by Amanda Dick
Tom’s heart pounded in his ears. He shook his head. “I’m sorry – for a minute there I thought you said she was paralysed?”
“That’s right,” she said gently. “I’m very sorry.”
Tom stared at her in shock, his brain struggling with the implication of the word.
“It’s permanent?”
“I’m afraid so. The blunt force trauma that occurred as a result of the accident caused irreparable damage.”
Tom’s heart raced as his mind flew over the possibilities. “You said that the surgery is to remove bone fragments – won’t that fix it?”
“Removing the bone fragments is only part of the problem. The damage has already been done. To give Ally the best chance of recovery, we’ll be surgically fusing metal rods to her spine to stabilise it and allow her to heal faster, so her rehabilitation can commence as soon as possible.”
Tom stared at her in shock.
“I’m very sorry. I know it’s a lot to take in, and as you said, it’s been a long night – we’ll talk more in the morning. Right now, we have her heavily sedated but she’s stable. We’ll keep a close eye on her overnight and prep her for surgery in the morning.” She paused briefly. “There’s no doubt this is a life-changing situation for her, but she’s twenty-six years old and she’s in good health otherwise. There’s no reason she can’t continue to live a very full life.”
Tom couldn’t think of a single thing to say. Instead, he nodded, swallowing back tears as Maggie slipped her hand into his.
“The best thing you can do right now is take your son home,” the doctor suggested gently. “There’s nothing more you can do for Ally now – we have an excellent medical team here, we’ll take care of her.”
Tom nodded again, clearing his throat. Suddenly, all he wanted was to hold his son in his arms.
“Doc – Jack and Callum, do they know about Ally?”
“Yes, they know. I’ve just had this same conversation with both of them.”
Tom’s heart sank. “Can we see them now?”
“Of course,” the doctor said, getting to her feet. “I’ll take you to them myself.”
Jane and Maggie stood with her, clinging to each other.
“Can we see Ally too?” Jane sniffed.
“She’s in the ICU tonight, but yes, you can see her, briefly. Like I said, we’re keeping her sedated until surgery tomorrow. She’ll remain sedated for a day or so post-op, but when she starts to regain consciousness she’ll need you – all of you. So it’s probably best that you try and get some sleep tonight. The next few days might be rough.”
The last thing on Tom’s mind was sleep. This was a parent’s worst nightmare. Something that you couldn’t fix – something that no one could fix.
Maggie snaked her arm around Tom’s waist and he returned the embrace automatically. He glanced over at Jane, tears streaming down her face, and held his other arm out to her. She immediately obliged, burying her face in his chest and sobbing uncontrollably.
He stood with two sobbing women in his arms, feeling utterly useless.
Jack had lain awake most of the night. Tossing and turning, unable to turn off his brain, he had gotten up a little after two. He shuffled into the kitchen in boxers and a t-shirt, bare feet padding against the cold hardwood floor. He stared into the fridge, with food still stacked neatly inside, and wondered if his father’s death had been some kind of dream. It seemed such a normal thing: food in the fridge. How could something so normal belong here?
He sighed, closing the fridge door and pouring himself a drink of water. As he leant back against the kitchen counter, his attention was once again drawn to the note that Father David had left for him on the dining room table. It included details of the funeral arrangements that had been made, and he was grateful – it wasn’t something he thought he was capable of organising himself. What concerned him was the eulogy that the priest had assumed he would deliver.
Delivering a eulogy was an honour, and one he felt he didn’t deserve. Moreover, the thought of standing up in front of his father’s friends, colleagues and neighbours – not to mention Ally and Callum – made his blood run cold.
He took a sip of water, his gaze wandering around the kitchen.
He could see his father sitting at the kitchen table, reading the newspaper. He saw him standing inside the back door, taking his boots off and hanging up his coat. He could hear the match strike and smell the cigar smoke as his father relaxed in his armchair after work in the evening. He saw his mother standing at the kitchen counter, her hands white with flour, wearing an apron with tiny blue and green flowers on it.
His father had told him once that he had only kept a few of his mother’s things. He wondered absently if that apron was one of those things. He missed her. He knew his Dad had missed her, too. He seemed to be just a shadow of himself in the years after she died. Jack shivered involuntarily.
At the age of thirty-one, he was an orphan. Worse than that, he was alone. He had felt lonely and adrift over the past few years, but never alone, not with his father on the other end of the phone.
Memories tumbled over one another as he padded through to the living room and sank into the couch. He looked over at his father’s armchair, and he could see him sitting there, TV remote in one hand, cigar in the other. He glanced at the table beside the chair and noticed for the first time the book his father had been reading, a worn leather bookmark poking out from between the pages, reading glasses perched casually on top. It was as if he wasn’t really gone – merely not here at this moment. He could come back at any time and pick up where he had left off.
Jack leaned forward and bent his arms over his knees. The heartache poured out of him, an unforgiving combination of grief and remorse. Callum’s words swam around inside his head until he felt physically ill. Rocking backwards and forwards, he sobbed until his throat was raw and his body numb.
Finally, he sat up, sniffing and running his hands down his face. As his vision cleared, he found himself staring at the framed photographs perched on top of the mantle, just as they had always been. Sniffing again, he dragged himself up out of the couch and made his way over for a closer look. Standing in front of the mantle, his gaze roamed over the photos, one by one.
He shook his head in amazement. Was it loyalty or pure stubbornness that made his father keep these here? Their world had been turned upside down, yet his father had obviously refused to concede defeat.
Faces smiled out at him, oblivious.
His parents on their wedding day; his mother holding him as a toddler; he and Callum, their arms around each other, grinning; a group photo of himself, Ally, Callum, Maggie and Jane; his graduation, and he and Ally.
He picked up the frame and ran his fingers over her face. They were both smiling, carefree, glowing with happiness. It was a snapshot from another life.
He recalled his conversation with Maggie earlier, the empty hallway behind her and the wooden ramp leading up to Ally’s front door.
Things were perfect one minute, and then suddenly they weren’t. In a split second, their world had come crashing down.
Ally yawned blearily at her third cup of coffee. The pain in her back had gone, thankfully, and the medication had left her more or less clear-headed, which was both a blessing and a curse.
The doorbell woke her out of her reverie. At this time of the morning, it could only be Callum. She sighed, withdrawing from the table and making her way slowly to the front door.
Reaching up to open the door, Callum’s tired face greeted her and she made an attempt at a smile.
“Morning,” he said, leaning down to give her a quick hug. He stood up and headed for the kitchen. “Wasn’t sure you’d be up. I can smell coffee.”
She closed the door and turned to follow him. “Come in. Help yourself.”
He poured himself a cup in silence and she resumed her place at the table.
“Refill?” he offered, holding the jug aloft.
She nodde
d, pushing her cup towards him and watching as the steaming liquid filled it.
He replaced the jug and turned to lean against the kitchen counter, taking a brief sip and running his eyes over her face, into her soul. “You look like hell.”
She shrugged, hands wrapped around the cup in front of her. “Thanks, that’s always good to hear. They teach you that at charm school?”
He shrugged, unfazed. “You get any sleep last night?”
As she searched for a suitable answer, he settled himself in the chair opposite her.
“Some. You?”
“About the same.” He took a sip of his coffee before continuing. “I’ve been thinking. We don’t have to go to the funeral.”
“Right.”
“I’m serious. Look, maybe we can go out to the cemetery afterwards, and say our goodbyes to him in private?”
She frowned, waiting for him to expand.
“It’s this whole thing with Jack. I just thought that maybe if we avoided the church, you wouldn’t have to see him at all. Wouldn’t that be a better solution, all round?”
“I’m not hiding from him,” she said determinedly, ignoring the voice in her head that told her she had done just that, and only yesterday.
“Not hiding from him is one thing. Seeing him, talking to him, is something else entirely. Are you ready for that?”
“Look, I appreciate the thought but I need to be there – I need to do this. I need to say goodbye properly. I just want to get it over with. Get in, get out, come home.”
“Okay,” he said after a few moments. “I get it. I just wanted to make sure.”
She knew Callum had to be dreading this as much as she was, and for the same reasons. Seizing her moment, she jumped in.
“If you do see him today, can you promise me you’ll steer clear? Don’t start anything – not today.” He looked about to object so she cut him off. “I know how you feel – I do. I just think that we need to make an effort to keep things under control, for Tom. Today is all about him, not me or you or even Jack. We need to respect that.”
“What do you think I’m gonna do?”
“I know you, remember? I know how hard this is for you, I know how you feel about him. I’m asking you to promise me – please? Don’t do anything stupid today. Think of Tom – stay away from Jack today, for Tom’s sake.”
Callum stared back at her, mulling it over.
“Please?”
Finally, he nodded. “I won’t go looking for him – that, I can promise. But if he tries to talk to me – if he comes anywhere near you – I’m not sure I’ll be able to stop myself. I’m sorry but that’s the best I can do.”
She nodded, reaching over to lay her hand on his. Part of her didn’t imagine that Jack would want to come anywhere near any of them today. But then she remembered him talking to Maggie yesterday and it gnawed away at her. She could do this – go to Tom’s funeral, say goodbye – but only if she didn’t have to talk to Jack. Seeing him would be hard enough but talking to him was a whole different ballgame and she didn’t have her game face ready yet.
“Thank you.”
Callum wanted to kill Jack for vanishing like that – she knew it, he had told her so often enough, back when they still talked about him. None of them could understand why he did it, it was so unlike him. He had rejected them – all of them – and it hurt. It didn’t get any easier to understand over time, either. You just pushed the uncertainty way down deep and got used to not knowing. She could see the hurt and frustration building in him over the years – the sense of betrayal that she felt, she knew he felt too. Jack wasn’t just hers to lose – he was Callum’s best friend. He had been rejected, too.
She loved him like a brother, but Callum had a temper that was well documented. Not so long ago, he had overheard Andy McLeish make some smart-ass, back-handed comment about her in Barney’s bar and he had felt obliged to defend her honour. His explanation for what followed had not held much sway in court and he had been lucky to escape with anger management counseling and what was tantamount to a good-behaviour bond – a miracle in itself, taking into account his existing record. He joked afterwards that it was worth it, but she hadn’t seen the funny side. The last thing she wanted was for him to end up in court again, even though she suspected he would think Jack was worth the jail time.
“I never really thought he’d come back, not even for the funeral,” Callum said, interrupting her thoughts. “He seemed pretty determined to keep this town in his rear-view mirror.”
She nodded silently, thinking back over the past four years and all the times she wished he would come back. And now that he was here, it was all wrong. Tom wasn’t here to help smooth things over. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.
She glanced up to find him staring at her. “What?” she frowned, afraid she had unconsciously vocalised her thoughts.
“I don’t know – you tell me.”
It was like he could read her mind sometimes, and it scared her. She pushed all thoughts of Jack aside with a mental sweep, just in case.
“I had the running dream again.” The moment the words had left her lips, the dream came flooding back.
“What happened this time?”
It unnerved her sometimes, having a giant hole in her memory, entire days gone. Her dreams varied wildly. Callum had told her what happened that night, but her brain chose to fill in the gaps in any number of weird and wonderful ways. Callum was always honest with her, pointing out what really happened and dismissing other details as pure fantasy. Her heart swelled with gratitude.
“I started off in the park. Then I ran along River Road.”
She remembered the soles of her feet tingling as they relentlessly hit the asphalt.
“Then what happened?”
“I saw the ambulance from the turn-off. The lights were flashing. No one was around. As I got closer, the ambulance was empty. Then I saw the car.” She shook her head, the image of the pile of mangled metal that had once been Jack’s pride and joy burned into her brain. “And I saw us.”
“And then?”
“You were trapped under the car. Jack and I were trying to get you out. There was blood everywhere.”
Callum reached for her hand, enclosing it with his own. “That’s just your over-active imagination making stuff up again. It didn’t really happen.”
She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.
“You okay?”
She nodded again, taking a few moments to rein in her emotions. “Yeah. I just wish today was over.”
CHAPTER 4
“Be not afraid of growing slowly; be only afraid of standing still.”
- Chinese Proverb
Callum left Ally’s overwhelmed with a sense of impending doom. He wanted to punch something – or more to the point, someone. Specifically, Jack. Even more specifically, he wanted to rip Jack’s head off his shoulders and ram it down his selfish neck. He climbed into his car and slammed the door shut with more force than he intended. He sat there for a moment, gripping the keys in the ignition. Finally, he gunned the engine and pulled away from the curb.
He was grateful that Maggie was there when Jack had finally fronted up, because Ally had made it clear she wasn’t ready. He wondered if she ever would be. He had no idea how much of what she was feeling was grief over Tom’s death, and how much was anxiety over Jack’s return. The two were clearly linked.
Who the hell does he think he is, showing up like that? I told him she didn’t want to see him!
Tom’s death was like a bolt from the blue. From the very beginning of his friendship with Jack, he had taken a shine to Tom. He was everything his own father wasn’t and he was a little jealous of Jack at first. After his father had walked out on the family, he began to spend more and more time with Jack and Tom, appreciating the stable home environment and relationship that they shared, wanting to share it with them. Tom took over as the role model he never really had, even when his drunken father had been around. Losi
ng him like this, so suddenly, left a hole that he wasn’t sure he would ever be able to fill. It was Tom who had sat with him when he broke the news to Ally about her injury. Tom had been the one to help organise her rehab placement and later, her release. He had spent many a night with Tom as they talked and drank into the early hours of the morning, discussing how they were going to help her through this.
He knew Jack had been calling Tom – he was there when the first call had come through, the day Jack disappeared. He had tried to wrestle the phone off Tom but by the time he had, Jack was gone.
He called him back immediately – against Tom’s wishes – only to go straight to voicemail. Jack’s phone had gone to voicemail from that moment on. Jack had cut him loose – cut all of them loose, including Ally. Even knowing this, Tom had been a stubborn mule, refusing to hand over Jack’s new number. No amount of shouting, needling or taunting had moved him, and eventually a tentative truce had been struck. Tom’s loyalties remained with Jack, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to be there for Ally – or Callum. Reluctantly, Callum had accepted that.
Those early days had been tough. Jack was gone, but he was there and Ally needed someone she could count on. Unconsciously, he had stepped forward. At times, he had nearly buckled beneath the weight of that responsibility, and that’s when he had turned to Tom, desperately trying to keep it together. Tom encouraged him to unload his fears, not bottle them up.
Watching Ally tentatively navigating her way through her new life nearly tore him apart and no matter how courageous she tried to prove she was, he knew deep down that she was scared. He could see it, plain as day. Jack vanishing like that had done things to her soul. How could Jack just walk away from her?
Knowing that he was back just scratched away at the scab that had grown over the wound created four years earlier. Unlike everyone else, he knew why Jack had left. Unexpected? Yes – but not a mystery. He had seen it tear Ally apart and he had desperately wanted to enlighten her, but he couldn’t. He suspected the truth would be harder for her to stomach, so he had kept quiet. It wasn’t his place to tell her.
