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He felt in his pocket for change, making sure he had enough. Then he walked quickly to the coffee shop on the corner and made his way back to the square. She was sitting on a bench, staring straight in front of her, and didn’t move when Alistair sat down beside her.
‘Here.’ He passed her the coffee.
‘Thanks.’ She didn’t look at him, but she took the cup. They sat in silence for a while, and Alistair sipped his drink.
‘What’s bugging you?’ He knew, but this seemed a good place to start the conversation.
Raina sighed. ‘The teddy bear...it’s so beautiful. It was a great idea and she rejected it.’
‘That’s okay. We’re not expecting everything to work for every child. Maybe Edward will have better luck with someone else.’
‘Do you think she’ll ever be ready to at least try a prosthetic?’
Alistair shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I’m not going to give up on her, though. When we asked you and Anya to be part of the project we asked for a commitment from you, and we owe you a commitment in return.’
He owed it. But ‘we’ was a far less dangerous thing to say, and it happened to be true. It was Gabriel and Maya who had chosen Anya for the project, and Gabriel was Anya’s doctor.
She nodded slowly. ‘I could still help with the other children. If you think I have something to offer...’
‘I think you have a great deal to offer, and we’d be glad to have you help. And that might be the thing that works for Anya, if she sees you helping other kids with their prosthetics maybe she’ll want to explore the idea for herself.’
He reached out, touching her on the back of her hand to make sure he had her attention. His head was buzzing from the tinnitus and the birds had chosen this moment to drown out his thoughts with their song. But when Raina looked at him everything else disappeared.
‘Look, Raina. I made a promise, and it’s got no time limit. If Anya accepts her prosthetic now, then well and good. If not then you can come back to me at any time, and we’ll fit one then. She can come back to me, when she’s old enough. Maybe Ben’s right and by then we’ll have something that’s capable of things we can only dream about now.’
It felt like a commitment. No greater than the one he’d make to any other patient and their family maybe, but different. A binding promise that would stay with Anya all her life. Alistair tried not to think about the other binding promise he’d made to Raina. Their divorce had dissolved that, but somehow his heart had never quite accepted it.
‘That’s a very generous offer. I won’t say no to it, for Anya’s sake.’
Alistair felt a lump in his throat. Maybe this was all just phantom pain, the throbbing ache of something that had gone but that still hurt. His own hearing loss had made him realise that while it was possible to compensate for something that was lost, it was a learning process.
‘We’re not out of options yet. You just have to hang on in there while we work through them.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Don’t thank me.’ He held out his hand to her. ‘Tell me it’s a deal.’
Raina smiled suddenly, putting her hand in his. ‘It’s a deal.’
Letting go of her hand seemed like another loss. ‘Now we have that settled, perhaps we’d better see what your daughter is doing to my development team. I don’t want her leading them astray.’
Alistair held out his arm, wondering if Raina would take it. Ever since their explosive argument had cleared the air between them, she’d been careful to avoid any physical contact and Alistair had taken her lead on that. Somehow he needed it at the moment, though.
‘They’re perfectly capable of going astray without any help, aren’t they?’ She smiled, taking his arm, and Alistair suddenly realised he’d been holding his breath.
‘Yes. Ben’s been talking about making Anya a robot. They seem to have struck up quite a friendship.’
He spun his empty cup into the bin, which stood next to the railings that enclosed the square. Raina shook her head in answer to his unspoken query, and took another sip of her coffee. They still had that. Raina’s aim was uncertain at the best of times, and she’d always given her empty cup to him if the bin was more than a couple of yards away.
They climbed the steps to the front door of the office, and Raina let go of his arm as he ushered her inside.
‘We’ll find a way, Raina. We can get through to her. This is just a minor setback and we’re bound to have some. But we’ll get there.’
Raina turned to him, a trace of regret in her face. ‘You’re right. I shouldn’t be so disappointed by every little setback.’
‘It’s natural. You’re Anya’s mother and you have a great deal invested in this. You’re allowed to feel things.’
She laughed suddenly. ‘Okay. I’ll take care of the volatile mood swings, and you can be in charge of common sense.’
