He sat down opposite her.
‘I’m Hendrik. I’m just visiting. We live in The Hague.’
Grace forced a smile.
‘Grace.’
She looked down at his tray. It boasted a very strange selection of things. A yoghurt, three chocolate bars and a child’s drink, bright orange, in a see-through plastic bottle. It was like he’d chosen his food in the dark.
Hendrik tore open the straw and started on the drink. Grace forked up a mouthful of moussaka and realised just how hungry she was. She ate her way through the plateful while she watched Hendrik eat two of the chocolate bars in quick succession, cramming them into his mouth.
When he started on the third one, she realised his eyes were full of tears.
She reached over and held his hand.
‘What is it?’
‘It’s my wife, Johanna. She collapsed in the street.’
‘Oh, no, that’s awful.’
‘She has always wanted to see the Acropolis…’
The man took a deep breath.
‘The doctors told us last month that her cancer had returned.’
He wiped his eyes with a serviette.
‘They said that if there was anything she wanted to do, she should do it now.’
Grace felt the room spin. She’d forgotten for a moment that she was in a hospital full of sick people and their relatives. It wasn’t just her and Will. She’d had so many chats with random strangers in hospital cafeterias just like this one when her husband was alive. They’d pour out their stories and she would tell them hers. Phil would be somewhere out of sight, being operated on, or receiving treatment in some far-flung corner of the hospital. It didn’t matter whether it was night or day, there was always someone waiting and willing to talk in the cafeteria. It was the same grey light above them, fluorescent panels that created a strange twilight world she wouldn’t wish on anyone.
She had to get out of there before she fainted.
Grace pushed back her chair and picked up her rucksack. She gave the man’s shoulder a squeeze as she passed.
‘I really hope your wife improves. I’m sorry, but I’ve got to go.’
Outside in the corridor, Grace bent double and took in great gulps of air. Would she ever be able to separate Will from the memory of her husband and truly move forward? What if Will survived but was permanently disabled and needed round-the-clock care? Could she really take that on? Just a few minutes back in a hospital and she was already losing it.
Grace sank to the floor with her back against the wall for a moment and closed her eyes. When she opened them again, it came to her, clear as a bell.
It was time to fight for the living, not dwell among the ghosts of the past. There was a man just a few feet away who needed her to believe he was going to make it. Will and her husband weren’t rivals for her affection; they never had been. She’d got it all wrong and mixed everything up in her mind. Her love for Phil had been all too real, but that part of her life was well and truly over. The girls were grown and gone too, focused on their own lives, as it should be.
But she hadn’t died along with Phil. It had sometimes felt like that, but life was a precious gift, and she was going to grab it with both hands.
If Will pulled through this, she was ready, at last, to see where it took them. But even if it didn’t take them very far, her time in Greece had helped her realise that she could cope on her own and still enjoy life. She’d achieved more in the past three months than the previous three years.
Her new experiences had given her renewed strength, and it was time now to use that strength to help Will as much as she possibly could.
Grace made her way back to reception and checked her phone yet again. People always said that no news was good news. She had to believe that was true.
The nearest sofa beckoned, so she took off her shoes and cuddled up under the blanket, although sleep was out of the question.
Someone shaking her arm pulled her out of a dream where she had to choose who to save in a ferocious storm at sea– Will or her husband? The waves were overwhelming the boat. She had to know the answer. She tried to stay on board, but the picture was dissolving in front of her eyes. Eva was stood in front of her.
She studied the nurse’s face for a sign of what was to come, but the woman gave nothing away. Had she perfected the blank expression on some sort of course? Grace looked her in the eye.
