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The doctor laughed. ‘We just need to monitor the baby overnight. I don’t foresee any problem there … tough little beggar, that one,’ he said, peering at the heartbeat tracery in his hand. ‘As for you, young lady …’
‘I feel fine,’ she said.
‘No need to look so worried—that was my diagnosis, too.’ After scribbling something on her chart the doctor left, two nurses in tow, and she settled down to read one of the magazines from the stack on the bedside locker.
She was unable to concentrate, and her eyes drifted around the private room, which still resembled a florists’ shop even after she had sent a pile of flowers to the oncology ward. A frown of discontent furrowed her brow and pulled down the corners of her mouth as she heard the sound of voices in the corridor outside.
Being in this room resembled being stranded on a desert island, albeit a desert island with room service. The fact you could hear the rest of the world getting on with its collective life made the sense of isolation all the more intense.
It wasn’t that she wasn’t grateful, but she was dying of boredom.
When she had said as much that morning Francesco had responded with a very unsympathetic and pretty brutal, ‘Well, that is preferable to being dead!’
He made it sound as if she didn’t know how lucky she was, which she did. But a person couldn’t go on getting misty about being alive. They had to get on with living! Though she sensed she might have a fight on her hands on that score, Francesco was showing some dangerous signs of wrapping her in cotton wool.
That first night it had been around four in the morning when she had come to properly. She had some dim recollection of wakening earlier but the memory was confused and tangled up in her dreams.
She could remember the relief that had swept over her when she had opened her eyes and seen him.
Her first thought had been for the baby and even before she had asked the question uppermost in her thoughts Francesco had told her what she had needed to know.
‘The baby is fine and so,’ he added, smoothing the hair from her brow, ‘are you. Shall I call the nurse? Do you have pain?’
She lifted a hand that had a drip attached to it to her forehead. ‘I’m not sure. I feel a bit … spaced.’
‘That is probably the injection they gave you a while back.’
‘Have you been here all the time?’ How long that was she had no idea. ‘Injection?’ She struggled to think past the cotton wool her brain appeared to be stuffed with. ‘Should they be giving me drugs with the baby … are you sure he’s all right?’ she croaked, trying to raise herself up.
‘I am positive the baby is fine. Listen, there,’ he said, pressing a finger to his lips to urge her to silence. ‘You hear it?’
‘That’s the baby’s heartbeat?’
He nodded.
She gulped as hot, emotional tears filled her eyes. ‘That is so incredible.’
‘It is, and they would not give you medication that would harm the baby.
Erin sighed and let the tension leave her body. ‘I’d never have forgiven myself if.’ She stopped and closed her eyes with a groan.
‘It wasn’t your fault.’
She turned her head on the pillow and looked at him.
His appearance had shocked her. With his normally sleek hair standing up in spiky tufts and his skin tinged an unhealthy grey, he looked a million miles from his sleek, perfectly groomed normal self.
She closed her eyes, temporarily drained of the energy required to keep them open. She had no idea how long she dozed, drifting in and out of sleep, but it was some time and several blood-pressure checks later that she came to fully.
Francesco was still there. He was even in her dreams.
‘You do know you look shocking?’
‘You don’t look too hot yourself.’
‘I have an excuse—I’ve just had surgery,’ she teased.
‘And I’ve just spent hours wondering if my wife and child will live.’ The words he had obviously struggled to contain emerged from between clenched teeth.
