After the One by Cass Lester (e book reader free .TXT) 📕

ended up in intensive care. It was Charley’s fault. Everything was Charley’s fault. She should never have let Angie climb onto a rickety wicker chair just to paint a bloody stupid slogan on the wall, for crying out loud. And she should never have let go of her arm, or have taken her eye of Angie for a single second, then she would have been able to stop her from reaching out too far. Or at the very least she could have grabbed hold of her and stopped her from falling, and then Angie and the baby would both still be all right.

Chapter Thirty-six

In the end there was nothing Charley could do except ask the nurse to let Will know that she would be waiting outside in the corridor. There were no chairs, but then it wasn’t meant to be a waiting area, probably because the last thing they needed lining the corridor leading to an intensive care unit was a row of chairs getting in the way of the trolleys and equipment, thought Charley. It felt inappropriate, somehow disrespectful, to sit on the floor, so instead she just stood and waited, leaning against the wall, hoping that Will would come out to tell her what was going on. There was no clock, and since her phone was dead, she had no sense of how much time had passed. It could have been minutes, it could have been hours, but finally Will, anxious and drawn, came out to find her. There was no change, he told her. The baby was still in the incubator.

‘She’s hanging on in there,’ he said.

‘But they think she’s going to be all right?’ Charley wasn’t sure she even had the right to ask.

Will shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I hope so, but I don’t think they make promises or guarantees in here. She’s not in any immediate danger… she’s just a bit early, thirty-five weeks, and she didn’t start breathing right away. Angie’s trying to express some milk for her.’

‘Oh, Will, I’m sorry… This is all my fault…’ Charley tried to say, but Will pulled her into one of his huge bear hugs, wrapping both arms around her tightly.

‘Angie said you’d blame yourself,’ he said, ‘But it’s not your fault, Charley… whatever happens. It’s not your fault.’

Charley, feeling like a frightened lost child suddenly finding itself in a warm safe place, struggled to choke back her tears.

Will was going to spend the rest of the night in the unit with Angie and the baby, but, as he said, there was no point Charley being there. He promised he’d call her the moment there was any news, so Charley went home.

Going straight into her bedroom, she plugged her phone into the charger by the side of her bed. All she wanted to do was crawl under the duvet, curl up and never come out again, but Pam had waited up for her, and was hovering anxiously in her doorway. She followed her through to the kitchen, where Pam made a pot of tea for them both, and then, ignoring Charley’s protestations that she felt too sick to eat anything, she made her a sandwich.

Charley shook her head at the food but took the tea numbly. Cradling the hot mug, Charley’s hands started shaking uncontrollably, the tension that had built up in her over the past few hours needing to find its way out of her body somehow. Scalding hot tea slopped over her fingers, but she didn’t seem to notice. Pam leant over and gently took the mug, then she held Charley’s hands in hers, as if she were trying to absorb some of the shock herself.

‘What if the baby dies?’ Charley whispered, terrified to voice the thought out loud, her fingers gripping Pam’s painfully hard. She closed her eyes and hot tears spilled down her cheeks. ‘Why do things like this happen? Why?’

Pam had long ceased asking that question. There was no rational answer, no fair reason. The purpose of a death, especially that of a child, like the pain of loss, was unfathomable. In the first weeks and months after her son had died, the question had raged round and round Pam’s head and heart, like a thunderstorm trapped in a valley. The question had echoed around the aching void of her loss, harrowing and hollowing, unanswered and incomprehensible. She’d long given up looking for an answer.

Still holding Charley’s hands all she could find to say was, ‘People die, Charley. It happens. Sometimes way too early, when they’re far too young. Sons die, husbands die, babies die. It happens, but life goes on, and we survive – because we have to – and the act of surviving makes us strong.’ A stray strand of hair had fallen down over Charley’s forehead. Tenderly, Pam swept it back and tucked it behind Charley’s ear. ‘Losing Josh made me invincible, Charley. Nothing can ever hurt me more than that. But I survived, and you survived losing him. If Angie’s baby dies, if,’ she repeated, seeing the alarm that had flickered immediately into Charley’s eyes, ‘it will be terrible, dreadful. But Angie will survive, and you will help her, like you helped Tara when Kim died.’ She then got up and fetched a box of tissues from her room.

It was well into the early hours when they finally went to bed. Charley was too exhausted to undress, and she crawled under the duvet, wrung dry and completely cried out.

The mid-morning sun was streaming in through the bedroom window when Charley woke the next morning. She would probably have slept until well beyond lunchtime, but her phone was ringing. It was Will. She sat up, instantly wide awake and alert, desperate for good news. Sadly, there wasn’t any real change, he told her. The baby had been tube-fed some of Angie’s milk and Angie herself had managed to get a little sleep.

‘How about you? Did you get any rest?’ Charley asked him.

‘No. I sat up all night with them.