Page 37 of Reckless

She turned her head towards Archie, her mouth pulling into a faint smile. “Hi.”

He lifted his gaze to hers, looking impossibly young. “Hi.”

“Look after our babies. Look after yourself too.”

Archie gave a jerky nod, face twisting as he tried to hold back his tears.

“More smiles than tears, remember?”

Another jerky nod, and he rose to his feet and left the room.

A moment later he was back, bringing the twins with him. They were quiet and tearful as Anna spoke to them in hushed whispers, both too young to process the enormity of this moment, but surely aware that this was different to any other visit from the doctor. There was a heavy solemnity in the air that pressed down hard on every person in the room.

I hooked the IV over the bedhead, and Anna held out her arm.

“Thank you, Alastair,” she said, “for being a good friend.”

Up until that moment, I’d been operating behind the shield of the professional; Anna shattered it with just those few words and the shaking smile she offered me. Anna wasn’t just my patient. She was a human being with a wicked sense of humour, a woman who carried herself with more dignity and courage than I’d ever had to attempt to summon in my life, and she was so, so young. The world would be darker without her.

“I’m so very glad to have met you,” I said, and pushed the needle in.

“Mum’s going to have a sleep now,” Archie said, his voice cracking. “You can hop into bed with her.”

The twins cuddled up on either side of Anna, and Archie sat back down in his chair, his body shaking as he tried to barricade himself from his impending grief.

When Anna drifted off to sleep, she was smiling faintly.

“How... how long will it take?” Katrina Hooper asked me as we both sat in the Hoopers’ kitchen, mugs of tea going cold in front of us.

“It’s hard to say,” I said. “A few hours, maybe. I don’t think she has days.”

Katrina had left the front door propped open, and the first visitor was a man wearing the orange PVC overall-type get up that matched the ones hanging on a hook on the back of the kitchen door.

He stepped into the room warily, and Katrina said, “Nipper Will.”

“Archie not coming today?” he asked, gaze darting between us like he was afraid he already knew the answer.

“Anna’s dying,” Katrina said. The words were blunt, but her voice wavered. “Maybe got a few hours, the doc says.”

Nipper Will closed his eyes. “Shit.” Then he opened his eyes and looked to me.

I nodded. I felt numb, my stomach leaden.

“I’ll come back tonight, after we’re back in,” he said. “You tell him—you tell him not to worry about work.”

And then he was gone as silently as he’d appeared.

Katrina took a sip of her tea and grimaced. She stood up and put the kettle back on the stovetop. She sat down again. Then she sniffed hard, then took a crumpled tissue from her pocket and blew her nose. “Oh God. Those kids…”

My throat tightened, but I pushed the feelings away before they could settle in me.

“I wish Robbie were here,” she said, re-crumpling the tissue. “He’s good with things like this. I mean, he’s—he’s good to have around. When our mum died…Well, it probably wasn’t a good thing that he was so stoic. But he’d heard stuff from people on the island—‘You’ll have to step up, be the man of the house,’ that sort of thing. They didn’t mean any harm by it, but—but he was young, to be told that. He was eighteen, but still. He was my baby brother. And at the time, all I thought was just—he was being so good with it all. I was glad he was being so strong. I didn’t realise it was because he thought he had to be.”

Something deep in me ached. There was so much I didn’t know about Robbie. It was easy enough to learn the facts. That he lived with Kat on the farm, that they had goats and cows and chickens, and of course Gerty. That he was quiet, kept to himself. That he liked an endorphin rush now and again. That his mum had died. But what did I know about his feelings? What had I bothered to tell him about mine? What was he doing in Newcastle right now? Probably something that made a hell of a lot more sense to him than spending an evening with me.

“He never told me,” I said. Stupid. Why would he?

Katrina nodded. “He doesn’t usually have a lot to say. He’s the best person I know, though.” She glanced at me. “He likes you well enough.”