The Fiancé He Can't Forget (8 page)

He shook his head. ‘I don't want anything—except to know how the baby is.'

‘He's doing well. I rang from home, and they said he's fine, he's breathing on his own and looking good. They've put a tube in and given him some colostrum from the milk bank and they're happy with him.'

He nodded, his eyes fixed on Amy, and felt a little more of the tension ease. He glanced at the clock, then up at his brother with a frown. ‘It's the middle of the night. You should be with Daisy. She's only just given birth.'

‘She's fine, and I've got my mobile. I promised I wouldn't be long, but I couldn't sleep, so I thought I'd come back and see how it was going, make sure you were OK. Get you to eat something, maybe.'

‘I'm not hungry.'

‘Come and see the baby, at least, then, to put your mind at rest. Amy's stable, and we won't be far away. They'll ring me if they want us.'

How did he know that only seeing him with his own eyes would be good enough?

Stupid question. His brother knew everything about him. He got to his feet, stiff and aching from the hard plastic chair, and walked the short distance to SCBU.

The last time he'd been in here was to see the Grieves twins, back in September. Now it was the end of April, and he was here to see his own child, experiencing at first hand the hope and fear felt by the parents of a premature baby.

He washed his hands thoroughly, doused them in alcohol gel and introduced himself to the staff.

The neonatal unit manager, Rachel, remembered him from September, and she smiled at him encouragingly.
‘He's doing really well. Come and say hello,' she said, and led him over to the clear plastic crib.

Ben had left him to it, giving him space. He wasn't sure he wanted it, but he was talking to a woman in a dressing gown sitting tearfully by a crib, and he glanced across and winked at Matt.

You can do it. Go and say hello to your son.

He nodded, and took the last few steps to the side of the crib. He was used to seeing babies in them, but not
his
baby, and he blew his breath out slowly at the impact. He seemed so small, so vulnerable, so incredibly fragile.

It was quite irrational. As a twin specialist he was used to delivering babies much smaller than him, sometimes as much as nine weeks younger, on the very edge of viability, but age wasn't everything and their baby wasn't out of the woods yet, he knew.

‘Hi, little guy,' he said softly, and threading his hands through the ports, he cradled his sleeping son's head tenderly with one hand, the other cupping the tiny, wrinkly little feet. They fascinated him. The toes were so tiny, the nails perfectly formed, the skinny little legs so frail and yet so strong.

He looked like Ben and Daisy's Thomas, he thought. Not surprisingly, since half their DNA pool was identical. They were practically half-brothers, he realised, and smiled. They'd grow up together, be friends. That was good.

He studied the tiny nose with its pinpoint white spots on the skin, the creased-up little eyes tight shut, the mouth working slightly. There was a tube up his nose taped to his cheek, and a clip on his finger leading to the monitor, but he didn't need to look at it. He watched
the scrawny, ribby little chest going up and down, up and down as he breathed unaided, and felt more of the tension leave him.

He was a tiny, living miracle, and Matt swallowed a huge lump in his throat as he stared down at the sleeping baby.

‘He's doing really well,' Rachel said matter-of-factly. ‘We put the tube in to get his feeding off to a good start, because he's a little light for his dates, but he's great. Just a bit skinny, really.'

Matt nodded. He was. At a guess her placenta had been failing for a couple of weeks, and although he was a good size, he was still slightly behind what he should have been. Whatever, he'd catch up quickly enough now, and he was clearly in good hands.

‘He's looking good,' Ben said quietly from beside him, and he nodded again. It seemed easier than talking, while his throat was clogged with emotion and his chest didn't seem to be working properly.

He eased away from the crib with a shaky sigh and, asking Rachel to keep in touch, he headed out of the unit with Ben.

‘How about coming down to the canteen?'

‘I want to get back to Amy,' he said, even though he could murder a drink, now he thought about it.

‘Can I get you anything, then? Tea, coffee, bacon roll?'

‘Coffee and a bacon roll would be good,' he said, but when it came he could hardly eat it. Sitting there outside the high dependency unit and fretting about Amy did nothing for the appetite, he discovered, and the bacon roll only brought back memories—the morning after the wedding, when he'd spent the night with her, trying
to convey with actions rather than words how much he loved her; the mornings they'd woken in his London apartment and she'd snuggled up to him and told him she was hungry and he'd left her there, warm and sleepy, and made her breakfast.

They'd been halcyon days, but they'd ended abruptly when she'd lost Samuel.

Odd. He always thought of him as Samuel, although they'd never talked about it since that awful day. They'd talked about names before, argued endlessly about girls' names but agreed instantly on Sam.

He tipped his head back with a sigh, resting it against the wall behind the hard plastic chair in the waiting area outside the HDU. Ben had brought the bacon roll and coffee up to him and then gone back to Daisy and their own tiny baby, and now he sat there, staring at the roll in his hand while he remembered the past and wondered what the future held.

Once, it had seemed so bright, so cut and dried and full of joy. Now, over four years later, Amy was lying there motionless, possibly brain injured, their newborn son was in SCBU, and Matt had no idea what lay ahead for the three of them.

He swallowed the last of the cold coffee, threw the roll into the bin and went back to Amy's side. Could the sheer force of his willpower pull her through? He didn't know, but he'd give it a damn good try.

He picked up her lifeless hand, and stopped. Was he clutching at straws, or was it less swollen? He looked at it thoughtfully, wondering if he was imagining it. No. He didn't think so. It
was
improving, slowly.
She
was improving.

Shaking with relief, knowing it was still early days,
trying to find a balance between sheer blind optimism and drenching fear, he cradled the hand in his, pressed it to his cheek and closed his eyes.

 

She was floating.

No, not floating. Drowning. Drowning in thick, sticky fog and awash with pain.

There were noises—bleeps and tweets, hisses and sighs. People talking, alarms going off, laughter in the distance.

Hospital? It sounded like the hospital. Smelt like the hospital. But she was lying down, floating on the fog—or water? Drowning again. It felt like water—

She coughed, and felt her hand squeezed. Odd. Someone was there, holding it. Talking to her in a soothing voice.

Matt? He was saying something about a baby, over and over. ‘The baby's all right…he's going to be all right—'

But her baby was—

She felt herself recoil from the pain. It hurt too much to think, to work it all out. She tried to open her eyes, to argue, but it was too bright, too difficult, so she shut them again and let the fog close over her…

 

‘She woke for a moment. She coughed, and she tried to open her eyes.'

‘OK, well, that's good. Let's have a look. Amy? Amy, wake up, please, open your eyes. Come on.'

The doctor squeezed her ear, pressing his nail into the lobe, and she moaned slightly but she didn't open her eyes or react in any other way.

He checked her reflexes, scanned the monitor, lis
tened to her chest, checked her notes for urine output and fluid balance, and nodded.

‘She's shifting a lot of fluid, which is good. Have you noticed any change?'

‘Her hand's thinner.'

He picked it up, pressed it, nodded again, had a look at her incision and covered her, but not before Matt had seen it. He smiled. It was neat. Very neat, for all the hurry. Ben had done a good job. She wouldn't have unsightly scars to trouble her.

‘I gather the baby's doing well.'

‘Yes, he is. I went to see him. He's beautiful. Amazing. Really strong.'

‘Well, she's resting now if you want to go and see him again. I don't think she's about to wake up.'

He nodded. It wasn't what he wanted to hear. He wanted to be told she was lightening, that any minute now she'd drift out of the fog and open her eyes and smile, but he knew it was a vain hope.

Nevertheless, he took the advice and went to see their baby, and as he walked in, he was assailed by fear. He was exhausted, worried sick and for the first time understanding just what all the parents of sick and preterm babies went through.

And it wasn't great.

The shifts had changed, of course, and Rachel wasn't there, but there was another nurse who he'd met before, in September, and she greeted him with a smile. ‘Matt, come and see him, he's doing really well. Do you want to hold him?'

He nodded. ‘Could I?'

‘Of course.' She sat him down, lifted the baby out of the crib and placed him carefully in Matt's arms. Well,
hands, really. He was too tiny for arms. With his head in the crook of his arm, his little feet barely reached Matt's wrist, and those skinny, naked feet got to him again. He bent his wrist up and cupped them in his hand, keeping them warm, feeling them flex and wriggle a little as he snuggled them.

He pressed a fingertip to the baby's open palm, and his hand closed, gripping him fiercely. It made him smile. So did the enormous yawn, and then to his delight the baby opened his eyes and stared straight up at him.

‘Hello, my gorgeous boy,' he said softly, and then he lost eye contact because his own flooded with a whole range of emotions too huge, too tumultuous to analyse. He sniffed hard, and found a tissue in his hand.

‘Thought I might find you here.'

‘Are you checking up on me?' he asked gruffly, and Ben dropped into a chair beside him with an understanding smile.

‘No, checking up on your son. Daisy wants to see photos, if that's OK?'

‘Of course it is. I've been thinking about that. I took one on my phone and sent it to Mum and Dad, but it's not the same.'

‘No. I've got my camera, I'll take some and print them. Does he have a name yet, by the way?'

He shook his head. ‘I thought you might be able to tell me. I have no idea what Amy was thinking. Not Samuel…' His voice cracked, and he broke off, squeezing his eyes shut and breathing slowly.

Ben squeezed his shoulder, and gave him a moment before going on. ‘She'd talked about Joshua—Josh. But
Daisy said she thought Amy was going to ask you about names.'

‘She
was
going to tell me about him, then?'

‘Oh, God, yes! She said she'd tell you when—'

‘What?' he asked, when Ben broke off. ‘When what?'

He sighed. ‘She said she'd tell you when it was over, one way or the other. That was right at the beginning, when she first found out. She was sixteen weeks pregnant, and I don't think she expected to get this far.'

‘I wish you'd been able to tell me.'

‘I wish I could have done. I so nearly did, so many times.'

The nurse came back. ‘Want to try feeding him? We gave him a bottle an hour ago, and he took a few mils. You could have a go, if you like?'

He took the bottle—a tiny little thing, with not much more than a few spoonfuls in it—and brushed the teat against the baby's cheek. He turned his head towards it, the reflex working perfectly, and Matt slipped the teat between his tiny rosebud lips.

He swallowed reflexively, and then again, and again, and in the end he took most of the small feed while Ben took photos.

How could something so simple be so momentous? The satisfaction was out of all proportion to the task, and Matt grinned victoriously and felt like Superman.

‘You need to burp him,' Ben said, pointing the camera at him, and he laughed.

‘What, and bring it all up again?'

‘That's the way it is. Fairly crazy system but it sort of works.'

Matt shifted the baby so he was against his shoulder, resting on a clean blanket the nurse had draped over him.
‘So how's my nephew doing?' he asked as he rubbed the little back gently.

‘Really well. He's terrific. Daisy's in her element. Feeding's going really well, and she's feeling stronger by the hour, and it's good.'

‘Does he sleep?'

Ben's smile was wry. ‘I have no idea what he did last night. I was either here or out for the count. But Daisy was still smiling this morning.'

‘That's a good sign.'

The nurse reappeared and asked Ben to have a word with the lady he'd seen in here before, then she turned to him with a smile. ‘All gone? Brilliant. Has he burped?'

‘Yup.'

‘Nappy?'

He laughed quietly. ‘I'll give it a go, now my brother's not here taking photos to taunt me with, but don't abandon me. I might stick it on the wrong way up.'

He didn't. He wiped the funny, skinny, wrinkly little bottom dry, got the nappy back onto him without sticking the tabs on his skin or cutting off his circulation or leaving massive gaps, and, feeling ridiculously pleased with himself, he went with Ben to see how Amy was doing.

There was still no change, so after talking to the staff so Ben could catch up on her general progress, they went for a coffee and something to eat, just because he knew he had to keep his strength up, but the moment it was finished he was twitching.

‘I need to get back to her,' he said, and draining his coffee, he pushed the chair back and stood up.