“I’m happy for her.” I add another lump of sugar to my tea. I guess it’s one of those mornings. The words taste like ash in my mouth. Not because I’m not happy for her—all I’ve ever wanted is for Kath to be happy—but because I still miss her every day. Time hasn’t made that wound any less painful.
“Are you?” Dad says. The pair of us don’t really talk about our feelings. That was always the relationship I had with my mum.
“Yep.” I finish my tea too quickly, and it burns my throat. “OK, are you ready to go?”
He surveys me over his orange juice before nodding. “What’s the plan then?” he asks. “Where shall we visit first?”
“Someone recommended walking up Arthur’s Seat. Then maybe we could go to the castle.”
He nods, and we pay the bill before heading out.
Our day together is nice. We talk a bit more about my swimming schedule, but I leave out all the extra workouts. As he puffs up the hill, our conversation comes in bursts, and I take every opportunity to tease him about getting old. The pair of us sit at the top and admire the view of the city below before walking back down. Later, back in the centre of town, I force him to buy some novelty socks at a shop on a cobbled side street.
By the time he drops me off at the airport to start my arduous journey from Edinburgh Airport back to Florida, with multiple layovers en route, I’ve almost forgotten the conversationfrom this morning.
“I know you won’t want to hear this,” Dad tells me as he pulls me in for a hug, “but I’m as proud of you when you win nothing as when you win a gold, and your mum would be too. As long as you’re happy and doing what you love, I’ll be happy too.”
“Thanks, Dad.” I squeeze him tight. I wish I could believe him.
“You do know that, right?”
“Of course.” But I know I don’t sound convincing.
As I sit at the airport gates flicking through my phone, it’s almost instinct to open the last text from Kath.
“You got this, Champ” reads the one from my last race. My thumb hovers over the phone, and I fight the urge to reply, to say all the things I want to say:Thank you. I read all these messages. I still think about you every day.
But I don’t do any of that. Instead, I sigh and close the message.
Chapter 40
Twenty-three years old
Kath
My tea is cold by the time I find it. It sits abandoned on the desk next to a stack of admission booklets, a film of milk puckered on top. I take a sip anyway, and then immediately regret it. Ugh. Being a newly qualified doctor apparently means never drinking a hot cup of tea again.
My pager vibrates against my collarbone like a trapped bee and I shut my eyes, taking a deep breath.
It. Just. Won’t. Stop.
I have no idea what’s happening in the hospital today, but I haven’t had a minute to myself. Well, maybe it’s not just today. It was like this last week too. I guess that’s just winter in paediatrics.
The nurse answers on the first ring. “Ward two, Jack in bed nine has dipping oxygen saturations again.”
“I’m coming.”
I know Jack. I was with him just a few hours ago. My mask rubs the grooves deeper into my cheeks, and my blue scrubs tug at my hips when I lengthen my stride. I pass the playroom, with its lonely dinosaur stickers peeling from the window, and push through the double doors back into the ward’s heat.
The boy in bed nine is tiny. His chest works like a bellows, ribs tugging with every breath, nasal prongs taped to soft cheeks. His mum looks up at me with the sleepless eyes I’ve started to recognise on this ward.
I spend thirty minutes with the pair of them before heading back to my desk. I’m just contemplating microwaving my tea when the bleep goes off again.
I consider throwing it into the nearest biohazard bin. Instead, I answer.
“Hi, it’s Charlotte from triage. The new patient in bed fourteen needs bloods. And a parent in bay five is crying because the vending machine ate their last two pounds.”
Of course the vending machine would do that. “OK. I’ll swing by in five minutes after I’ve sorted some things out up here.”
