It wasn’t late when Nick took me back to my car, but I was so tired I knew I’d have to drive home with every window wide open.
‘I have Holly with me all day tomorrow and I’m working late on Monday. But we can do the picnic thing on Tuesday lunchtime if you like,’ he said as we stood side by side next to my car.
‘That would be great. I’ll get the food and sort out a picnic blanket and everything.’ I shuffled nervously before adding on a rush, ‘Do you think you could dress as though it’s summer?’
‘We’ll freeze, but sure,’ he said easily.
It was impulse that drove me to do what I did next. Good sense played no part in my actions. I leant forward, rested my hands on his broad shoulders and pressed a hurried kiss on to his cheek. It was over in a split second, but my lips still registered the warmth of his skin and the fleeting scratch of stubble.
The driver’s door was already open, and I ducked rapidly into the car as though seeking sanctuary.
‘Do you have any special requests for the picnic? Anything you really like to eat?’ I asked, horribly aware I was babbling and talking nonsense to cover my embarrassment.
Nick was polite enough to play along as though it was a perfectly sensible question.
‘I have a thing for those marshmallow biscuits, the ones covered in coconut,’ he replied. ‘I’ve been known to eat two packets at a single sitting.’
‘That definitely confirms your superhero status,’ I said with a smile. ‘I’ll get you some.’
As I drove back down the farm track towards the main road, I could still see Nick in my rear-view mirror, standing in the middle of the yard. He made no effort to get back into his own car but stood watching mine, until it became just red brake lights in the distance.
18
Amelia was gripping my hand so tightly her nails were digging into the soft flesh of my palm. I glanced across the room at Mum, who was sitting bolt upright in the other visitor’s chair. She was staring intently at the doctor and I could see no visible reaction to his words until my eyes dropped to her lap, where she was twisting the straps of her handbag so fiercely I doubted they’d ever spring back into shape.
‘So, let me get this right. You want to administer an electric shock to my heart?’ Amelia managed to sound both scared and incredulous at the doctor’s suggestion. ‘After everything that happened the last time it stopped, you want to do itagain?’
I thought I was going to have to be her advocate at this meeting, to speak for her, but as it turned out she was doing just fine without me.
‘You have heart failure,’ the doctor explained carefully and deliberately.
It didn’t matter how many times I heard that phrase, it never failed to send a shiver through me. I’d read enough books and researched the internet sufficiently to understand those words weren’t as dire as they initially sounded; that in medical terms, it just means that your heart isn’t functioning as it should. But still.
Amelia’s heart might be the one that was failing, but mine was the one in danger of breaking.
‘From what I’ve read,’ I said, turning to Dr Vaughan, who’d arranged this meeting, ‘people can live perfectly normal lives with managed atrial fibrillation.’
If there was one thing I’d learnt over the last few weeks, it was that physicians really don’t like being challenged by well-meaning family members who’ve spent too much time in the company of Doctor Google.
To give him his due, Dr Vaughan was remarkably patient. But the muscle twitching at the corner of his eye gave him away.
‘That’s quite true, Lexi.’ I could never decide if it was a good or a bad thing that Amelia’s entire medical team now knew all of us by our first names. ‘But in the long term, AF is a strain on the heart, and if we can restore your sister’s heartbeat to a regular rhythm it will offer her a much better outcome.’
‘But it still sounds so dangerous,’ I said.
I looked down at Amelia’s hand, linked so tightly with mine it was impossible to see whose fingers were whose. They were as identical as the rest of us. Mum was now holding Amelia’s other hand. We formed a chain, but a broken one. We needed Dad here to complete the circle, but that hadn’t been possible for a very long time.
‘I can assure you that cardioversion is an extremely common and safe procedure.’ He was speaking to a trio of sceptics. ‘I often liken it to the advice they give you when your computer isn’t working properly. You need to turn it off and turn it on again to fix the problem.’
‘No disrespect, Dr Vaughan,’ I said, ‘but I find it hard enough to believe that one when the man at PC World says it. But ifhe’s wrong, all I have to do is buy another computer.’ I looked over at my sister, and the love on her face shook me a little. ‘I can’t buy another sister.’
‘Amelia will be in very safe hands. It’s a controlled environment and there will be a room full of cardiac specialists with her. Her heart will not stop, it will be reset.’
There was a long moment of silence as his words found a place in each of us.
‘It’s an outpatient procedure, so you’ll be back home in just a few hours,’ Dr Vaughan said, his tone gently cajoling. I could have told him he was wasting his breath, from the set of Amelia’s jaw.
‘No, thank you,’ she said perfectly pleasantly, as though passing on another slice of cake.
