“Bishoptown Bed and Breakfast,” Sonya answered.
“Sonya, it’s Emma.”
“Emma, dear, you sound terrible.” She sucked in a breath. “Is it about Aiden?”
“Yes.”
There was a sob on the other end of the line. “Peter. Peter, it’s Emma. It’s about Aiden.”
I imagined him hurrying through to their living space in his woollen socks. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.
“Sonya, it isn’t what you think. They haven’t found a body. They’ve found Aiden, but he’s alive.”
There was silence. Eventually, I heard Rob’s dad in the background.Sonya? What’s she saying Sonya? Tell me.
“He’s… alive?”
“He’s alive and he’s at St Michael’s hospital. I can’t explain much over the phone, it’s difficult to… You just need to see him and he needs to see you.” I decided to warn them face-to-face rather than over the phone. “And… well… you need to call Rob. He needs to come too.”
“Okay. Okay… I… Are you sure?”
“I’m sure, Sonya.”
“Oh… Oh my, that’s…”
“I have to go. I’ll see you when you get here.”
I lifted the phone away from my ear and ended the call, drawing in my own deep breath. I leaned against the wall of the silent waiting room and closed my eyes for a second.
“Um, Mrs. Price-Hewitt.”
My eyes opened and my shoulders slumped. Dr Schaffer stood in the doorway with his hands deep in his coat pockets.
“If you have a few moments it might be a good time to draw some blood. It’s important to run the tests as soon as we can.”
“Of course,” I said.
“How are you feeling? Are you up to this?” he asked, meaning the blood draw.
As I followed him out of the waiting room, I mulled that question over, and no matter how many times I thought about it, I still didn’t have an answer.
ChapterEight
Igot a cup of tea, a sandwich, and yet more explanations of what was to come. There were more tests to be done: x-rays, scans, psychological assessments. A therapist would see him soon. There might have to be an investigation into our home to check it was ‘suitable’. It was all too much.
Sonya and Peter were in tears at the sight of him, but Sonya was the first to turn to me and nod. They knew. They saw Rob in him just as I had. The phlebotomist took my blood but it wasn’t necessary, not to me. The boy in that room was Aiden, and we all knew it.
I had almost fallen asleep when the social worker turned up to talk to me. Jake ended up doing most of the talking. By that point, little seemed to matter to me except for Aiden, and certainly not a cross-examination about me as a mother. By 10pm, my head was spinning, but the social worker appeared happy with the interview and informed us that she would ‘pop round’ to the house when Aiden had been discharged from the hospital. Reluctantly, I left Aiden’s room to let him rest, and slipped away from the others, picking up a bottle of water. Outside the hospital, I sat down on an uncomfortable stone bench, and let a pattering of drizzle land on my hair. It would frizz, but I didn’t care.
“I’ve called Rob.”
I flinched. Sonya moved like a panther. Her voice cut through my own suffocating thoughts, jarring me back to reality. “Thanks.”
She sat down next to me, leaving adequate space between us for another person. She wrapped her arms around her body. “It’s really him. I don’t know whether to rejoice or cry for what he’s been through.”
“I know the feeling.”
“I bet you do.” She turned towards me. “I want to call it a blessing, but… I can’t. The way he sits there, barely moving…” She covered her mouth with her hand. “He was never this quiet. Peter used to call him Chatterbox. He’d tell us all about the spiders and worms he’d collected from the garden. A real boy’s boy.”
