A Million Dreams

by Dani Atkins

  ‘He said that he—’

  The young locum cut me off with a smile that didn’t quite make it to her eyes. ‘Shall we let Noah tell me in his own words?’

  I could already see I was a cliché in this woman’s eyes. The kind of mother who wrapped the cotton wool so closely around her child she was in danger of smothering them. But I was too worried, too old and too thick-skinned to take offence. As long as she got to the bottom of what was wrong with Noah, I didn’t care what this doctor thought about me.

  After Noah’s mumbled explanation, the GP spent several minutes scrolling back through the medical notes on the computer screen beside her. Her eyes occasionally flashed over to me, before flicking back to Noah’s medical history. I could see what she was thinking as though it was written in a giant thought bubble floating above her head. Over-anxious mother. I wondered if the number of visits on the screen revealed as much a picture of my medical history as it did of Noah’s.

  The doctor continued to ask Noah a slew of questions as she examined him, and when she was done the words I’d been bottling up burst from me. ‘None of the allergy medications he’s been prescribed seem to be working. And it’s come on really suddenly—’

  ‘I realise it might seem that way, but Noah does have a history of allergies going back to when he was a baby.’

  ‘Yes…’ I conceded. ‘But he’s been so much better for such a long time. It’s been years since we’ve even come close to using the EpiPen.’

  ‘I’m afraid that’s the nature of allergies. They come, they go.’ From someone who’d studied medicine for five years, was it unreasonable to hope for a better explanation? ‘This is always the worst time of year for someone with Noah’s sensitivity,’ she continued, flashing him a quick smile. ‘I bet you anything they’ve been mowing the grass near your school over the last few days.’ Noah’s eyes widened like marbles, as though he was in the presence of a genius. Me, not quite so much. The doctor smiled benignly. ‘There you go then.’

  ‘I really don’t think it’s—’ I began, only to be shot down by the look in her eyes. You’d think I’d know better by now than to try to tell a doctor you believe they’ve just misdiagnosed your child. ‘It’s just that his face is looking so puffy, especially around the eyes,’ I added, already knowing exactly how she was going to respond. She didn’t disappoint.

  ‘Those are classic signs of an allergic reaction, Mrs Vaughan,’ she said, oblivious to the fact that I’d probably read more on that particular subject than she had. ‘I couldn’t see anything on Noah’s notes, but have you or Mr Vaughan ever suffered with allergies?’

  Noah had heard this question many times before, but it was the first time he’d heard me hesitate before replying. ‘No. Never.’

  The doctor shrugged and turned her attention to the keyboard. The room filled with the sound of her fingers clattering over the keys as she wrote out yet another prescription for a medicine I very much doubted would work any better than the ones that had come before it.

  She got to her feet, our consultation clearly over as far as she was concerned. I allowed her to lead us to the door, but after she’d opened it, I rested my hand lightly on Noah’s shoulder. ‘Would you mind sitting in the waiting room for a minute while I have a quick word with the doctor?’ I asked. ‘There’ll be some toys in the children’s corner you can play with.’

  Nothing is quite as withering as the look your eight-year-old gives you when you insult his intelligence. ‘They’re for the little kids.’

  I smiled, and ruffled his hair affectionately. ‘Sorry, big guy.’

  The young doctor didn’t direct me back to the chairs, so I knew the clock was ticking; we’d already exceeded our allotted twelve minutes of consultation time. ‘Two things,’ I said in a rush. ‘Firstly, I was wondering if blood tests would give a clearer picture of what is going on with Noah.’

  It would appear that twenty-somethings with a medical degree are pretty good at withering looks too. ‘If it will set your mind at rest, Mrs Vaughan, we can arrange for that, although I’m not convinced they are warranted. Noah’s symptoms are textbook classic for a child with allergies. What would be useful is to refer you back to the allergy clinic, for further tests.’ I nodded, my hands unconsciously fiddling with the strap of my bag as I got to Point Number Two.

  ‘You asked whether there’s a family history of allergies…’ I drew in a deep breath, hating the words I was going to say, because they felt like a betrayal to Pete. ‘It’s possible Noah’s father had allergies in the past. Would it be helpful in treating Noah to know if he did?’

  ‘Absolutely. Any information Mr Vaughan can give us can only help Noah.’

  I opened my mouth to correct her, and then shut it again. I wanted no record of Noah’s unique background plastered all over his medical notes. ‘Okay, I’ll see what I can find out.’

  28

  Beth

  I blinked at the unfamiliar car on my drive, screwing up my eyes to check it wasn’t a hangover-induced mirage. No, it was still there, as was the worst headache I could remember having in years. Tim had always claimed I was a lightweight, and it was easy to imagine his amusement as the screech of the curtain pole rings made me wince.

  The previous night was starting to come back to me in small snapshot images. I could remember walking Liam to the door, the Uber he’d booked already idling at the kerbside, and promising him that I wouldn’t make any rash decisions. What I couldn’t remember was saying goodbye, or arranging when he’d collect his car. Those memories were lost under an avalanche of embarrassment, caused when I’d turned my head at the wrong moment, so that the kiss he’d intended for my cheek had landed instead on my surprised lips. There were two seconds, maybe three, when the wine, muscle memory, and the moment made my lips soften and part slightly under his. But then an arc of memories brought us both back to sanity. I doubt we could have pulled apart any faster if my lips had been electrified. Liam’s charcoal eyes had burned briefly into mine, before we both decided to be terribly British about it, and simply pretend it hadn’t happened. Except that it had, and now I couldn’t un-see the horrified expression on his face as he’d hastily backed away from me.

  A long shower certainly helped to clear some of the fuzziness the wine had left behind, and I was feeling much more human as I padded back to the master bedroom wearing one towel like a toga, with another twisted into a turban on my head. I was moving as fast as my hangover would allow, just in case Liam intended to collect his car before going to work. But as I shook my hair free of its towel, I heard the unmistakable sound of an engine being fired up. From the bedroom window I could just make out a shadowy figure in the car’s driver’s seat. Without stopping to think it through, I dashed into the hall, my feet leaving a telltale trail of damp footprints as I ran down the wooden stair treads.

  Even so, I was too slow. As I unlatched the door’s security chain I could already hear the vehicle driving away, and by the time I flung open the door, Liam’s car had disappeared with a blink of red brake lights at a nearby junction.

  Had he seen me silhouetted in the open doorway in his rear-view mirror? If he had, it hadn’t changed his mind. Was it lingering embarrassment from that awkward kiss-that-nearly-was, or was it my indecision about continuing with the court case that was making him keep his distance? Perhaps he’d finally come to realise that the line between lawyer and friend was just too hard to straddle?

  Feeling unsettled, I stepped back from the door and trod on something small and hard on the coconut mat beneath my bare feet. Luckily, the sturdy blister pack appeared to have protected the contents from damage. But the outside of the box was far more interesting than what was inside it. Liam’s handwritten message had been squeezed around the brand name on the front of the pack of painkillers and the dosage. I smiled as I read it.

  Because you said you never have any, and I’ve a feeling you might be in need of them this morning.

  *

  Several cups of coff
ee and two of Liam’s pills successfully managed to sort out the headache, but the question ricocheting around my head wasn’t so easily banished. What was I going to do? And just as importantly: What would Tim have wanted me to do?

  I nibbled on a slice of toast and reached for the morning newspaper. I’d never really been much of a believer in horoscopes, but working with Natalie – who was slightly obsessed with them – must have diluted my scepticism. She insisted on reading mine every day, ignoring my protests that the predictions were so vague they could be twisted to fit practically any situation. What would she say now, I wondered, if she saw me running my finger down the list of star signs, searching for whatever words of wisdom the mystic in the grainy photograph at the top of the page had to offer?

  ‘“Don’t be afraid of losing your way”,’ I read out loud in the sunny warmth of my cosy kitchen. ‘“Trust your heart and you’ll find the right road to follow”,’ I finished with a small harrumph of scorn. ‘Sounds more like something my satnav would say,’ I told the grinning astrologer, folding the newspaper shut.

  ‘I suppose it’s too much to hope you could send me some kind of sign,’ I suggested to the photo of Tim sitting on the shelf beside my recipe books.

  ‘I mean, it doesn’t have to come with a flash of lightning or a thunderbolt,’ I assured his smiling face on my bedside table as I bent down to fasten my sandals.

  ‘Just something meaningful to let me know you think I should keep going with the application,’ I explained to a collage of Tims, hanging in a multi-frame by the hall mirror.

  *

  Several hours later, I found myself staring at a big black arrow in the centre of a custard-yellow diversion sign. ‘Not exactly the type of sign I had in mind, hon,’ I said, laughing at my own quip as my fingers drummed against the van’s steering wheel. Several road workers who’d been earnestly inspecting a hole in the road looked up to see what was so amusing. I blushed, having forgotten the wound-down windows on the delivery van, and willed the temporary traffic lights to hurry up and turn green, even though the diversion sign was going to take me miles away from where I needed to go for my final delivery of the morning.

  I peered through the windscreen and saw more signs further down the road, all directing me towards an area I really didn’t know very well. It was yet another frustration to add to a day that had been accumulating them from the moment I’d woken up. Of course I didn’t blame Val, our regular delivery driver, for phoning in sick that day. In fact, she was so reliable and off so rarely that I’d never bothered worrying about finding a back-up driver. Which meant the only option for getting Crazy Daisy’s orders out that day was to deliver them myself.

  I wasn’t worried about leaving Natalie alone to manage the shop, because she’d been doing that more and more lately, covering my appointments with William and Edward. But I was disappointed that the quiet morning, allowing me time to think things through, had been unexpectedly hectic. Despite that, it had been a good day, until the local council had thrown a spanner into the works.

  Back when I was a lowly trainee florist, I’d always enjoyed the delivery aspect of the job. There are very few people who aren’t delighted to see you when you present them with a bouquet of flowers. But today the van felt uncomfortably hot; the air conditioning wasn’t working properly; I was getting hungry, and I was now heading away from my final delivery address instead of towards it. At least, I assumed that’s where I was going. To be honest, I wasn’t exactly sure where I was anymore. The yellow signs had led me down several residential streets, past a park and a small parade of shops, and now, unbelievably, it looked like there was another set of temporary lights up ahead.

  I pulled on the handbrake and joined the end of a long queue of cars at the three-way lights, keeping my fingers firmly crossed that my second-hand van, with its tendency to overheat, wouldn’t decide today was the day it intended to leave me stranded miles away from home.

  It seemed that only a few cars were managing to squeeze through the lights at each turn, so it looked as though I might be here for some time. Curiously, I looked around me at the unfamiliar neighbourhood. It appeared to be a nice quiet area, with 1930s’-style houses and neatly kept front gardens. A little further up ahead I could see a row of dark green railings, which looked like they might belong to a school. As my car crept further down the road I could tell that I’d been right, it was a school, and from the chorus of young voices floating on the summer air, I guessed it was a primary one. The growling of my stomach reminded me it was lunchtime, so the children were probably in the playground.

  And just like that, the tiny sensitive hairs on the back of my neck began to prickle and stand to attention. A film of perspiration misted over my upper lip. I wiped it away with the back of my hand. What I was thinking was ridiculous. A town this size must have goodness only knows how many primary schools. There was no reason to think that fate was going to take me right past the one Noah attended. But what if it did? What if, just a few hundred metres up the road, the only thing separating me from my own child was a row of wrought iron railings?

  If only I knew which school Noah went to; if only I had a way of finding out. My hands were no longer resting lightly on the steering wheel, but were gripping it so tightly that the bones of my knuckles were bleached of colour. But there is a way, isn’t there? pointed out a voice in my head. It was persistent, and as annoying as a fly buzzing around me. You know exactly how to find out if this is Noah’s school. I stared with unseeing eyes through my windscreen, not seeing the dirty rear doors of the van in front of me, with ‘Clean Me’ scrawled in the grime; not seeing anything except a hotel meeting room and something being slowly slid across the table towards me.

  That’s right, applauded the voice, all you have to do is check on your phone.

  It was crazy; I was crazy for thinking that something – or someone – had led me down a road I’d never been on before for just this reason. My fingers were trembling slightly as I reached into my handbag for my mobile. Somewhere in the back of my head I could hear an echo of the horoscope I’d read with such scorn that morning: Trust your heart and you’ll find the right road to follow.

  I didn’t need to scroll through the gallery of photographs stored on my phone, for I’d set the one of Noah on my locked screen. I stared at the image, for once not focusing on my husband’s face replicated in miniature on our son, but instead on the green uniform sweatshirt with the gold embroidered logo stitched upon it. I studied it for several seconds before lifting my head and turning to look out of the window at the sign fixed to the railings beside me, which displayed the name of the school, its headteacher and, in the top right-hand corner, the school’s crest. It was an exact match. While part of me was reeling from the incredible coincidence, another part of me wasn’t surprised at all. Things happen for a reason. Nothing is random. I was meant to be here, in this place, at this exact time today.

  I peered through the gaps in the railings, searching for my proof, searching for Noah. There were too many children. They were moving too fast to view their faces, but I could see no one with the familiar abundance of dark hair that I now knew Tim’s son had inherited. The lights changed and I moved forward the length of three vehicles, to a position where I could now see the entire playground. None of the faces matched the one in my photograph.

  It was her voice that I heard first. When we’d met, it hadn’t struck me as particularly memorable and I hadn’t realised I’d committed its tone and timbre to memory, but I recognised it instantly.

  I slunk down low in my seat, the way I’d seen countless cops do in movie stake-outs. I must have looked ridiculous with my head practically on a level with the van’s dashboard, but no one saw me, especially not Izzy, whose concentration was solely on the child walking beside her. I gasped out loud, but luckily they were still too far away to have heard me. He was tall, so much taller than I was expecting, almost up to Izzy’s shoulder. It was as if someone had opened a door to the past
, allowing me to see Tim as he must have looked at that age. My hand uncurled from the steering wheel and reached out, futilely grasping the air as if to reach him. Noah’s face was tilted upwards to Izzy, and it was only as they got a little closer that I saw the tears on his cheeks. My hand was on the door handle and I was almost out of the van before sanity kicked in. I felt as if I was being torn down the middle: half of me wanted to bound from the vehicle, regardless of the line of cars queued up behind me. The other – saner – part told me to stay exactly where I was and avert my face as they approached.

  But something was wrong, it had to be. Why was Noah crying and being collected from school in the middle of the day? Was he in trouble? I dismissed that idea without a second’s hesitation. Tim had been the gentlest, sweetest man I’d ever met. Surely his son would have inherited those attributes as well as the more obvious physical ones.

  Izzy’s arms were full as she carried Noah’s belongings: a Marvel-themed lunch box, and the kind of bag I immediately recognised as the type music students use. I stored those snippets of information away to devour later. Right now, it was impossible to see beyond the look of misery on the boy’s face and his tears. And then, almost as though fate had orchestrated it, they came to a halt practically level with my van. If either of them had chosen to look towards the queue of cars at that moment they would have seen me, bent like a pretzel behind my steering wheel, watching them avidly with stalker-like intensity.

  But Izzy’s focus was only on Noah. With what looked like practised efficiency, she laid the back of her hand against the young boy’s forehead, her own furrowing into a musical stave of lines at whatever she felt there. She had no idea they were being observed as she bent down low to whisper in Noah’s ear. After a moment of hesitation his bottom lip trembled and he nodded miserably, before throwing his arms around Izzy’s slender waist. Her bag and Noah’s belongings fell from her hands, as she enfolded her child in the protective circle of her arms. I strained my ears, but all I could hear were the tone of her words rather than the specifics, and an awareness of the love that radiated from the entwined pair in palpable waves. They were lost to the rest of the world. At that moment, Noah needed nothing more than the arms that were gently rocking him, keeping him safe as they’d surely done for the last eight years. He wasn’t feeling well, that much I had worked out, but would I have known what to do with him in that situation? Of course not; I wouldn’t have had a clue. And he would want nothing from me, this child I had created. Why would he, when all he’d ever needed was standing right there in front of him?