The Inbetween Days

by Eva Woods

  “You don’t want to get married anymore.”

  She opened her mouth to say of course she did, she just wanted to talk about it, but instead she said: “No. I don’t.”

  “Not to me.”

  “Not to anyone. For a while anyway. I’m only thirty.”

  “Do you love me, Daisy?” It wasn’t something they asked each other, or said very often outside of Facebook.

  “I...of course I’ll always love you in a way, Gar. But—don’t you think there must be more to life than this? Going to bed at nine with our pajamas on, making sure to put on hand cream, floss our teeth, moisturize?”

  “There’s nothing wrong with flossing! It’s important to look after your gums.”

  She put a hand on his arm, felt him sag. “I know it is. But...other things are important too. Like joy. Like love. Like...honesty. And I think, honestly, we’re not in love with each other. Maybe we never were. I think we both just wanted that life. House, marriage, car, NutriBullet...all of that.”

  Gary was quivering. She thought he might be about to cry. “What will we do?”

  Daisy sighed. “I guess...I’ll find somewhere to stay for a while. Maybe at Rosie’s, if she’s recovering. She’ll need someone to cover the rent.” The idea was already there in her head, as if someone had dropped it there.

  “You said it was a rat hole!”

  “Well, it’s been having some home improvements, as it happens.”

  “You’ve got it all planned out, I see,” Gary said sadly.

  “Not really. You just...you get a lot of clarity when someone might die.”

  “We’ll call the wedding off?”

  “I think we better. It wouldn’t be right, not with things how they are.”

  “We’ll lose the deposits.”

  “I know. That just...can’t be helped.”

  He heaved another sigh. “I’ll have to update the spreadsheet.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Gary got to his feet, brushing crumbs off himself. “I know you think I don’t care, but...will you let me know how it goes, with Rosie? I’m not sure it’s right for me to be here if...well. But I do care. I hope she gets better. I should have been nicer to her.”

  Daisy stood up too. Incredibly, it seemed they were going to part like this, after so many years, in the waiting room of the hospital. All those nights she’d lain awake wondering if Gary was the one for her, realizing how trapped she was with the wedding and the mortgage, and here it was just falling apart quietly, like a tapped Chocolate Orange. How easy things were, when you held them up against life and death. Against the battle Rosie was fighting, behind that door.

  It was a shame she wasn’t awake, really. Daisy was sure her sister would be happy to find out she and Gary were over.

  Running feet. Her mother in the doorway, face ashen. “Daisy. Come now.”

  Rosie

  Was this Heaven? Would she get in, after all the terrible things she’d done, the people she’d let down? Did she even believe in Heaven? It was certainly white, filled with a light so strong it hurt her eyes. Hands were holding hers, one on either side, and she no longer felt any pain in her head or lungs. Was this it? The peaceful end Darryl had talked about?

  “Grandma?” she tried. Nothing. No ghostly visitors were with her now. Instead, she heard another voice, a young woman’s voice. It was Zara, the doctor.

  “Rosie? We’ve taken you off the ventilator, and we’re going to see if you can breathe on your own, okay? We’ll try three times and if she can’t breathe we’ll...well, then we have to make some decisions.”

  This was it. They’d patched up the bleed in her brain, but more damage might have been done. They were testing her, to see was there any hope of her surviving. If she didn’t manage to wake up now, that might be the end of her. Come on, Rosie, breathe. Breathe! Just a little thing. Just in and out. Do it!

  Daisy

  She would not have believed that every moment in her life, everything she’d ever gone through or thought or felt, could come to this: standing at a hospital bed, watching as doctors disconnected her sister’s breathing tube. Rosie’s face was pale and slack, her hands lying limp by her side. The polish on her nails was chipped. Daisy wished she’d thought to repaint them. Just one small act for her sister, to try and show her love, the pointless overflowing love that would have nowhere to go if Rosie did not manage to breathe.

  The machines began to beep, and Daisy heard her mother sob, and grim-faced and efficient, Zara plugged the breathing tube back in. “I’m sorry. We’ll try two more times.”

  Rosie

  I can’t breathe! I can’t breathe! I can’t—

  The clutching panic eased as the blonde doctor hooked her up again and Rosie choked, and sucked in life-giving air. Was this it? If she couldn’t breathe on her own, would she be like this forever, trapped in her wasting body? Or would they just let her go, convinced she wasn’t in there anymore? She had two more chances to wake up, to come back to herself. To give her life, flawed as it was, one more try. Please. Please, let me live. But she didn’t even know who she was talking to.

  Daisy

  Again, the disconnection of the tube, the agonized wait, the ticking of the clock. Watching Rosie’s face turn blue and her chest stay stubbornly still, and the beeping and shrieking of the machines, and the reconnection, the calming.

  “That didn’t work either, I’m afraid,” said the doctor. “We’ll try again. One more time.”

  And if that didn’t work? Then what? Daisy thought of everything she’d learned about her sister, the pain and loss she’d gone through, the unhappiness, her lonely life. Was it right to do this? Poke her full of tubes and needles, use machines to keep her heart pumping? Was it selfish to want her back, so they could try again with the mess they’d all made of loving her?

  “Third attempt. Here we go.”

  Rosie

  Come on, Rosie. This is your last chance. When they switched the machine off, it was terrifying, like plunging her head beneath the waves. But she had to do it. She had to show she was alive. Not just that. That she wanted to live, to make her life better, to change things. To try again.

  “Here we go, Rosie,” said the doctor in her calm professional voice. “When I disconnect the tube, try your best to breathe for us.”

  Panic. Choking. Fear. Breathe, Rosie, breathe. The simplest act, one she’d never even thought about before all this. Just the rising and falling of your chest. Nothing really, but everything too. Life. Hope. Because she wanted it, with all its pain and suffering and regret. She wanted her life back.

  Taking everything she had, every ounce of sadness and hope and love, Rosie Cooke opened her mouth, and breathed in life.

  * * *

  Around her, everyone jumped back in shock.

  “Did she...”

  “Was that...”

  “Rosie! Rosie, can you hear us?”

  She flickered her eyelids experimentally—working. Light filtered in.

  “Rosie! You’re awake!” Faces beaming down at her, full of love. Was she dead? Being welcomed to the afterlife? She was pretty sure, however, that they would not play One Direction in Heaven.

  “Scarlett, turn the music off!”

  “It helped her wake up!”

  “Well, maybe, but we have to be very quiet and gentle now. Rosie, love, are you there?” On one side, her mother, tears streaking her makeup. On the other, her father, who looked as if he hadn’t slept in days. Past them, there was Daisy, weeping, taking off her glasses to wipe at them on her jumper. Carole, with her arms round a beaming Scarlett, who was holding her phone aloft. Her family. All around her. Also there was a tall gray-haired man with a kind face, who she didn’t recognize. He had his arm around her mother. That was strange.

  “Darling, do you know us?”

  Come on, head. Just
a little nod. Just for me?

  “Oh Mike. She knows us! She knows us!” Was she dreaming? Were her parents crying in each other’s arms? Was her mother reaching out to bring Carole in, and the mysterious gray-haired man; was Daisy stroking Scarlett’s hair, who was looking baffled at the emotion all around her?

  “Why’s everyone crying? Rosie woke up, didn’t she? She’s okay?”

  Her mother answered, finally speaking to Scarlett in kind, loving tones. “Sweetheart, we’re just happy. Because Rosie has come back to us, and we love her very much.”

  Rosie nodded her head again, and slowly, like a dead weight, it responded. The effort left her exhausted, falling back on the bed, but finally she felt like she was driving her body again. Like she was back in it, not adrift in her mind somewhere. The real world seemed concrete, full of sharp edges and bright colors, no longer covered in that fine veil which seemed to separate her from the living. She was back.

  Her parents drew away, tidying themselves up, sniffing and straightening, as if embarrassed at their spontaneous display of emotion. “Darling,” said her mother tentatively. “There’s someone else here to see you. If you feel up to it?”

  Rosie knew she looked a wreck. Her lips felt cracked and sore from the breathing tube, she hadn’t washed in days, and her skin would be pasty and slack from lying in this bed.

  There was someone in the door. Broad shoulders filling it. Light surrounding his fair hair like a halo. He was crying again. So sad they had made each other, both of them, but so happy too. Was that what love was? Going through the wringer for someone? He stepped into the room, coming closer, as if not sure she was really there.

  “Hi, Rosie,” he said, swallowing down his tears to smile at her, like the sun coming out. “It’s you. It’s really you.” He came toward her, clutching her hand in his big warm one. She felt a pulse between his thumb and forefinger. The life running through him. And she was alive too. And that meant anything was possible.

  Rosie tried her hardest. Come on, hand, please work. I promise I’ll stop biting my nails and use lotion and get manicures all the time from now on. Just one tiny squeeze? Please?

  And, gathering all her strength, all the force of her love for him, she put all her might into it and managed to give his hand the faintest grasp. It wasn’t much. Barely there at all. But to Rosie, it was everything.

  * * *

  And all through the ward, there were smiles and some tears. The neurosurgeon who’d saved Rosie’s life went home happy to her husband and children, and held them a little closer. Praj decided he would finally ask Zara out for a drink, because life was short, and sometimes miracles happened. The surgical nurse decided to stay on in her role, because there were good days now and again, days where you made a difference, and the following week she saved the life of a child who was choking to death on a pea. Dot—who really was a cleaner and really wasn’t dead, just sometimes invisible because of what she did—smiled and nodded: she’d known it all along. The anesthetist got promoted and was able to bring his brother over from Nigeria. Caz, weeping at the news of Rosie’s recovery, gave the performance of her life that night, inspiring everyone in the theatre to be a little kinder and love a little more freely. Daisy thought about Adam’s offer to meet up, and decided: why not? Happiness was in short supply, so you had to grab it while it passed through your hands and hold on tight. Scarlett decided she was going to become a brain surgeon when she grew up, if being a dinosaur hunter didn’t work out for her. Rosie’s mother had already made up her mind to ask John to move in with her and see if he couldn’t work his magic on her rosebushes. Ella and her boyfriend would get married, now that Luke seemed okay and her guilt had eased, and have more beautiful shiny-haired babies. Charlie would be happy to have two dads, and two sets of toys. And as for Rosie and Luke, well, their story was definitely not over yet.

  They say in our lives we’ll meet something like eighty thousand people. Most of them just in passing, sitting beside them on a bus, buying a latte from them, overtaking them too fast on the motorway. Others will become friends, lovers, family. Some will stay in our lives forever, and some will be swept away by the flow of life. But we touch all of these people in some way, tiny or huge, making more of a difference than any of us can imagine. Because as Rosie’s grandma had said, none of us can do it without each other. And even if she was, technically speaking, just a memory, it’s what we leave behind us when we go, the way we live on in other people, that matters the most.

  * * *

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you to everyone who helped whip this book into shape, especially my fantastic agent, Diana Beaumont. I’d also like to thank everyone at Sphere and Harlequin US/Graydon House, especially Maddie West, Margo Lipschultz, and Melanie Fried. And huge thanks as well to everyone who has been involved in copy edits, cover design, marketing, publicity, and more.

  I’ve been truly overwhelmed by the messages I received about my previous book, Something Like Happy, so I’d like to say a huge thank-you to everyone who read it and took the time to get in touch. I hope you enjoy this one too! I’d love to hear from you if you’ve read this book. I’m on Twitter @inkstainsclaire, Instagram @evawoodsauthor, and online at www.evawoodsauthor.com. Drop me a line!

  Lots of love,

  Eva x

  ISBN-13: 9781488095399

  The Inbetween Days

  Copyright © 2019 by Claire McGowan

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

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