The hotshot property developer was gone and in his place was a distressed and frightened little boy. I nodded, taking his words in, but was unable to articulate a response.
‘What if he doesn’t pull through, Maya?’ he continued desperately, turning to me. ‘I’ll never be able to forgive myself for what I’ve done.’
‘We can’t think like that,’ I said sharply. I was afraid to let my mind go there. I had to focus on Elliot making a full recovery. I couldn’t cope with the alternative.
‘I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life,’ Hugo went on, ‘but when I look at him, I know I got something right. He’s the best thing about me. You’re such a good mother. I’m sorry I wasn’t a better husband to you. I don’t want to lose him. I don’t want to lose you.’
He wanted my assurance that we could survive this but I couldn’t give him that. I didn’t have room for his pain on top of my own.
I smiled sadly at him. ‘I know you love him just as much as I do,’ I whispered. ‘If only love was enough to pull him through.’
‘I promise you, things are going to be different from now on. I’m going to change. I swear. I know I’ve put you through hell. I’ve been self-absorbed; growing the company was all I could see. I thought I was doing it for you and Elliot, to give us the kind of life I could only dream about as a kid, but it means nothing if I don’t have you both in my life. Why did it take me so long to wake up and see that?’ He balled the sheets on the bed in frustration. ‘I know we’ve both made mistakes but it ends now. You and Elliot are the most important people in my life. I don’t want to lose you.’
Once upon a time I had ached for Hugo to say these very words. I had waited such a long time and now that he was finally saying what I wanted to hear, they bounced off me like rubber ping pong balls.
58
LIV
When we finally got home from the hospital, we were both bleary eyed with exhaustion. We had called Linda from the car on the way there to let her know what was going on and she had told us to take as long as we needed. After we had seen her off, we went upstairs and crept into Finn’s bedroom; without voicing it, I knew we both needed the same thing. We needed to physically see our son, to touch him and feel his aliveness beneath our fingertips. As we watched his shallow breathing and stroked his perfect skin, we felt so grateful that our son was at home safely in his bed and not in the ICU like Elliot was.
‘I pray Elliot pulls through,’ I sobbed as I lay against Jay’s chest when we went to bed together that night, both too disturbed and wired to sleep. ‘I can’t bear it; poor Maya doesn’t deserve this.’
Eventually, Jay’s soft snores told me he had conceded to sleep as I lay there wide awake thinking about Maya and Elliot.
It was sometime after 3a.m. when I heard my phone go and I saw it was Maya. I answered it quickly, eager to help. I prayed she was calling me with good news.
‘Maya,’ I began, climbing out of bed and leaving the room so as not to wake Jay. ‘How’s he doing?’
‘He’s still the same. He’s stable and the nurses are happy with that so all we can do is take it one step at a time.’
‘Of course. I’m praying for him. You’re both in my thoughts.’
I could sense Maya hesitate.
‘Is everything okay?’ I pressed.
‘There’s something I need to ask you… A favour, I guess…’ she trailed off.
‘Anything,’ I said. ‘You just have to ask. You know that.’ I thought she might want me to grab her a change of clothes or perhaps some toiletries from home.
‘Well, the Gardaí have been in…’ she went on.
‘Really?’ I replied, uncertain where she was leading with this. Although Jay and I had discussed whether we had a moral obligation to inform the Gardaí about what had happened to Elliot tonight, in the end, we had agreed that it had to be Maya’s decision. But who could have informed the police? I wondered. There were only the four of us there and I knew it wasn’t Maya or Hugo. Or another possibility floated into my brain that perhaps Elliot’s injuries weren’t consistent with the story they had both concocted which had raised red flags with his medical team. I knew it happened from time to time when doctors had a duty to inform child protection services if they had suspicions about a child’s injuries. Usually, it amounted to nothing – the child was overly clumsy or perhaps bruised easily or had weak bones – but on rare occasions, it did lead to discoveries of cases of child cruelty.
‘They wanted to know more about the circumstances of the accident, so I… eh… I told them that Elliot’s injuries came from falling down the stairs, that he had been sleepwalking?—’
‘You lied?’ I said in disbelief.
‘What else could I do, Liv?’ she pleaded desperately. ‘The truth could see Hugo go to prison and we all know it was an accident. You were there, you saw what happened.’
‘I see…’ I said, taking a moment to digest this fact and its implications. It seemed Maya was going to stand by her man.
‘If they ask you and Jay what happened, I need to you to stick to this story,’ she warned.
I felt a sweat break out across my neck and I shivered in the cool night air. ‘Y-you want us to lie too?’
‘No, Liv, I don’t expect you to lie.’ Her tone was weary. Exasperated. ‘You could say that you and Jay remained in the kitchen the whole time and didn’t see what happened.’
