“The little girl, Emma, what’s her prognosis?” Blair asks the nurse.
We stop walking and the nurse’s smile fades. “Thirty percent chance of getting through the next three years. But there’s new research all the time and fingers crossed, her chances may improve.”
I see Blair’s eyes glisten. I feel her heart break.
When I take her hand she doesn’t pull it away, instead she grips it and the nurse pretends not to notice. There’s no media. This bit isn’t for publicity for anyone.
“What will make them smile? What do you need for the wards?” she asks.
“Visit again. Write to them. Emma would probably like to see a ball gown and a tiara. She hasn’t stopped talking about you coming since we told her.”
“We’ll make that happen.”
* * *
The next ward is quieter. Children are in beds, some of them sleeping. Tired parents sit beside them or check their phones, hunting for a little patch of normality. One or two children are out of bed, sitting up or playing on a computer, like the child who was talking to Isaac.
Blair approaches the parents, talking to them, asking how they are, offering smiles and empathy. She talks openly about her father and accepts the condolences offered about Lennox.
This is the role she was born to do. The figurehead; someone who can instil hope. Someone who can be more than the person who makes decisions that not all need or want.
I stand back and watch the people around her. We’ve had to do background checks on the people we knew for sure would be in here, which seemed inhumane but there’s always the chance that someone will infiltrate, that someone will use the opportunity to wreak havoc.
But right here there’s only pain and I can’t take it away. Parents, sisters, brothers, all reliant on hope and the miracles that doctors and oncologists can perform. I’d give my own life to make one of these children better because I’m always a soldier and that’s what we do.
Blair has tears running down her cheeks when she turns to me. She hugs a woman, standing on her own next to the bed of a child who’s asleep, his face peaceful. Resting.
“You okay to carry on?”
She nods. “Her son’s going to be okay. They think they did it.”
It doesn’t matter that I put my arm around her and hug her to my chest because in here the one thing we all are is human. Nothing else matters.
“There’s a lot of pain in the world but there’s a lot of good too.”
She smiles. Nods. A nurse beckons us to follow. Isaac stands at the end of the ward talking to a man I recognise from the fundraiser.
“You’re a good man, Benjamin Smith.”
I only wish I were.
* * *
Isaac looks up, sees us walking towards him, his eyes dropping to where our hands are holding and his mask drops for the briefest of moments.
He waits for us and then joins as we head to the new wing, suited and without a tie as usual.
“It’s good to see you both.”
It’s as if we haven’t spent most evenings together. That he hasn’t seen Blair every day in the discussions.
And it’s now, in the middle of a ward for children who have bigger worries than two countries’ wants and needs, I wonder if he knows my sister and her lover better than I know.
She needs to change her mind.
“And you. Isaac, how is the hospital funded besides the government grants?” Her hand leaves mine as she speaks the question she already knows the answer to.
Another nurse taps my shoulder as Isaac starts his explanation and my attention is pulled away from Blair.
