Page 87 of You Were Always the One

HOLLY

As I walk into the hospital, Riggs is the last person I’m expecting to see. The last person I need to see, in all honesty.

‘You’re back,’ I say, realising I’m stating the obvious.

‘I am. Emma had her baby,’ he says. ‘Four weeks early. But they’re doing really well. I’ve just been to see him, actually.’

‘Him?’ I take in the look in his eyes, of pride, and love.

‘Fraser Rigby,’ he says proudly. ‘He’s a tough little guy.’

‘Congratulations,’ I say, momentarily distracted from the reason I’ve come here.

‘Thank you.’ He smiles. ‘How’s Miles?’

‘He isn’t good,’ I say. So much has happened in the months since I saw Riggs last, I’m not sure where to start. I decide to keep it brief. ‘He hasn’t responded to treatment as they hoped he would. He’s quite frail, now. He had a fall recently and I had to call an ambulance.’ My voice is shaky. ‘I’m on my way to see him. He wants to come home – it’s what we both want. We just have to figure out how we do the next bit.’ And however hard I try to blink it away, I can’t stop the tear that rolls down my cheek.

‘Do you have time for a coffee?’ Riggs says gently. ‘Just a quick one?’

A shaky sigh comes from me. ‘That would be nice.’

It doesn’t enter my head that I’m entering a danger zone. That nothing ever changes between Riggs and me. But at this point in time, there are bigger things than us going on.

In the hospital, he orders two coffees and we take them outside. The air is chilly, and we find a bench in the sun, sheltered from the wind.

‘How are your kids?’ he asks as he passes me a coffee.

‘Amazing,’ I say. ‘Strong. Resilient. Deeply sad. They know Miles isn’t going to get better.’

‘It must be so hard,’ he says.

‘About the hardest thing there is.’ I pause. ‘Weird, isn’t it?’ I gaze at him. ‘You have a new life to celebrate, while in my family, we’re facing the end of one.’ There’s a lump in my throat. But ever was it thus, this juxtaposition of life and death.

‘Do you know how long he has?’ Riggs asks the question most people skirt around.

‘Months,’ I say. ‘At the most. It could be weeks. He’s stopped treatment, now.’ Another tear rolls down my face. ‘But you know what? We get on better now than we have in years. It’s been really good for our children to see that.’

‘And good for you both, too,’ Riggs says.

‘It is.’ I’m silent for a moment. ‘I was wrong when I thought there was no love between Miles and me. I’m not talking about the passionate kind, but something different, that comes out of shared history, and being a family for so long. It’s kind of a bit like glue between us.’

Riggs looks slightly baffled. ‘Miles is really lucky,’ he says. ‘I mean, he hurt you. Badly. And you still stayed.’

But it really is water under the bridge now. ‘I think when time is running out, it changes the way you see almost everything.’ I finish my coffee, then get up. ‘I should be getting on. I need to get things organised to take him home.’

Riggs gets up. Then he puts his arms around me. ‘Take care of yourself, Holls,’ he says.

For a moment, that feeling is back, that I’m where I belong. Where a part of me wants to stay, forever. But I can’t. Gently, I pull away. ‘It was really good to see you again.’

I put it down to the numbed state of my emotions that there is no wrench as he walks away. But I’m aware that I am more stretched than I have ever been as I walk through the corridors of the hospital, already berating myself for not asking Riggs more about his life – apart from the baby. In spite of it all, I smile to myself, imagining Riggs as a father. There’s something magical about a baby. Then I wonder if he knows parenthood will change him, the way it inevitably changes all of us.

These and other thoughts are gone suddenly as I reach the ward where Miles is. I find him in a bed next to the window. His eyes are closed, his face temporarily free of the lines of worry he wears these days. As I sit down next to him, he stirs.

‘Miles?’ I say gently.

His eyelids move, then slowly open. ‘Hi,’ he murmurs. Then he yawns, and his eyes open.

‘How are you feeling today?’ I ask.