‘I won’t be there,’ Ben said, and then there was a pause. ‘Of course, I’m only down the road.’ Except it wasn’t the same.
They were friends, but mainly by proximity, and though she didn’t want to rely on Ben, on anyone really, there had been a certain comfort to be had knowing he was just a few doors down.
‘Have you got my phone number?’ Ben asked. Celeste shook her head and he scribbled it down. ‘Here it is.’ Ben handed her a card. ‘You call if you need anything.’
‘Thanks.’ She pocketed it as Belinda returned, but they both knew she wouldn’t use it. Oh, they’d stop and chat perhaps if she was walking on the beach, but there would be no dropping round, no dinners in front of the television. Just as he was moving so too had she—she was a mother now, which, by his own admission, rendered her off limits to Ben.
Belinda said something that made him laugh and then they tried to include her in the conversation, but it didn’t work. She hadn’t read a newspaper in weeks, so she wasn’t exactly up on current events, hadn’t been anywhere except the special care unit, which meant she hadn’t a clue about the new seafood restaurant Belinda was raving about. She was just so out of the loop that it was like watching a foreign film. Celeste was so busy reading the subtitles, she missed out on the humour and laughed too late, and by the time she’d worked out what was being said, they had already moved on.
‘I’d better get back...’ She was about to add ‘to feed Willow,’ but it was a detail they didn’t need. The entire focus of her life was just a conversation filler to them. ‘Good luck with the move.’
‘Thanks.’
* * *
It was a relief to move.
To be away from her—even if it was just down the road—made him safe. There could be no dropping over, no hearing the baby cry as he walked past the unit.
Celeste got under his skin.
From the very first moment he had seen her on the beach she had entranced him—and every now and then, when she was around, somehow he forgot his rules.
But closing the door on the unit for the last time, there was a pang of something—a wave of homesickness almost for the weeks he had spent there, despite the argumentative neighbours and the lack of air-conditioning. It hadn’t all been bad, Ben thought as he picked up his sunflowers, which now were up to his shoulders in height, and loaded them in the back of the hire truck, along with the rest of his belongings.
It had almost passed as home.
* * *
‘I’m sorry to trouble you...’ Ben was instantly awake, but as it was only his first night in his new home he struggled to find the light. He could hear the panic in her voice and it had him searching for his jeans the second it was on. ‘My car won’t start, and I can’t get a taxi for an hour...’
‘Wait outside,’ Ben instructed, not asking what the problem was, because clearly there was one—Celeste would never ring at two a.m. otherwise. ‘I’m on my way.’
Used to dressing for an emergency dash to the hospital, he was in jeans, T-shirt and running shoes in less than a minute. Another two had his car out of the garage and down the street, and she was there outside the units, waiting for him.
She’d got so thin. Even in these last few days the weight had fallen off her and she was as white as a sheet in the glare of his headlights. He pulled open the car door and she jumped straight in.
‘Thank you. You’ll be sorry you gave me your phone number,’ she gasped.
‘I’m not sorry at all—I’m glad you rang.’ He could hear that she was trying not to cry, trying to stay calm, and he didn’t push her with questions, just drove and let her speak and tell him the bits she wanted to.
‘The car wouldn’t start,’ Celeste explained. ‘I think it’s the battery.’
‘Don’t worry about that now.’
‘They said that she’s had a couple of apnoea attacks...they haven’t happened in a while.’
‘Okay...’ He forgot to indicate at the roundabout and cursed himself for his error as a car angrily tooted—hell, he did this drive most nights when the hospital called him in. He had to concentrate.
‘Her temperature’s high as well, so they’re doing bloods...’ He didn’t answer, just stared at the road as she talked nervously. ‘I told them to ring...’ She gulped and then managed to continue. ‘I mean, I told them that they were to ring me for anything. So maybe it’s not that serious...’
He doubted it.
Despite trying not to worry about Celeste, Ben was. He’d seen her toying with her yoghurt, seen her dramatic weight loss, her nervousness—and she’d practically told him that the nursing staff had insisted she have a night off, so they wouldn’t be calling her in the middle of the night for nothing.
‘She was doing so well!’ Celeste insisted, even though he wasn’t arguing. ‘I wouldn’t have left her otherwise.’ God, when did the fear stop? Celeste asked herself. When did you stop living in constant worry?
Get past the first trimester.
Get past thirty weeks.
Get her blood pressure down.
Get past a hellish labour.
Get past those first terrible few nights in Special Care.
Her leg was bouncing up and down, jiggling away.
When did it stop? When did she get to live without fear?
They were at the hospital and he could have just dropped her off, only of course he didn’t, so they parked in the emergency doctor spot and he used his swipe card to get them in the back way, without having to go through Emergency.
‘How is she?’ Celeste was shaking so much as she went through the hand-washing ritual. The unit was brightly lit even at night, but some of cots were covered in blankets to simulate night.
Not Willow’s.
She seemed to have more tubes and people around her than she had on the night after her birth and Celeste was glad when the charge nurse came straight over and brought her up to date.
‘She’s stable, Celeste.’ Her voice was kind and firm and Ben’s arm around Celeste helped, just this quiet strength beside her as she took in the news. ‘Willow gave us some cause for concern a couple of hours ago—she had an apnoeic episode, which isn’t unusual here, but she hasn’t had one for a while, then she had another, and she started to struggle a bit with her breathing. Now she’d had some blood gases and we’ve put her back on CPAP, and the neonatologist has taken blood cultures...’
‘Has she got an infection?’
‘There are some patchy areas on her X-ray,’ the charge nurse replied, ‘so we’ve started her on antibiotics.’ They were walking over to her cot and Celeste felt her heart tighten when she saw Willow, seemingly back where she’d started, all wired and hooked up and struggling so hard to breathe.
All Ben wanted to do was turn and run, but instead he stood with his arm around Celeste and stared at the machines instead of the baby. At every turn he was pulled in closer, dragged further into a world where he didn’t want to belong.
‘She’s been fine...’ Celeste sobbed when she saw her, the only relief being that Bron, her favourite nurse, was the one looking after her. ‘She was going to be moved to the nursery next week...’
‘It’s just a setback,’ the charge nurse said firmly. ‘Remember when you first came to the unit and we explained that these little one have ups and downs. Well, Willow has done exceptionally well...’ On she went about roller-coaster rides and all the rest of the spiel that Celeste was sick of hearing and had dared to think might be over now. All she felt was that she was back at the start again, especially when she was told she couldn’t pick Willow up.
‘Just hold her hand for now,’ Bron said. ‘We’re trying to keep her quiet.’
And with that she had to make do.
‘Here’s Heath coming now. You’ve met him,’ Bron said.
‘He’s not her doctor,’ Celeste pointed out.
‘No, he’s the consultant on call tonight. Have a seat in the parents room and I’ll get him to come and speak with you.’
‘Are you the father?’ Heath asked Ben as he came up to them.
‘No, just a friend,’ Ben explained. Then they could see Heath wasn’t listening to him as the charge nurse was urgently summoning him back to the cots again.
Celeste could only feel guilty relief that it wasn’t for Willow but for the little one in the next cot. ‘Not just a friend.’ Celeste looked at him. ‘There’s no such thing as just with you.’
Ben tried not to over-analyse that comment too much. It was just one of those things—she was grateful probably that he’d been there tonight, for his help these past weeks, and no doubt glad she didn’t have to sit alone on this hellish night, because it wasn’t actually Celeste who’d drawn the short straw.