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‘There’s Bud’s car,’ Angie pointed out on their way through the car park. ‘Oh, and there’s Dad’s utility!’ She wasn’t sure if this was good news or bad. Were they all at the hospital because her mother was still deathly ill? Or because she was better and they could talk to her? Either way, it did seem likely that Nora was still alive. Angie desperately hoped so.
Lance placed a supportive hand on her shoulder as they pushed through the heavy glass doors which led into Reception. ‘She’s a fighter, your mum,’ he said soothingly. ‘She’ll be all right.’
But Angie was worried. Even if her mother pulled through this attack, she could see further health problems down the road. The doctor had told her mother years ago to lose weight because of her high blood pressure, but Nora hadn’t seemed able to give up the rich foods she loved. Angie had no doubt that this had been a contributory factor in her mother’s coronary. She also doubted whether Nora would take a blind bit of notice if told to go on a special low-fat diet.
Her voice was shaking when she asked the woman behind the reception desk about her mother. ‘Mrs Nora Brown,’ Angie repeated. ‘She...she had a heart attack. I’m her daughter. From Sydney.’
The woman’s smile brought some welcome reassurance. ‘Oh, yes. I had your brother and father in here not long ago. Mrs Brown’s been moved from Intensive Care to a general ward so I think you can take that as good news. She’s in Ward C, room ten. You take the lifts over there to level three, turn right and follow the signs.’
Angie almost burst into tears with relief. Somehow, she held on, but her ‘thank you’ was choked out, and she was blinking madly as she hurried over to the lifts.
Room ten in Ward C was a private room, though small. When Angie went in, her mother appeared to be asleep, lying grey-faced in the white hospital bed. Angie’s father was sitting by her side, holding her hand. Bud was standing at the small window, looking out at the limp trees beyond. Both men’s eyes snapped up to hers as she entered, her father’s brightening, Bud’s still full of reproach.
‘Angie’s here,’ Morris Brown whispered excitedly to his wife, and her eyes shot open.
‘Angie,’ her mother rasped, in a voice so hoarse and shaky that Angie almost broke down. When her mother held out her hands to her, she succumbed to those long-threatening tears and threw herself into her mother’s arms.
‘There, there, Angie, love,’ her mother crooned, stroking her daughter’s hair. ‘I’m all right. It’d take more than a silly old heart flutter to kill me.’
‘Heart flutter, my foot,’ her husband rebuked, but gently. ‘You’d have been as dead as a doornail if I hadn’t got you in here as quick as I did.’
‘What an exaggerator your father is, Angie,’ Nora said, lifting her daughter’s tear-stained face up and wiping away the wetness with the bedsheet. ‘All I had was a little clot stuck in the wrong place for a little while. The doc says the ECG shows no lasting damage.’
‘The doc also said that if she doesn’t take herself in hand where her diet is concerned she might not be so lucky the next time.’
‘Diet, diet, diet,’ Nora sighed. ‘That’s all I’ve been hearing about ever since I woke up. I think diet is the most offensive four-letter word ever invented.’
‘“Dead” is worse,’ Bud grumbled. ‘For pity’s sake, Mum, you have to do what the doctor said. Diet does not mean starve. It means eating different things, that’s all.’
‘Oh, piffle!’ she scorned.
‘So that’s where she got that word from,’ Lance muttered, from where he was standing just inside the room.
Nora Brown’s eyes turned to him for the first time. ‘Well, Lord be praised, if I didn’t know better I’d think that was Lance Sterling over there! Angie, tell me I’m not seeing things.’
Angie sat up straight and threw a wry smile over her shoulder at Lance. ‘I wish I could, Mum, but I’m afraid you’re quite right. It is Lance. He turned up at Bud’s birthday party on Friday night, like the proverbial bad penny, and was still in Sydney when the news about you came through. He was kind enough to drive me up here.’
