The nurse grinned. “No, I joke. We have it covered, plus Blair keeps a close eye on everything.”
Blair was his aunt, then. “Is she often here?”
“Always. She sleeps in a pull-out bed when Bethan’s poorly. She’s the only person Bethan speaks to now.”
“This really is a lovely place.”
“Isn’t it? I wish all MS patients could have such treatment.” She eyed her patient then me. “If you wouldn’t mind giving me the room for a moment. Just for Bethan’s privacy, if that’s okay.”
I set the picture back in its place, murmuring that I’d be back.
Outside the room, I found my phone and searched on MS. I knew it meant Multiple Sclerosis but little about the condition. The summary hurt my heart. The disease affected the central nervous system. Chronic, degenerative, and incurable. Patients had flare-ups that got progressively worse, and though new treatments were promising, Kane’s mother wouldn’t get better.
Wandering down the corridor, I changed my search to whether it was hereditary. The answer was no, but it did have a genetic component that increased risk. Kane had had a vasectomy. A huge reaction to ensuring he never had kids who suffered the same as his mother did.
Overtones of an argument came from further down the hall. Kane and his aunt, though it was only her voice I could hear, angry and admonishing. I followed the sound.
“…then you’ll disappear again for months, only to appear with some girl. Do ye know what that stress will do to her? I know she’s an inconvenience in your life, yet ye always find new lows to stoop to.”
I found them in a communal kitchen area and stepped into the room, my stomach sickened by what she was saying. Blair had her back to me, and Kane hung his head low, none of his usual confidence or self-control in sight.
“I’ll handle the finances. Then if ye want me gone, I’ll go.”
Blair grew more strident. “Don’t come here and play the hero. You don’t know what it’s like to care for her day to day. I told your mother when she was pregnant with ye to hope for a girl. At least a daughter would be there for her. Instead, she bore a huge, worthless boy. Do ye know what that pregnancy cost her? How sick she became? She barely had any symptoms until she birthed ye, the burden of her life.”
Anger on his behalf flamed inside me. I couldn’t stop myself. “That’s unfair and unkind.”
Blair spun around and glared at me. “What’s it to do with ye? Mind your business.”
I had no right to interfere. Kane had never called himself my boyfriend. But it was the way he stood there and took her abuse, no pushback on her words. I couldn’t stand it.
“It’s awful that Bethan’s illness has affected her so much, but that isn’t her son’s fault. A baby isn’t responsible for being born.”
Her lip curled in a sneer. “Ye have no idea what he did. The torment he put that woman through. Every fight he got into, she’d relapse. Every phone call from his school would set her back years. The only good thing he ever did was stay away from her.”
I shook my head once, my hands trembling with how wrong this was. “Which I heard you blame him for as well. He didn’t make her ill.”
“Wrong. Without him, she wouldn’t be nearly so sick. She’s fifty-three years old. Fifty-three.” She swung an accusing finger back towards Kane. “Now you’d better have a solution for the money ye owe this place. It’s your Marchant family. If ye tell me she has to move, you’ll be writing her death warrant, and she’s already close enough.”
He took a shuddering breath and, without a glance at me, left to stalk down the hall. Blair followed, her berating words picking up again further along the corridor. For a few moments, I didn’t know what to do. Go after him or let him handle this.
No, he didn’t need to face this alone.
I followed them, guessing they’d gone back to the reception. But when I reached it, all the doors were closed and there was no one on the desk. Already I was shaken, and any lingering confidence wavered. I couldn’t walk into a meeting. If he’d wanted me there, he’d have asked.
Instead, I did the next best thing and returned to Bethan’s bedroom, knocking lightly on the door. The nurse let me in, finished with her task.
I took a seat at the bedside. “Kane and Blair had some business to discuss. I thought I’d come back to chat.”
Talking had always come easy to me. I told her about Kane taking me on a date, about how he’d helped with security for my house. I was careful not to mention the skeleton crew or what he did for a living, but I did slip in that he’d been a hero in rescuing two women recently. The more I spoke, the easier it became to pick up Bethan’s tells. At any mention of his exploits and achievements, her eyes brightened and stayed on me. Her breathing seemed to quicken, too. I guessed she liked what I had to say.
“I think he’d like a closer relationship with his sister as well,” I continued. “They aren’t alike in any way, but both have good hearts. Mila is lovely.”
One of Bethan’s machine’s beeped.
The door opened, and the nurse came back in, politely asking for the room again so she could carry out her care. I reached for Bethan’s hand and carefully squeezed it.
“I’ll go see what’s keeping them.”
