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‘Is he having nightmares?’
She couldn’t have said what it was in the question that made the hairs on her arms prick up but it was suddenly as though a fog were beginning to clear in her head.
Nightmares.
Why hadn’t she realised it before? She, of all people, a former army doctor.
Tia blinked, trying valiantly to drag her gaze away but she couldn’t. Her eyes were locked onto him as though her brain was fervently trying to memorise every last glorious detail to savour for the future.
‘Seth is absolutely fine.’
Zeke seemed to relax a little.
‘He isn’t upset in any way?’ The note of urgency had reduced to one of concern. But it was there, nonetheless. ‘He’s only a kid. It can’t have been easy seeing that man have a heart attack in front of him. It’s a shock the first time you see arms windmilling like that.’
‘Seth isn’t upset,’ she reassured him. ‘We made sure he was far enough back, and I think you and I both kept instinctively putting ourselves between him and the casualty. I don’t think he really saw anything at all. If anything, he seems proud.’
She couldn’t move; his scanning gaze was rooting her to where she stood. As though he was trying to work out if she was telling him the truth.
‘I’m glad.’ Eventually he bobbed his head. A curt, sharp movement that belied his words. ‘Thanks for letting me know.’
‘Right.’ She nodded, hesitating for a moment. ‘I should go.’
‘You should.’
Neither of them moved. Instead Tia stared, her eyes raking over him again and again, indulging and absorbing. And then they travelled lower. Over the short towel that barely covered his powerful thighs, and down his legs.
Until she could see the one thing he had seemed so hell-bent on keeping from her. The knee and the residual limb. Once she had seen it, she couldn’t tear her gaze away.
This was what she had done. Her first ever solo amputation. On her husband. The professional part of herself noted that it had been a good, neat job. The rest of her went hot, then cold, then hot again.
‘Seen enough?’ His sharp voice pulled her back to reality as he snatched up a temporary crutch from behind the doorway and moved swiftly, smoothly, across the anter
oom to where she hadn’t noticed an older prosthetic limb by the wall.
Tia watched, transfixed as he slid the liner on, then the fibreglass shell complete with a sleeve art that was so typically Zeke she felt a rush of nostalgia, before he stood forward until the pin fixed into the lock. The click seemed to reverberate around the room, making her jump.
‘Where’s your bionic limb?’ she asked hesitantly.
He paused, as though he wasn’t going to answer, then met her gaze and held it. Almost challenging her.
‘I wanted to give it a quick clean and check after this afternoon.’
‘Right.’
‘So, now you’ve satisfied your curiosity, I suggest you go. Get back to our son.’
‘Show me.’
The words were out before she could stop them. Zeke’s face hardened, his eyes narrowing.
‘You want me to show you?’
‘Show me how it works.’ She nodded. ‘You seem to have no problem showing the kids at your charity, or even showing Seth. And I’ve heard you’ve turned it into a puppet show at one point to make them all laugh. But whenever I’m around it’s different. You shut down, keep me out.’
‘You’re really making this about you?’ he accused her, and for a moment she almost backed down.
But then she remembered that was what Zeke always did: turned it around on others. It possibly worked well in some of his missions.
