When a nurse came in to check Theo’s vitals, Lydia asked, ‘How’s he doing?’
‘I’m only temporary, love. I’m sorry. This place usually runs like clockwork but with the season comes the dreaded flu and a lot of the regular staff have been unwell. We can’t pass it on to the patients, see.’
‘I understand that.’ She should’ve asked the woman who’d shown her up here but at the time she’d just wanted to see Theo. She’d planned to say the words ‘I know your secret’, but it didn’t feel fair now, not when he was so helpless.
Apparently Theo had faced a barrage of tests since his arrival here and the tests were ongoing, but Lydia didn’t need more details. She was having trouble coping with the information already churning round in her head.
The nurse wrote something down on a chart fixed to the clipboard she was holding. ‘I can get another nurse to come in and talk to you if you’d like.’
‘No, it’s fine.’ She dismissed the suggestion. ‘I can ask his mum.’
‘Oh I met Anita yesterday, she’s a lovely lady. You must be Lydia. She talked about you. How’s your arm?’
Lydia almost asked what the nurse meant but remembered the story she’d given Anita. ‘It’s much better now, thank you.’
When the nurse left the room, Lydia watched Theo. His eyes had been open when she first came into the room and he’d made a groaning sound, but she knew it didn’t mean much. And now, his eyes were shut again. She kissed him on the lips. He made a faint murmuring sound that Lydia had heard many times before.
Her voice shook as she said, ‘Goodbye, Theo.’ She squeezed his hand and got nothing back.
And maybe it was the absence of a reaction rather than an iron will that helped Lydia to turn around and walk out of that room, away from the rehab facility, back home to carry on with her own life.
