Winter Wishes at the Farm on MuddypuddleLane (The Farm on Muddypuddle Lane #8)

Chapter Nine

‘You should go home and rest, I’ll stay with her,’ Eric whispered, and Beatrice opened her eyes to see her ex-husband standing by Sadie’s bed.

Her gaze flew to her sleeping daughter, tiny and pale, a needle in the back of her little hand, and she gulped back fresh tears. ‘I’m not going anywhere. I’m staying here.’ She kept her voice low, so as not to disturb the other patients on the ward.

‘You’ll be no good to her if you make yourself ill.’

‘You’ve been here all night too,’ she pointed out.

He shrugged. ‘I’m used to it.’

‘She will be alright, won’t she?’

‘She will, I promise.’

The tears spilled over. She’d done so much crying over the past twelve hours, she felt wrung out, but they kept coming. ‘I should have known,’ she said. She’d uttered the same thing over and over since Sadie had been rushed into theatre yesterday.

‘Don’t beat yourself up over it. I’m a nurse and I didn’t realise.’

‘You aren’t with them all day, every day. How could you realise?’

‘How could you? The symptoms of appendicitis can easily be mistaken for so many other things, and it’s rare in children as young as Sadie.’

‘I should have realised,’ she repeated stubbornly.

Sadie’s eyelids fluttered and Beatrice leapt to her feet, bending over the bed. ‘I’m here, darling, Mummy is here.’

Eric said, ‘She’ll sleep for a while and when she does wake up she’ll be groggy. Go home and rest.’

‘Nuh-uh.’ Beatrice shook her head, sitting down again when Sadie showed no further signs of stirring. ‘I’m going to be here when she wakes up. I’m not going anywhere.’

‘At least let me get you something to eat. The staff canteen is open 24 hours.’

‘I’d love a coffee.’

‘You’ve had nothing to eat since lunch yesterday,’ he argued.

‘I’ve got enough padding to keep me going for a while. Missing a meal or two isn’t going to kill me. What time is it?’ She’d lost track after the lights on the children’s ward had been dimmed for the night.

‘Four-forty.’

Too early to phone Taya. No doubt she was exhausted after the awful events of yesterday, but Beatrice had spoken to her last night to tell her that her sister was okay after her operation and was now sleeping. She’d done her best to sound reassuring, keeping her tone bright and cheerful, and she hoped she had put Taya’s mind at rest. It was also too early to phone her mum, even though she desperately wanted to hear her mother’s voice. She could do with a hug too, but she’d have to wait until later – if Sadie was allowed visitors.

However, Beatrice wouldn’t be speaking to anyone if she didn’t charge her phone. ‘You wouldn’t happen to have a charger handy, would you?’ she asked.

‘I’ll see if I can borrow one, and I’ll get you a coffee at the same time. Are you sure you don’t want anything to eat?’

‘I’m sure.’ As he turned to leave, she said, ‘Eric? Thank you.’

‘For what?’

‘For being here.’

‘She’s my daughter too.’ He hesitated. ‘I’d never forgive myself if anything happened to either of them. Or to you. I still love you, Bea.’

He left her with those words ringing in her ears, but she was too weary to think about them right now.

Her only focus was her daughter, and how badly she’d let her down.

Mark’s finger hesitated over Beatrice’s phone number. He was desperate to call her, anxious for news, but he didn’t know whether she’d welcome it.

He’d had a single message from her late last night. It had been brief.

Appendicitis. She’s had an operation. It went ok x

He’d read it several times, each time hoping it might reveal new information. So far, it hadn’t.

Oh, sod it. At least if he messaged her, she would know she was in his thoughts. He assumed she was still at the hospital and had probably spent the night there, so even though it was early he sent it anyway. If she did happen to be asleep, it would be waiting for her when she woke up.

How is Sadie?

It seemed rather abrupt, so he sent another. Anything I can do? x

Then he waited in vain for a reply, checking his phone obsessively.

He’d showered and had just sat down for breakfast when his phone rang. His relief was immense when he heard Beatrice’s voice.

She said, ‘She’s awake and hungry, and asking when she can go home.’

‘Thank god. How are you?’

‘Tired, waiting to speak to the doctor.’

‘Do you need anything?’

‘No, thanks. Mum will see to it. She’s coming in this afternoon and bringing Taya.’

‘Is Taya okay? It must have been frightening for her. And for you.’

‘She’s fine; worried, but she’ll be okay when she sees Sadie for herself. Hang on…’ Her voice faded and he heard her say, ‘No, it’s Mark.’ Returning to normal, she said, ‘Sorry, that was Eric; he thought I was on the phone to Taya.’

The memory of Eric’s face as he strode out of the school hall with his daughter in his arms, leapt into Mark’s mind. The man had looked distraught, and Mark could only imagine what he’d been feeling. No matter how badly Eric had treated Beatrice, he loved his children.

‘It must have been a terrible shock, for all of you,’ Mark said.

‘I blame myself.’

‘ Why?’

‘I should have realised—’

Mark heard a man’s voice, then Beatrice said, ‘I don’t care, Eric, I should have . She’d been complaining of—’ She stopped. ‘Sorry Mark, Eric keeps telling me that it’s not my fault.’

Mark didn’t know much about appendicitis and what he did know had been gleaned from searching the internet last night, but Eric was right. ‘It isn’t your fault,’ he said.

A weary sigh floated down the phone and he realised that nothing anyone said would make any difference: Beatrice was going to blame herself, regardless.

‘Are you sure I can’t do anything?’

‘I’m sure, but thanks anyway. I’d better go.’

‘Let me know what the doctor says?’ he asked. ‘And give Sadie a kiss from me.’

‘I will.’

It was only when the call ended and there was no danger of her hearing, that Mark whispered, ‘I love you, Bea.’

One day soon, he intended to tell her.

Deborah said, ‘Do you think they’ll let her come home tomorrow?’

‘I hope so.’ Beatrice plucked a grape from the fruit basket and popped it in her mouth.

Sadie pulled a face. She wasn’t keen on grapes. ‘I’m bored,’ she announced loudly.

‘I know you are.’ Beatrice gave her mum a helpless look.

She was trying her best to keep Sadie entertained, but the child was sick of being in hospital. And so was Beatrice. She was astonished how she could go from being so terrified for her child that she couldn’t breathe, to utter boredom in the space of three days. After the consultant had done his rounds on Friday and declared himself satisfied with how the operation went and with Sadie’s recovery from the anaesthetic, Beatrice had hoped Sadie would be allowed home that day. But it wasn’t to be. She had been kept in over the weekend, and for Sadie, by Sunday afternoon the novelty of being in hospital had well and truly worn off. There was only so much book-reading and colouring that she was prepared to do. And she was also fed up with watching TV, especially since the channels available were somewhat limited.

God help me if they keep her in for another day, Beatrice thought, although she couldn’t see any reason why they would. The tiny wound on Sadie’s tummy was healing well, she had been taken off the drip on Friday, and all her vital signs were excellent. In fact, apart from some discomfort at the site of the operation, Sadie was almost back to normal, and Beatrice marvelled at the ability of young children to bounce back from something that would take an adult a couple of weeks to recover from.

Hopefully, Sadie would only have to spend one more night in hospital, and she would be discharged in the morning. Apart from a quick dash home for a shower and a change of clothes, Beatrice hadn’t left the hospital either, so she was almost swooning at the thought of sleeping in her own bed. Trying to catch forty winks in a hospital chair had aged her ten years, she reckoned.

Taya would also be glad when everything was back to normal, although the upside was that she’d seen more of her father these past three days than she’d seen for a long time. Both girls had. Working in Thornton General meant that Eric could pop onto the ward and spend a few minutes with Sadie during his shift. And he also visited her both before and after he started work. The rest of the time, if it was at all practical, he spent with Taya. And Beatrice could see how her daughter was flourishing now that she had so much of her father’s attention.

To Beatrice’s surprise, Eric had stepped up to the mark, and to her even greater surprise, he seemed to be enjoying it.

There he was now, hovering at the entrance to the ward.

He was looking at her parents, and Beatrice guessed that he was reluctant to intrude on their time with Sadie. But knowing he was on his break and that he didn’t have long, Beatrice beckoned him in.

‘Mum, Dad, why don’t you take Taya to the shop and buy her and Sadie a treat?’ Beatrice delved into her bag for some money but her mum brushed her aside.

‘I’ll get it,’ Deborah said. ‘Come on Taya, let your dad have a chat with Sadie. You’ll see him later.’ She whispered to Beatrice, ‘He’s taking her bowling this evening, but don’t tell Sadie.’

‘Gosh, no!’ Beatrice agreed. Sadie would be furious if she knew they were going without her, and she made a mental note to suggest to Eric that he do something special with Sadie, just the two of them, when she was out of hospital.

Beatrice let Sadie and Eric have a few minutes alone, and she strolled over to the window. Yesterday had been the shortest day of the year, and today wasn’t much longer. It would start to get dark soon, and Beatrice noticed that some of the nearby houses had already switched on their Christmas lights.

She frowned as she thought of everything she still had to do in preparation for Christmas Day. She’d not wrapped a single present yet, and she needed to do a big grocery shop. At least they were going to her parents for Christmas dinner, so she didn’t have to worry about buying a turkey.

As she stood there contemplating Christmas, her thoughts drifted to Mark. She hadn’t seen him since Sunday when they’d made love (the brief glimpse she’d had of him on Thursday during the play, didn’t count) and she was missing him. He’d said he’d pop in to visit Sadie later, after her mum and dad had been, and she couldn’t wait – though how she would stop herself kissing him, she didn’t know. She hoped they could manage some time alone before he left Picklewick to go to his parents for Christmas, but with it being the twenty-second of December today, she wasn’t sure whether they’d have the opportunity.

Sighing, she rested her forehead against the glass, then stifled a shriek when an arm crept around her waist.

Assuming it to be Mark, she squirmed around, only to be confronted by Eric.

Moving aside, she slipped out of his grasp. ‘Don’t,’ she warned.

‘Bea, listen to me, please. Seeing Sadie like this—’ he gestured towards her bed and swallowed hard ‘— has been a wake-up call. I thought we were going to lose her.’

Beatrice gulped. So had she.

‘It made me realise how much I’ve lost and how much more I could lose. I don’t want to miss any more of their lives.’

‘You don’t have to. You can be as involved as you want.’

‘You don’t understand – I want to tuck them into bed at night and be there when they wake in the mornings.’

‘You work shifts.’ Her response was dry. If he thought he could guilt her, he could think again.

‘You know what I mean.’

‘Hmph.’ She’d heard it all before. He’d sung a version of the same song when she’d told him she wanted a divorce.

She began to walk away, back to Sadie who was busily colouring something and was thankfully not taking any notice of her parents’ exchange, but Eric grabbed hold of her hand.

Caught off-guard, she was pulled towards him and she came up against his chest. She put up her hands, but before she could push him away, he cupped her face and kissed her.

Beatrice froze. She was sorely tempted to knee him in the goolies for his audacity, but she didn’t want to make a scene. Instead, she tensed, her eyes open, her lips unyielding, as she waited for him to get the message.

Realising he wasn’t getting anywhere, he released her. ‘Just think about it,’ he pleaded. ‘We were good together once.’

She opened her mouth to utter a scathing retort, when she realised he was looking over her shoulder, an unreadable expression on his face. And when she whirled around, she saw Taya standing by her sister’s bedside, wearing a delighted smile.

Oh, sodding bloody fiddlesticks!

Mark staggered back from the doorway to the ward, the bag with the fairy outfit dangling forgotten from his nerveless fingers. Beatrice and Eric were kissing.

He felt sick and pain flared in his chest. He thought his heart was going to shatter with the force of it.

Taya glanced around and when he saw the happiness on her face, he wanted to cry. She looked ecstatic.

Mark wanted to stay and fight, to tell Beatrice he loved her, but he had to walk away. She had decided to make another go of it with Eric for the sake of her children, and he couldn’t do anything to jeopardise that.

A middle-aged couple were walking towards him and Mark recognised Beatrice’s parents and he turned away, not wanting them to see the anguish in his eyes. He had let Beatrice go once before, not understanding what he was throwing away. He would let her go again, but this time he knew all too well.

As he walked out of the hospital and out of Beatrice’s life, he was sure he was doing the right thing, no matter how much pain it caused him.

At least Mark hadn’t dumped her by text. Beatrice supposed she ought to be grateful for that small mercy. But a letter wasn’t much better. Just more old-fashioned.

Lisa handed it back to her after she’d read it, and Beatrice threw it on the coffee table. She grabbed a cushion, hugging it to her chest and hitched in a breath.

‘He didn’t even use proper paper,’ she said, as though the news of his departure would hurt less if it was written on a sheet of Basildon Bond paper, rather than a leaf torn out of a drawing pad. ‘Damn him!’

She sniffled and Lisa passed her a tissue. ‘“Doesn’t think it will work”,’ she quoted. ‘“It’s for the best”. Yeah, best for him. ’

‘More wine?’

‘How many bottles did you bring?’

‘Just the one.’ Lisa topped up Beatrice’s glass and she knocked half of it back. ‘Steady on, you don’t want to get drunk.’

‘Yes, I do,’ she replied grimly. ‘But I won’t. I can’t, not with Sadie like she is. I’ll save getting blotto for when she’s fully recovered.’ This was her daughter’s first night home since she’d collapsed at school. The letter, such as it was, had been waiting on the matt when Beatrice had got home. Thanks Mark, she thought bitterly.

‘You mightn’t want to get drunk by then,’ Lisa soothed.

‘Believe me, I will.’ Beatrice dabbed at her eyes. It had taken a herculean effort not to fall apart in front of the girls, but they were in bed now and if she couldn’t fall apart in front of her oldest and bestest friend, then who could she fall apart in front of? ‘I should have listened to you,’ she said.

‘You had to try.’

‘No, I honestly didn’t. I could have kept him at arm’s length, but I just had to fall in love with him again, didn’t I?’ She sounded as bitter as she felt.

‘You never stopped loving him,’ Lisa reminded her. ‘That was the problem.’

‘I never should have trusted him. What is it with me and men? Do I have a sign saying “treat me like dirt” on my forehead? God, I can bloody pick them, can’t I? First Eric, now Mark. He got what he came here for, an idea for his sodding book – which I gave him – and he had a bit of fun at the same time. It was a win-win situation for him, wasn’t it?’ She drank the rest of her wine and held out her glass.

Lisa refilled it. ‘That’s your last,’ she warned. ‘You’ll feel dreadful if Sadie wakes you in the night and you’ve got a hangover.’

‘Stop being so bloody sensible!’

‘No more wine.’

‘It hurts, Lisa. It hurts so much. I thought we had something special.’ She screwed up her face, the damn about to break. ‘I guess the reality of a woman with two kids in tow was too much to handle.’

‘He doesn’t deserve you.’

‘No, he doesn’t. But that doesn’t make it any easier. I wish he’d loved me back then. I wish he loved me now. But if wishes were horses, beggars would ride, and me and Eric would be back together. And we both know that’s never going to happen.’

‘You what?’

‘It’s a saying. It means— I don’t know what it means. My nana used to say it.’ Beatrice hugged the cushion closer.

‘What about you and Eric?’ Lisa was looking perplexed, and Beatrice realised she hadn’t told her what had happened between her and Eric at the hospital.

‘He wants us to get back together, to try again, for the sake of the girls. He says that Sadie’s collapse was a wake-up call.’

‘Are you going to?’ She sounded aghast.

‘No way. Eric and I are not getting back together. I did love him once, but he killed that when he was unfaithful. Taya’s dearest wish is that we get back together, and to make it worse, she saw him kiss me.’

‘Eric kissed you? When?’

‘At the hospital. He caught me unawares. I didn’t kiss him back, but Taya saw, and now she thinks there’s a chance we’ll get back together. I hate to disappoint her – it breaks my heart – but it’s not going to happen. How can it, when my heart belongs to Mark?’

A creak sounded overhead, and Beatrice stiffened. Putting a finger to her lips, she shook her head, uncurled her legs and padded upstairs to check on the children, worried that Sadie had woken, but both girls were sound asleep.

Beatrice envied them. She had a feeling it would be a long time before she slept peacefully again.