The hospital was exactly the same as it had always been. Hot. Noisy. Smelling of bleach and disinfectant although no amount of cleaning could hide the shabbiness. The years of wear and tear. St Thomas’s was due to be closed at the end of the month and it already had an aura of decay and neglect. Many times Connor had sat on one of the hard, grey plastic chairs waiting for his mum to finish her shift, which often overran. He’d never really thought about the people surrounding him, anxiously waiting for news of a loved one. Praying that when it came it would be good, expecting the worst. Now he was the one with the cup of hot chocolate his mum had thrust towards him, forming a skin as he left it to grow cold, not aware if he was hungry, thirsty. Not needing anything but news that Hailey was, or that she would be, okay.

His mum had reassured him when he arrived. ‘She’s broken her femur, that’s the thigh bone. It’s a transverse fracture so the break is a clean horizontal line, which is relatively uncomplicated to repair, but we need to insert a rod into the length of the bone with screws above and below to hold it into place.’

‘Will she…’ Dance. Run. Still love him.

‘She should be fine, in time. It can take up to six months to set properly but she’s young and healthy. Too young really to have sustained an injury like this purely by falling over a pothole.’ His mum waits for Connor to fill in the gaps. He doesn’t.

‘Usually it takes a fair bit of strength to snap a femur.’

Like being dropped from a height, Connor thought, but he remained silent. Mum went on, ‘They’re pretty strong. We’ll check if Hailey has any underlying problems that might have weakened her bones. She shouldn’t have at her age but it’s not unheard of.’

‘But it will heal?’

‘Yes. There’s a chance that if it isn’t set properly one leg will become shorter than the other which can cause an imbalance in the skeleton and lead to hip or knee pain later but I’m carrying out the surgery so…’

Relief flooded through Connor. Any doubts he had that something might go wrong vanished.

His mum was calm. Capable. Confident.

She’d never let him down.

It was hours of waiting. Time bent and blurred. Occasionally, Connor went for a walk to burn off his nervous energy but never too far in case news of Hailey came.

Once, he passed the visitors’ room. He hesitated. Through the Venetian blinds he could make out Mr Marshall hunched in a chair, elbows on knees, his head in his hands. Fingers of pity strummed Connor’s stomach muscles.