"My name's Luke Foster," he said without smiling, holding my gaze across Daniel's shoulder for one more second before turning abruptly to my sister. "I'm one of the consultant cardiothoracic surgeons here and I performed Gillian Ashmore's surgery. And you are...?"
"I'm her daughter, Sarah. And this is Graham, my husband--and that's Rebecca, my sister. With her--with--erm--"
But even as she struggled to find the right descriptive noun, Daniel let go of me, pushing me aside as he turned. "You?" he exclaimed, glaring angrily at Luke.
I watched in bewilderment as Luke stared back, catching just the merest flicker of shock in his eyes--and then it vanished. "Daniel," he said coolly before immediately returning his attention to Sarah. "Well, first of all, let me assure you that the operation went very well. I realise it must've been alarming to hear that something had gone wrong during the procedure this morning. Statistically, only about one in a--"
"
You
?" Daniel burst out again, seeming quite unable to contain himself. "They let a scumbag like you become a consultant?"
"Daniel!" It was Sarah's turn to looked shocked. "Please--I don't know how you two know each other--but--"
"Oh, you'd like to know how I know him, would you?" Daniel's face had flushed to the roots of his blond hair, his body tensing. "Would you like to know what he did?"
"Daniel!" Graham's tone was sharp. "Whatever history there might be between the two of you, this isn't the time or the place to be discussing it, okay? This man--" he gestured towards Luke "--whether you like it or not--has just saved my mother-in-law's life. And if you don't think you can keep it buttoned while he tells us about how Gilly's doing, then maybe you'd better go somewhere else. Okay?"
Baffled, I found myself gazing at them each in turn, at Graham who'd provided the voice of reason, at Daniel as he struggled to compose himself then at Luke, his face impassive. Had it not been for those breathtakingly familiar blue eyes I knew I would've struggled to recognise him, clad as he was in green surgical scrubs, a matching cap completely covering his hair. And though it was slowly dawning on me I could've guessed there was a remote possibility that Luke worked in a hospital in my home city, I still couldn't figure out how on earth he and Daniel knew each other.
Daniel gave a brief nod but was clearly simmering with rage, standing with legs astride, his arms hanging loosely by his sides as if readying himself for a fist fight.
"As I was saying," Luke went on quietly, continuing to focus on Sarah--why wouldn't he look at
me
? "it's actually very unusual for patients to have complications during angioplasty. But the one good thing about that is that if there
are
complications, we're in a good position to take action straightaway."
Feeling increasingly as though I was in the middle of an extremely bad dream, complete with a cast of characters that had no business being together in the same scene, I listened as he told us he'd carried out a triple coronary artery bypass graft operation, patiently describing what that had entailed--something about re-plumbing Mum's heart by using an artery from inside her chest and a vein from her leg. It sounded incredibly complicated--no, make that horrific--and I found my eyes filling with tears again as he went on to explain that a machine was doing my mother's breathing for her in order to reduce the workload on her newly-repaired heart.
"We'll keep her asleep through the night," he continued. "But provided she does well--and at the moment, I have no reason to suspect that she won't--we'll wake her up tomorrow morning and work towards getting her off the breathing machine." He hesitated. "Though I should make it clear that the next few hours are critical and although I don't anticipate any problems, I really can't make any promises at this stage. There are always risks with major surgery and your mother's condition is serious at the moment."
There was a pause while we all digested this news, Sarah the first one to speak. "Can we see her now?" she asked, the quiver in her voice betraying just how close she was to tears herself.
Luke nodded. "I'll go and see how they're getting on," he said, reaching out to touch her upper arm, the sight of the reassuring gesture making me ache with envy. I was growing desperate for him to look at me, to make some indication he was aware of my presence. But without so much as a glance in my direction, he gave Sarah another smile and headed for the double doors.
"I don't believe it," Daniel muttered furiously, the moment he was gone. "I don't
fucking
believe it--"
"What?" Graham demanded, turning to confront him. "For heaven's sake, Dan, what the hell was all that about?"
"What was all that about?" Daniel gave a bitter snort. "I'll tell you what that was about, shall I?
That
--was about Chloe."
"Chloe?" I gasped, startled. "What about Chloe?"
"Luke Foster." He stabbed a finger in the direction of the double doors. "He was the one, okay? He was the one!"
"The one--what?" Sarah asked, seeming bemused. "Daniel, you're not making any sense."
But he was...
And as I realised exactly what it was that linked Daniel and Luke, I went cold with shock. "Oh God," I breathed, my legs suddenly feeling rather weak. "Chloe's baby."
Sarah gave Daniel an incredulous look. "You're not serious?" she said, narrowing her gaze. She already knew the story--we all did. "He was the one that got Chloe pregnant? He's the one that--"
"--made her lose the baby?" Daniel finished grimly. "Yep. He's the one. Of course he is--how do you think he knew my name?"
I gazed back towards the double doors, aware of how heavily my heart was thudding in my chest. This couldn't be happening, I thought. It couldn't be real--I
had
to be dreaming...
Because it didn't equate to what I knew about Luke--at least, not the Luke I'd met ten days previously. The Luke I'd met had been capable and caring, tender and warm. Arrogant at times, certainly--but that probably went with the territory in his profession. But I found it hard to imagine he could ever have treated anyone as callously--as heartlessly--as he'd allegedly treated Chloe.
Though most of the pieces of the puzzle seemed to fit. When I'd asked Luke who'd damaged him so badly, when I'd asked him what she'd done, he'd said it wasn't so much what she'd done--it was what
he'd
done. He'd openly admitted to hurting her. But not
physically
. That piece of the puzzle didn't seem to fit at all.
"Dan, it was years ago," Graham said quietly. "You need to let it rest--no listen," he added, putting up his hand as Daniel gave another snort. "I'm being serious. Chloe's put it behind her and so must you."
"Yeah, right." Daniel blew out an exasperated sigh. "He's a surgeon, for fuck's sake. With responsibility for people's lives."
"What, you don't think anyone should have a second chance?" Sarah said, frowning at him. "That if you make a mistake, you should never be allowed to forget it? Remember, you don't even know for sure what happened that day."
"Are you saying my sister wasn't telling the truth?"
"No." Sarah shook her head. "I'm just pointing out that you only ever heard her side of the story--and you acted on it. And quite frankly--I've always thought what you and your mates did to him was almost as bad as what he was supposed to have done to Chloe. Two wrongs don't make a right, Daniel."
Daniel looked ready to explode. "Sarah, you don't have--"
"Shut up!" I hissed, seeing the doors to the intensive care unit swing open again. But it wasn't Luke. Two members of staff emerged pushing a now empty trolley, followed closely by Caitlin, the nurse who'd stopped to speak to me when they'd first brought my mother back from theatre.
"Hi there," she said with another warm smile as the staff with the trolley headed off down the hall. "You can come through to see her for a few minutes. But after that, I'll have to ask you to limit it to two visitors at a time, please. With all the equipment at the bedspace I'm afraid there's not really enough room for all of you at once."
We trooped after her along a short corridor, obediently washing our hands when requested to reduce the risk of introducing infection before following her into the ward. It seemed frantically busy after the relative calm of the general medical ward, several people clustered around the nurses' station, still others working between the row of five beds on the opposite wall . I'd found the technology on the coronary care unit overwhelming enough but the sight of all the monitors and machines surrounding each one of the seriously ill patients was shocking, the noise equally disconcerting--a cacophony of bleeps and alarms.
"Here we are," Caitlin said brightly, much to my relief leading us away from the bustle of the main ward into a side room. "As I said, it's a bit of a squeeze."
Squeeze was the right word. There was barely enough room for us to huddle around the bed, our collective eyes zooming to its occupant.
"It just looks like she's asleep," Sarah said after a moment, the note of relief obvious in her tone. "I know there's the tube there and everything, but her colour's good..." She trailed off, sounding rather tearful. I watched as Graham put his arms around her, stiffening as I felt an arm being slung around my own shoulders.
"You okay?" Daniel murmured.
I drew a shaky breath, ducking out from beneath him by dropping down into the chair conveniently positioned beside my mother's bed. "I'm fine," I lied, far from fine. Because to be truthful, all I really wanted to do was run. To run as fast as I could, away from that room, away from the sight of my mother propped up in that bed--to run until I could run no more.
This time I couldn't cry. I could feel the anguish building within me, could feel it rising into my chest, forming such a tight knot there it seemed hard to breathe. And although I could hear Caitlin talking now, quietly answering my sister's questions about the function of some of the items of equipment, I couldn't take in what she was saying, the feeling that this really
was
a nightmare intensifying by the second.
"Caitlin?" My head jerked up at the sound of Luke's voice. He was peering round the door. "I'm going to grab a quick coffee. Who's the intensivist on this evening--is it Rob?"
Caitlin nodded.
"Can you tell him I'll be back to talk to him in say--" he glanced up at the clock on the wall "--twenty minutes?"
She shot him a smile. "No problem. I think we'll manage."
He grinned back, the familiar sight somehow adding to the pressure in my chest. "I'm sure you will." And to my dismay he walked away.
I found myself squashing down an almost irresistible urge to shout after him, to beg him to come back--to at least make some acknowledgement of my existence. What the hell was going on? Why wouldn't he make eye contact with me? Was he trying to protect me? To protect himself? Or--and suddenly I was struck by an even more disturbing thought--
was it possible he didn't remember who I was...?
"Well..." Breaking into my thoughts, Caitlin's voice sounded curiously distant though she was standing only a yard or so away from me. "I hate to ask you this as I know it's only been a few minutes but could two of you go and wait out in the relatives' room now? Arrange to take turns between you?"
I turned to find Sarah looking at me with pleading eyes. It was obvious she wanted to stay. "No--no problem," I managed, relieved to have the opportunity to flee. "Daniel and me--we'll go." And without waiting for him to agree, I leapt out of the chair and headed for the door.
I was halfway across the ward by the time he caught up with me. "Becca, I should give Mum a quick call--let her know what's happening," he said as we turned into the corridor, already pulling his mobile phone out of his pocket. "I s'pose I'll have to go outside--but I promise I won't be long."
