She was waking beside him, her eyes fluttering open, smiling, reaching up to touch his unshaven chin.
The phone was ringing.
Rachel.
Medical imperative. Answer the phone. He smiled back at her and then answered the phone.
A woman’s voice, urgent with need.
‘Is Rachel there? Dr Harper? She’s not answering her cellphone. I need to speak to her.’
‘Sure.’ He heard the fear and reacted. His eyes sent Rachel an urgent message and handed her the phone.
Rachel took the receiver and listened.
‘Dottie.’
She was suddenly wide awake, pushing herself up in bed, oblivious of the fact that she was naked. A sunbeam was streaming across her creamy breasts.
Dear God, she was beautiful!
But her voice sounded concerned.
‘No, Dottie, we’re fine. I’m sorry. I should have rung you last night. I might have known you’d see it on the news reports. No. The town’s been left basically intact. We’re safe.’
‘No.’
‘No.’
Then her voice softened with dread. ‘But he can’t… Dottie, he was stable…’
She listened some more and then put her lips tightly together. Her eyes closed as if in pain.
‘Of course I’ll come,’ she whispered. ‘Of course. Just as soon as I can get there.’
The line went dead. Hugo lifted the receiver from Rachel’s suddenly limp grasp and laid it back on the cradle. Then he turned and took her hands in his.
‘What is it, Rachel?’
She opened her eyes and stared at him but she wasn’t seeing him. She was seeing something a long way away. In the far, far distance.
‘It’s Craig,’ she whispered.
‘Craig?’
‘My husband. He’s dying.’
CHAPTER NINE
SOMEHOW, while Hugo helped Rachel put her belongings together and practically force-fed her toast and arranged for someone to drive her…somehow he got it out of her.
‘Craig and I were in a car smash eight years ago,’ she said, her voice laced with pain. ‘We were med students together. We’d gone out together since school. Dottie, Craig’s mum, is practically my mum. We were so close. We got married and everything was perfect and then some drunk driver smashed into us on a blind bend when we were coming home from one of Craig’s football matches. The drunk was on the wrong side of the road and there was nothing Craig could do to avoid him. I was hurt. Craig… Craig was hardly touched. Except for a blow to his head. One blow. One blow and he was unconscious. And he never woke up.’ Her voice broke on a sob and Hugo held her mug of tea to lips that were tight with the shock of past hurt and hurt still to come.
‘So Michael… The guy at the dog show?’
‘He’s a schmuck,’ she said. ‘Dottie said I should get away. Have some fun. And I met you.’
He took a deep breath. Did some fast thinking. Last night he’d made love to a woman he’d thought was in an unhappy marriage. Now…
Things had changed. She’d changed.
And his head… He was having trouble getting it around this.
But the pain on her face was real and dreadful and it needed to be addressed now.
‘Rachel, I’m really sorry.’
She pulled herself together then. Sort of. ‘Sorry? I’m not.’ She gave him a fleeting, hurting smile. ‘How could I be sorry for last night? It was the most wonderful…’ Her voice broke, but she managed to go on. ‘Hugo, it was fantastic. The best. I could never, ever regret it. But you do see that I need to go.’
‘Of course you do.’ It tore him apart that he couldn’t put her in his car and drive her to Sydney himself but, of course, he couldn’t. The town still had medical imperatives.
At least the road was open. Rain in the night had cleared the route out of town. He’d put out a call and someone would drive her all the way to Melbourne. He could arrange that at least.
But he couldn’t leave.
‘Rachel…’
‘I know.’ She swallowed the last of her tea and stood, looking down into the dregs at the bottom of the mug. ‘I know. I’m sorry, Hugo. I’m sorry, love…’
Hugo worked for that day-long hours of minor crises. He worked the next. The day after that…
The day after that he could bear it no longer. He talked to Myra and to Toby, contacted a locum service and found some help and went to town.
The thin blue line rose and fell. Rose and fell. Rose and fell.
How long does love last?
The young woman sat and watched as she’d sat and watched for years.
‘I love you, Craig,’ she whispered, but there was no answer, as there’d never been an answer.
Dappled sunlight fell over lifeless fingers. Beloved eyes, once so full of life and laughter, stayed closed.
The blue line rose and fell. Rose and fell.
Faltered.
‘I love you, Craig,’ she whispered again, and blessed his face with her fingers. ‘My love…’
How long does love last?
Maybe for no longer than a breath?
Hugo stood at the ward door and watched Rachel. She was sleeping. Her bright curls were tangled on the white coverlet. Her hand held his. Her face rested on his chest.
Hugo’s eyes moved to the monitor and stilled. The heartbeat was fast and irregular. He watched.
He’d learned so much over the last few days. Questions that should have been asked of Rachel had been answered by the consultant he’d called.
‘Eight years in a coma. He was a strong young man, Hugo, with nothing but a bleed into the brain to maim him. We thought he could live even longer than this. There’s been no end in sight. But a few months ago he suffered a clot…’
‘Deep vein thrombosis?’
‘You know it’s not uncommon in cases like this. The body’s so inactive… We thought maybe we’d lose him then. I think his parents and Rachel said their goodbyes. But he rallied. And Rachel went on waiting.’
‘Rachel…’
‘I’ve known Rachel since she was a medical student,’ the consultant said bluntly. ‘She and Craig were a great pair-lovely creatures with the world at their feet. Since the accident it’s as if someone’s blown Rachel’s flame out. She’s clever, she’s an extraordinary doctor but every night she sits by Craig’s bedside and she simply…well, she simply is.’
‘She must have loved him.’
‘It’s so hard to move forward,’ the consultant said gently. ‘Without a death. Dottie and Lewis, Craig’s parents, well, after the clot they seemed to let go. They pushed Rachel. She was making the first tentative steps. And now… The clots have reappeared. One’s sitting in his lung. This is the end, Hugo. The end of a very long story.’
So now Hugo stood at the door and watched her. He simply…watched her.
As she’d watched Craig for all these years.
