If she’d still been worried the next day, she’d have woken up to the perfect distraction in the shape of her sons. It was impossible to focus on the negatives with them around. Henry could do the best impressions of people they knew, and the funniest one of his dad trying to dance. Matt had far too many good qualities for her to be able to count, but his ability to dance was not one of them. They’d all witnessed his attempts the previous December, when they’d been invited to a family-friendly New Year’s Eve party that Rowan and Nathan had hosted. Matt had been like the fifth Inbetweener, doing moves that looked like he was cleaning the shower door with a cloth, swishing his hand left and right while moving up and down, before going on to demonstrate another move that made it look as if he was posting envelopes through a letter box. All three boys had laughed themselves silly, but Henry could mimic the moves perfectly, right down to the expression on his dad’s face. Every time Henry wanted to cheerhis mum up, or wiggle out of doing a job she’d asked him to do, he’d pull out the moves.
Ollie was the hugger of her three boys and even though he was getting a bit less demonstrative as he edged towards adolescence, there wasn’t a day that went by when he didn’t show her some kind of affection, even if it was just a brief lean of his head on her shoulder, and it always lifted her heart. As for Tom, he was her ball of endless energy, talking non-stop, with an ability to find humour in any situation – from someone sitting on a chair that made a strange noise, to hiding a plastic snake in his dad’s work boots. His giggle could make Bex smile on the hardest of days, but what she hadn’t realised about him until the past few weeks was just how kind he was. It was clear he’d hated the idea of Briony being left out of the family, or the possibility of her being lonely. Of course he had no idea about the full story, and she had no intention of telling him, but she was so proud of all three of her boys. Whatever mistakes she might have made in life, she knew she’d done something right to end up with three such amazing kids. It hurt so much to be away from them, but it was a good reminder of just how lucky she was.
‘Are you sure you want to go out to lunch? I know you’re waiting for the hospital to ring.’ Iris gave her a slightly wobbly smile, her own apprehension written all over her face.
‘Definitely. I think waiting for the call might be too much otherwise.’ Bex let go of a long breath. She’d offered to go to the hospital to sit with Ken, but he’d said he’d find it more stressful that way, because he’d be worried about her as well and she knew the way he’d always coped with pressure was to go quiet and focus on practical solutions. It was how he’d handled the fall out of her cancelled wedding to Liam. He hadn’t felt able to listen to her pouring her heart out, as she had to her mum, but he’d sorted out contacting everyone who needed to know and cancelling allthe plans. No doubt he’d be spending the time while her mum was on the operating table sorting out the practical things she might need to aid her recovery, and the last thing he needed was to have to soothe his stepdaughter’s nerves. It was probably why he’d been so keen for her to go and stay with Iris.
‘Okay then, if you’re sure, I know just the place.’ Iris had led the way to a fantastic restaurant serving Georgian food and she’d suggested a dish calledmegruli khachapuri, which was a cheese-coated bread filled with yet more cheese. It had sounded just about perfect to Bex and yet somehow it had still exceeded expectations.
‘Oh my goodness, this is amazing,’ Eating at places like this always ended up making Bex feel a bit of a country bumpkin. It wasn’t that Cornwall didn’t have fantastic restaurants, it had more than its fair share of Michelin-starred places, and Port Kara, the village neighbouring Port Agnes, was well known as a haven for foodies. It was just the breadth and diversity of cuisine in London was on a whole different level, and she’d never eaten Georgian food before. ‘How did you discover this place?’
‘I was helping an author to research the Battle of Khunan, which took place when Georgia was invaded by the Mongols in 1220. It was for a novel he was writing, and he brought me here for lunch.’ Iris was a freelance historical researcher, who worked with filmmakers, authors and academics. Bex didn’t understand half of what she did, but it always sounded fascinating. Iris was five years younger and she’d probably been closer to Briony growing up, because back then it had seemed like a huge gap, but it had narrowed more and more as time had passed. These days it was probably geographical distance that had stopped them becoming closer than they might have been otherwise, but Bex still viewed her as the next best thing to a cousin.
‘That sounds like a great perk of the job.’ She smiled at Irisand took another bite of the deliciously cheesy bread, wondering whether the restaurant would consider a delivery service all the way down to Cornwall.
‘Hmmm, well it might have been if he hadn’t decided that lunch bought him the right to try and stick his tongue down my throat. He still had most of the cheese from his khachapuri caught up in his moustache and it would have been enough to put me off this place, if the food wasn’t so great.’ Iris laughed and it made her eyes light up. Her name suited her because the green of her irises was so striking.
‘Oh God, that’s definitely not a perk.’ Bex shuddered, an unwanted advance from a man with cheese in his moustache sounded every bit as revolting as it clearly had been.
‘At least being a freelancer, I could tell him that no amount ofkhachapuriwould ever be enough for me to sit across the table from him again.’
‘Good for you, I think it’s—’ Bex stopped dead the moment her phone began to ring. Maybe it wouldn’t be Ken, it was sooner than she’d expected, and as she snatched up her phone she wasn’t even sure whether she wanted it to be him. Not knowing was unbearable, but if anything had happened to her mum that would be more devastating than she could bring herself to imagine. Bex forced herself to pick up her phone. It was Ken.
‘How’s Mum?’ She couldn’t even wait for him to speak before blurting out the question.
‘She’s come through the op and she’s doing really well.’ Ken was saying what she desperately wanted to hear, but his tone was flat and it meant she couldn’t believe him.
‘What’s wrong?’ Her question was barely more than a whisper, and she locked eyes with Iris as she waited for him to answer. The look on the other woman’s face mirrored her fears.
‘It’s Briony. She had a massive bleed and?—’
‘Oh my God, is she…’ Despite cutting her stepfather off, Bex couldn’t bring herself to finish the sentence. It was all she could do to keep breathing in and out.
‘It’s touch and go. They managed to stop the bleeding eventually, but she’d already lost so much blood that they had to put her into an induced coma to try and prevent damage to her brain and other organs. They’re hoping they can reverse the situation without lasting damage, but the next twenty-four hours are crucial, and they aren’t making any promises.’
‘I don’t understand.’ Bex didn’t want to believe this was possible, and maybe if she reminded Ken why it couldn’t be, he’d realise he must have got it wrong. Briony couldn’t be in danger. She just couldn’t. ‘They said there was less than a 1 percent chance of serious complications.’
‘I know, but someone has to be in that 1 percent and oh God, Bex… I can’t believe it was Briony either. I’m so scared, and I don’t know what to say to your mum when she wakes up.’
‘Don’t say anything, not yet. The last thing she needs is to worry about that.’ Somehow, she managed to keep her tone steady, even though the voice inside her head was screaming at her to get to the hospital. If Briony was really that unwell, Bex had to get to her.
‘I’ll have to tell your mum, because someone needs to be there for Briony.’
‘And you can’t be in two places at once.’ She repeated the words he’d said to her when she’d arrived at the hospital, but she didn’t wait for him to respond. ‘You don’t have to be. I’ll stay with Briony until we know she’s going to be okay, and you focus on Mum.’
‘But you’re going home tomorrow.’
‘Not now I’m not. I’ll stay as long as it takes.’ She was already pushing her chair away from the table, desperate to get to thehospital. There was no point even trying to tell herself that her overwhelming desire to be with Briony was purely for her mum and Ken’s sake, because she knew it wasn’t. Her little sister’s life was hanging in the balance and nothing in the world could stop her getting to Briony’s side.
Bex couldn’t stop shaking even when she reached the hospital. Both Donna and Briony were in the Critical Care Unit. Her mother was in high dependency, where she’d need to stay for a couple of days, but Briony was in the Intensive Care Unit, for patients who needed the highest level of monitoring. Bex had called ahead to the ICU to check whether she would even be allowed to visit, and had been told she would be, but that there were a strict set of protocols to adhere to. She couldn’t help wondering if the hospital’s willingness to let her visit was a bad sign. Surely it would be better if Briony was kept protected within ICU, from any risk of infection, and only allowed visitors again once she was out of intensive care, but then maybe they didn’t think she was going to get that far. It had been that thought which had made her shiver and, once she started, she didn’t seem able to stop. She had to try to get control of herself though, otherwise the staff in ICU might think she was unwell and refuse to let her visit Briony. She couldn’t allow her sister to lie there alone, wondering if anyone cared what she was going through, because lots of people did and Bex was undoubtedly one of them.
She wasn’t sure exactly when the switch in her head had happened and she’d started referring to Briony as her sister again, even if only in her subconscious. Maybe it had been when she’d first realised that the love she had for Briony had nevercompletely died, or maybe it had come later. Either way, the word came from Bex loud and clear when she arrived at the ICU.
‘I’m here to see my sister, Briony Deyes.’ Both of them had taken their stepfather’s surname when he’d married their mum, with Bex becoming a White when she married Matt. Briony’s nickname had always been Hollywood, or Holly for short, because she was so dramatic. Becoming Holly Day must have seemed the obvious choice when she developed her online persona, but there was so much that Bex didn’t know about her sister’s life, and how Briony had reached this point. Suddenly she was desperate to find out everything she could about how Briony had spent the last sixteen years. She just hoped to God it wasn’t too late.
‘Will she be able to hear me?’ Bex asked the nurse as she stood at the side of Briony’s bed, looking at her sister hooked up to various machines, the bleep-bleep of the devices somehow both comforting and horribly disconcerting all at the same time.
‘It’s quite likely that she can, even though she can’t respond, and it’s been shown to have a positive effect on recovery.’ The nurse gave her a kind smile. ‘I know it can be hard to think of things to say when someone is in a situation like this, but I’m sure you’ve got hundreds of memories of growing up together that you can talk about. I’m an only child, but I’ve got friends with sisters, and they all have so many stories, it makes me really envious.’
