The wind howls and she squeezes her eyes tight to shut out the image of blood and mucus that was barely the promise of a life. Lost at eleven weeks. No-one knew besides Coop and her sister. There had been words, hospital words, antiseptic and quiet. All too common. One in four. No-one to blame. One of those things. Words to soften the only one that mattered. Dead.

OK, she tells herself, OK, enough now.

She hunches her back to the wind and struggles with the temperamental lighter, tetchy until that first inhalation. Aaaahhh. Hateful how good it is, how much she needs it to keep her steady through this, keep her going. Laura’s right: she should eat. But she has more faith in nicotine.

A siren wails in the distance. Which reminds her.

Pulling her phone from her coat pocket, she dials Ben’s number, knowing he’ll be at the station, on duty, with his mobile switched off, and all she’ll get is the familiar message: Hear the beep, do your thing.

It’s an excuse, of course, calling to tell him what the doctors said. She wants to know what’s going on. Why have they abandoned Coop? Because that’s what they’ve done, no two ways about it. Ever since that article came out in the local paper. So much for the team.

Abandoned … She thinks again of Meggie’s sister, who had never recovered from her loss. Who’d been abandoned.

Avril’s eyes stream as she pulls her coat around her and turns into the wind. How much grief is enough?

~

There’s a charge in the air as the elevator doors open on the ninth floor. Something’s happening.

Joley rushes out from behind the nurses’ desk. I’ve been looking for you everywhere!

She freezes.

It’s good news, Avril! Joley’s half hugging her, half pulling her towards the ICU.

21

Laura

As Laura starts gowning up, she can sense the change in her son already, feel it through the glass wall that separates the ICU from the world. He’s lying on the bed, in much the same position. She knows his eyes will still appear closed, face too swollen to allow him yet to see. And he won’t be able to speak, not until the internal burns heal and the tracheotomy tube is removed. And yet she can feel his awareness, of Avril sitting beside the bed, of the presence of the staff as they move around, of the room and all the paraphernalia keeping him functioning. Even of her. At first glance, you would think him no more conscious than he was yesterday, but she knows her boy is not only physically awake; he is mentally alive.

God help him, she whispers to a god she has no faith in. Please, God, help him.

Pulling on the mittens, she sees crescent-shaped gouges on her palms. Her fingernails have drawn blood.

~