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‘You have a fractured ankle and it’s in plaster. But it’ll mend.’
‘Snake...’
Rafe exchanged a glance with Charlie. He hadn’t realised that Mimi had known about the snake. An image of her, underwater and alone, struggling for air and feeling the snake coil around her leg and bite her...
‘I know. That’s all been dealt with. You’re in the hospital and you’re safe, Mimi. No snakes here.’ He wondered whether he should make the point by checking under the bed, but Mimi’s eyes were closed now and she wouldn’t see him. The thought that she’d faced terrors in her sleep made him want to wade into her dreams and protect her from whatever her unconscious mind could throw at her.
She seemed to calm, drifting somewhere between awake and asleep. Then she moaned again, her eyelids fluttering.
‘Got to go to work...’
Charlie looked helplessly at Rafe. ‘What’s the matter with her?’ He mouthed the words silently.
‘She’s okay, just a bit confused. You were just the same when you woke up.’ Rafe smiled reassuringly.
‘Was I?’ Charlie shook his head. ‘I don’t remember that...’
‘What’s the time? Got to go...’ Mimi’s eyes were still closed but she was trying to raise her head from the pillow.
‘It’s your day off. No work today. Just rest.’ Rafe took hold of her reaching hand and she quietened again.
‘Good. Tired...’
Charlie leaned over the bed, his shaking fingers brushing her cheek the way Rafe’s had earlier. He seemed to be getting the idea of what he needed to do now. ‘You can go back to sleep for a while, Mimi. Just rest. We’ll be here when you wake up again.’
She heaved a sigh and then lay still again, drifting away from them, back to sleep. They watched her for almost an hour as she slept peacefully. Rafe knew she’d be waking again soon, and that this time she’d be more lucid. And he knew what he had to do.
Slipping his watch off his wrist, he looked at it one last time and smiled. Then he held it out to Charlie. ‘Give her this.’
Charlie stared at him. ‘You’re going, aren’t you?’
‘I’ll be downstairs.’
‘But... Don’t you want...?’
More than anything. He wanted to see Mimi wake up, hold her hand and talk to her. ‘I think...it’s time for me to take a back seat, Charlie. Mimi and I made our decision, and it’s best if I don’t hang around now.’
Charlie seemed to be turning it over in his mind. Then he took the watch, his thumb grazing the glass over the lucky sixpence. ‘I’ll make sure this gets back to you...’
‘No, I...’ Giving something that Mimi knew was precious to him was the only way that Rafe knew of showing that he did care. That he hadn’t just walked away, the way he’d done the last time.
‘She should keep it; it’ll bring her luck.’ Rafe forced a grin. ‘And she’ll be able to check the time when she wakes up and thinks she needs to go to work.’
‘Okay. I’ll give it to her. You’ll be in the canteen?’
‘Yeah. Come down and let me know how she’s doing? I’ll wait.’
‘Sure. I’ll be down later.’
* * *
Charlie had found him in the canteen and Rafe had listened, greedily absorbing every detail of how Mimi had woken again and what she’d said. Rafe had extracted a promise from him, to call if there was anything he could do, and walked to Charlie’s car with him, dangling his own car keys in a vain attempt to convince himself that he too was going to get into his car and drive away.
He’d told himself that he would just go up and check with the doctor on her progress. That she’d be sleeping now, and that if he looked in on her one last time she’d never know.
The doctor had told him that they’d tried to take the watch from her, but that Mimi had protested so fiercely that he had relented. The watch had been carefully folded inside an elastic bandage, and she had been allowed to keep it on her wrist. Drawn in, he sat beside her bed, watching her sleep.
‘Rafe...?’ He’d been staring at her wrist, wondering if the watch was too heavy for her to wear it like that, and he hadn’t seen her eyelids open. But in the half-light he could see her gaze now, fixed on him.
