavour of the month now, Joel recognised wryly, but it had been her mother Cathy had cried for this afternoon when she’d come to the leisure centre. Perhaps it was only to be expected that she should want to punish Sally a little now for not being there… even if it was unfair.
‘Of course I will,’ he assured her.
‘Time to leave now,’ the nurse told them briskly, coming up to bundle them out.
‘Dad, I’m hungry—can we go to McDonald’s?’ Paul demanded plaintively at Joel’s side.