‘I’m going to cover them up with a blanket.’ Annie was still whispering. ‘We can come back later.’
‘I’m so glad Eve stayed. I was scared we were going to lose her too after what happened to Max.’ It was the first time Eve had ever heard Nigel talk like that, and she’d had no idea he felt the same way as Annie. Her love for them both felt almost overwhelming in that moment and she struggled to swallow back the emotion rising in her chest.
‘So did I, and I don’t know how I’d cope if she ever decided she didn’t want to do this any more.’ Annie pulled the blanket over Eve and Max as she spoke, before she and Nigel quietly left the room, shutting the door slowly behind them.
If there’d ever been a question in Eve’s mind about whether she could walk away from Max and his family, she knew for certain now that she never could. It didn’t matter how much she liked Felix, or how good it felt to be wanted again. This was the life she had chosen and she loved the people in it too much to ever give it up.
13
‘This is boring as shit.’ Max’s favourite pronouncement was one he’d made during their last OT session, when Felix had been trying some techniques to help him improve his coordination and balance, something that had undoubtedly been affected by his head injury.
Felix had been forced to suppress a smile and instead trot out the line: ‘Yes, it might be boring, but it’s really going to help. You just need to be consistent.’ Max had told him where he could stick his consistency, but not in an aggressive way, it had been more like a bit of a joke between friends and Felix had felt over the past two or three sessions that they were getting closer. The difficult part was that the NHS-funded sessions would be ending soon, just as they seemed to be making some progress. Annie had already taken Felix to one side and told him that she and Nigel would be more than happy to pay him to continue working with Max once the funding ran out. Felix had no idea if that would be allowed and he’d told Annie that he’d need to check his contract with the hospital before he could commit. Usually he wouldn’t even have considered it, because he had a full-timejob that was already full-on, not to mention the volunteering at Domusamare, but this was Max and that changed everything.
Felix and Max were the same age and he’d been on plenty of nights out with friends that had been very much like Max’s stag do. When Felix thought about Max, it was one of those ‘there but for the grace of God type moments’ that made him realise a twist of fate could so easily have put him in Max’s shoes. It wasn’t like Max had driven drunk, or overdosed on drugs to end up where he was. Felix did his best not to judge anyone, but it was easier to stay a step removed from patients who ended up needing his support because of a stupid risk they’d chosen to take. With patients like Max it was much harder not to feel a personal commitment to them, as well as a professional one. These were people who’d been living their everyday lives one minute, and then some small decision or twist of fate had changed everything.
His commitment to Max went even further, though. Max belonged to Eve and that made Felix want to go way above the norm. The strangest thing was witnessing Max’s interactions with other people. He’d begun to open up to Felix and make a joke or a deadpan comment, and he did the same with some of the staff and other residents from Oakwood Park. But when it came to Annie and most of all to Eve, Max was at his most prickly and difficult. Felix suspected it was because he knew how much they loved him and he could take his frustrations out on them while trusting that it wouldn’t change how they felt. Felix also suspected that seeing them hammered home how different Max’s life had become and that things were never going to be the same again. Felix could understand it, but he’d also seen the hurt in both women’s eyes and that made him even more determined than ever to keep helping Max move forward. He just wasn’t sure that agreeing to work with him on a private basis would be doable. Then it had struck him that perhaps theycould have a more informal arrangement. Something where Max could continue to develop both his social skills and his balance and coordination, without it providing a conflict of interest once Felix had finished delivering the NHS-funded sessions.
Waves 4 Everyone was a local charity that made surfing accessible for people with both physical and intellectual disabilities, running sessions from all the beaches across the Three Ports area. What was even better was that one of Felix’s friends was heavily involved with the charity. He’d first met Nathan Lark when he was twenty, after Felix had taken a job in his summer break from university working as a labourer for the building firm that Nathan ran with his brother, Will. Despite there being more than a five-year age gap between him and the brothers, they’d all got on brilliantly from the start. Up until he’d left for San Francisco, Felix had still helped the Lark brothers out when he could, if they were short-handed, and he’d learnt some skills he was grateful for in all areas of his life, including his job.
Nathan had begun volunteering with Waves 4 Everyone, after his nephew, Leo, had been diagnosed with muscular dystrophy. So he’d been the perfect person to talk to about whether surfing sessions might be beneficial to Max. Nathan had listed a whole host of potential benefits, not least the sense of freedom and the adrenaline rush it might give Max, when so many of the things that would have previously provided that to him had been taken away. Then there were the physical benefits, the meeting new people and socialising. April had brought sunny days that could easily have passed for summer, and Nathan had explained that if they wore all the right equipment there was no reason why they couldn’t have a surf lesson. All it had needed then was for Felix to persuade Max.
‘Can we get dirty fries from Bayside Café after we’ve finished surfing?’ Of all the questions Max could have asked, that hadbeen the last one Felix was expecting. Admittedly, the café that overlooked the bay in Port Tremellien was famous for the chips it served, which were loaded with barbecued pulled pork, cheese and sour cream, but Felix had thought Max’s biggest concern might be about falling in. So it had been an easy question to answer.
‘Of course we can, mate, and whoever falls off the surfboard the most is buying.’ Felix had grinned and Max had roared with laughter, in a way he’d never heard him do before.
‘Fancy making a bet with a patient with brain damage,’ Max retorted. Even though Max’s response hadn’t been that funny, it had made him laugh even more and Felix hadn’t been able to stop himself from joining in. It had felt really good to play some small part in making him laugh like that.
Now they were on the beach, side by side on surfboards, and Max’s laughter was ringing out again.
‘Your arse was where your head was supposed to be on that last wave.’ Max could hardly get the words out he was laughing so much.
‘What you don’t realise is it’s all part of my cunning plan to make you fall off your board because you’re laughing so much at my attempts to stand up.’
Max shook his head and shouted: ‘No chance, loser,’ before paddling his board away as though he’d been doing it his whole life. It was funny to think that, in other circumstances, Felix and Max could so easily have become good friends, instead of having a relationship based on their roles as patient and occupational therapist. There was a big part of him that wished Eve could see Max now, to help her realise that aspects of the man she’dfallen in love with were still there. But he felt a stab of something uncomfortably like envy when he thought of that, and he hated himself for the part that was glad Eve wasn’t there. It was stupid given the way she’d reacted after their kiss, when she couldn’t seem to get away quickly enough, and how muted her responses to his messages had been since then. None of that changed the fact that he liked her far more than he probably should and there didn’t seem to be anything much he could do about it.
Eve took one look at the young boy sobbing in his mother’s arms and the very sheepish face of his sister, looking pale and remorseful by their mother’s side, and she could have guessed that a spat between siblings has caused his injury. Both sets of the boy’s teeth had gone through his bottom lip, falling just short of meeting in the middle and severing the whole thing.
‘She shoved me.’ Despite the fact that his bottom lip was so swollen that it must have been painful to get the words out, somehow the little boy, whose name was Rufus managed it.
‘You punched me first.’ His sister might feel guilty, but she clearly wasn’t ready to shoulder all of the blame.
‘Stop arguing over whose fault this is.’ Their mother’s voice was sharp and she looked exhausted.
Rufus was definitely going to need stitches and Eve would have to consult with the plastic surgery team to see whether he might need a more refined approach to minimise the risk of scarring.
‘They were playing outside on the trampoline and I should have known it was too good to be true.’ Rufus’s mum sighed. ‘Next minute a fight broke out and when Rufus fell off?—’
‘I didn’tfall, I was pushed.’ He clearly wasn’t going to let this one go.
‘Okay, when Rufus was pushed off, he bit down on his lip when he hit the ground and there was blood everywhere.’ His mother shuddered. ‘I’m hoping it looks worse than it is.’
‘That’s almost certainly the case with these things, so let’s get you through and take a proper look.’ Eve glanced at Rufus’s sister and gave her what she hoped was a reassuring smile. For all the little girl’s bravado, it was obvious she was scared.
Eve carried out an initial assessment, cleaning the wound to remove dirt and debris, and checking Rufus’s teeth to ensure there were no tooth fragments in the lip. Having done so, she called the plastic surgery team and one of the consultants came down to see Rufus, before announcing that she was certain Eve could handle the repair.
‘Will the stitches hurt?’ Rufus who had been incredibly brave so far, looked on the verge of tears, but his sister responded before Eve could even try to reassure him.
‘The medicine will make sure it doesn’t hurt. Do you remember when I had my appendix out?’ She hauled up her jumper to show him the scar as a visual reminder. ‘That didn’t even hurt.’
