Chapter 27
27
When Nadia went inside the hospital, Hudson went with her. He put a hand to her cheek. ‘You sure you’re okay?’
She put her hand on top of his against her skin. The gesture felt nearly as intimate as the almost-kiss outside. If it hadn’t been for those two doctors walking by, it might have happened. But perhaps it was better that it hadn’t. Not yet, not here.
‘I’m ready as I’ll ever be,’ she said.
‘I’ll get back to the airbase before they start wondering where I am.’
He left her to it and then she was on her way to see Monica again, back to see her sister and her niece, apprehensive about where they went from here.
Monica looked up in surprise as Nadia approached her bed. ‘I thought you weren’t ever coming back.’
‘I just needed some time.’ She looked at her adorable niece, the baby sleeping so soundly. ‘How is she?’
‘We had a good night, she’s feeding better and I’m less sore.’
‘Good.’ She took her bag from her shoulder and set it down. ‘I’m sorry I stayed away yesterday.’
‘I’m sorry I drove you away – that seems to be my strong point.’ They shared a smile of understanding. ‘Was it me talking about Archie?’
Nadia didn’t have to confirm it; her sister knew.
‘Archie was devastated that things were never the same with you and him after that day at the house. We got together by chance; I know that’s difficult to believe.’
‘Archie has talked to me about it already,’ said Nadia. ‘It’s just still a lot to take in.’
Monica reached over and pressed her hand lightly on Bella’s blanket as if reminding her baby that she was right there. She was a good mum; Nadia could tell even in the little time she’d spent with her sister.
‘After we got together, Archie kept saying we should talk to you, but I kept asking him to wait. I think I was worried that he’d tell you and somehow, you’d persuade him that I was so terrible, he really didn’t want to get involved.’
‘Maybe I would’ve done. He was my friend, Monica. We were close, especially after we lost the baby. We weren’t a couple any more but he was someone I knew I could turn to, I could rely on. Until…’
‘Until I ruined it all.’ She paused as if waiting for a torrent of abuse to come her way.
‘I missed him so much when he became your boyfriend rather than my friend.’
‘I’m sorry.’ The words were gentle, heartfelt, and after a while with neither of them talking, she carried on with her story, which Nadia needed to hear no matter how difficult.
‘A week after you caught us together, I told him I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t be with him. I tried to end things between us. But he wouldn’t give up. He kept coming back. And although Mum was always there for me, this felt different. He saw me not for the trouble I caused, but for the person I could be deep down. I didn’t deserve him. But I’d fallen for him in a big way. I couldn’t stay away from him.’
‘You seem to have a really good marriage.’ Despite the history, Nadia found the words easier to say than she would have expected.
‘Apart from me being a little crazy, you mean, and leaving my husband and child, getting on the Eurostar very, very pregnant and having a baby almost on the street if it hadn’t been for the kindness of a neighbour. I often wonder what Archie sees in me.’
‘He told me how kind you are, how you settled into a job, how much you love Giles and that you are a good mum. He told me how you’d flipped what you thought of as the things that were holding you back and turned them into positives – those were his words. He said you’d refused to let those things ruin your life any more. He even told me about you volunteering at a school helping kids learn to read.’
‘He told you all that?’
‘We’ve had some time to get to know each other.’ And she’d had some time to accept his side of the story. Perhaps now she needed to delve deep to find the same forgiveness for her sister.
‘He hated that he lost his friendship with you.’
‘It didn’t feel as though we could be friends any more,’ said Nadia. ‘But also, I never gave him a chance to show me that we could be and for that, I’m sorry.’
Bella started to wake and it wasn’t long before she was moving enough that Monica shuffled herself up in bed in readiness to reach over for her. ‘She can’t possibly be hungry.’
‘Maybe it’s wind.’ Nadia looked at her niece. ‘May I?’
‘Sure.’
Nadia picked up the baby, nestled her against her chest, rocked side to side and patted her gently. Her little body relaxed against Nadia’s, she quietened, and Nadia thought again about Lena.
‘I’ll bet you were a good nurse.’ Monica smiled as she watched her sister with her daughter. ‘I went to a few different hospitals asking after you but never found a trace.’
‘I changed names – I’m Sutton now rather than Fischer.’
‘That would’ve made it harder. So, what happened to him, the guy you were married to?’
‘Jock.’
‘I couldn’t even remember his name.’
‘I kept him away from family, that was why. I shouldn’t have married him really; it was never going to work. We split up but that was a good thing.’
‘You’re happily single?’
‘Something like that.’ She hoped she wasn’t blushing at the thought of Hudson, the almost-kiss, the way she felt when he touched the side of her face before he left earlier.
‘Bella seems happy in her auntie’s arms.’
Nadia felt a wave of emotion at the words and holding this precious bundle. ‘I was pregnant, you know.’
‘I know. And what you went through must’ve been awful.’
‘It was. But I didn’t mean that time. I was pregnant again, when I was married to Jock.’
‘You have a baby? Archie never said.’ Her face lit up but fell at Nadia’s expression.
‘I lost it. An ectopic pregnancy for a second time; I was lucky to survive.’
‘I’m so sorry.’
‘There’s one thing you do better than me: motherhood.’ She regretted the words as soon as they were out. ‘I didn’t mean that, I swear. Well, I did, but I didn’t mean to sound like a bitch.’
‘It’s fine, honestly.’
Nadia looked at her sister and couldn’t help the tears tracking down her cheeks. ‘It’s still painful; I wanted children, I really did. It just didn’t happen for me.’ She held Bella, the little girl more than settled again now. ‘The Skylarks became my family; the job is more than I ever imagined it to be.’
‘What made you leave nursing?’
‘It wasn’t planned; I saw the job advert for an operational support officer with the air ambulance in Whistlestop River and I was looking to move to a smaller town, somewhere where people knew each other better, and so I applied thinking I’d see what I thought if I got an interview. I did, I loved the airbase and the staff, the town, the sound of the role and what the air ambulance does. It was as though everything fell into place for the first time in years.’
They talked about her job, the teammates she adored, about Monica’s work in hotels, which had been on pause since she’d taken early maternity leave with a plan to return once the baby was a year old.
‘Archie was going out of his mind with worry about you,’ said Nadia. ‘I’ve been so focused on how this has made me feel, the fact that you’re okay and your baby is too, that I haven’t asked you why you didn’t get in touch with him when you knew he’d contacted the police.’
‘You wonder how I could’ve tortured them like that?’
‘Kind of, yes.’
‘Archie didn’t ask me straight away, the birth was too traumatic, he didn’t even ask right after. It was only in the early hours of Saturday morning when I opened my eyes and saw him sleeping in the chair near my bed that I woke him and told him why.’ She gazed adoringly at her little baby in her sister’s arms. ‘Did he tell you about the university reunion?’
‘No, he didn’t mention it.’
‘It was for your course: yours and Archie’s; I thought you might have got a letter.’
‘My course?’ She shook her head. ‘I never heard a thing. But then I didn’t keep my details up to date; I moved here and left Switzerland behind.’
‘It was a couple of months ago. Archie went, and when he got home, he said that he’d been asked about you half a dozen times. People talked about how lovely you were; they wondered what you were up to. When he told me, I think he intended to make me think about my sister, but instead, I was thinking about him. He’s always put me first and it reminded me of the friendship I took from him. He’s never thrown it in my face, he wouldn’t, but I knew he missed you. And he wanted our kids to know their family – all of their family. You were the only one who could change that. I had hopes that you were happy, married, with kids. All I wanted to do was find you, for him, for me, for our kids.
‘That’s another thing that contributed to me suddenly coming here; it added a bit more fuel to my desire, so to speak. I went to all the hospitals in the area, convinced I’d find you or that I’d find something. I showed your photograph at a few places; I must have seemed like a crazy woman. I thought about putting something out on social media but I decided that if you got wind of that, you’d steer clear of me. Face to face was the only way I could ever see me being able to talk to you and tell you how much I regretted everything I did, how much Archie missed you, how much we both wanted you in our lives.’
Nadia’s emotions bubbled up; she couldn’t have spoken even if she wanted to.
‘I’ve changed a lot, Nadia, but some things are still the same – I’m still that same girl who does things first and then thinks about the consequences afterwards. And this was one of those times. By the time I pulled myself together, realised trying to find you was futile, and so got ready to make my way home, the police showed up at my hotel room to tell me that my husband, my child and my sister were all concerned for my welfare.
‘I’d been so stupid. And knowing you were all worried, I sank into the depths of shame for how I’d behaved. That was why I didn’t get in touch with Archie. I was devastated at what I’d done. I’m a mother and I’d abandoned my son, left my husband, come to a different country so close to when my baby was going to be born. It was as though I’d stepped onto a set, a stage and was playing a different part and I didn’t recognise myself. I’d acted irrationally; I thought I knew what I was doing at the time. For weeks, I’d convinced myself Archie wouldn’t disrupt their lives and follow me, but then I saw that he wouldn’t have had any choice. Yet again, I’d caused trouble. Just like when I was a teenager.
‘I’d only just got my head around it all and went to the address that the police gave me when Bella decided she wanted to amp up the drama. I can’t bear to think what might have happened if the police hadn’t come, if I hadn’t known people were looking for me, if I’d gone into labour when I was travelling to make my way home.’
‘Don’t think about that now. You’re safe, both of you.’
‘Thanks to you and Archie.’ Her voice caught.
Nadia felt so close to this little baby in her arms, the baby who had made a dramatic entrance into the world.
‘I was stunned when you turned up, Nadia. I mean, I knew Archie had located you, the police mentioned you by name, but I never thought you and Archie would be a team and that you would suddenly appear at my side to help me. I almost thought I was hallucinating.’
‘I’m glad I was there.’ With Bella in her arms, she passed her sister a tissue for her tears.
Monica hesitated. ‘Do you think… do you think we can ever go back to being sisters? I think I need to know, I need to process, get my head around it. I’ll respect whatever you decide. I know you have a life here, and that that life doesn’t include me, us.’
‘No… we can’t ever go back.’ And she knew when she saw how distraught Monica was, the way her face, her shoulders and her whole body sagged, that she really was sorry, that she really did want to repair the damage that had been done over the years.
Nadia put a hand on Monica’s as her sister’s tears tracked down her cheeks. ‘We can’t go back. Not ever. But we can go forwards.’
Monica’s breath caught. ‘You mean that?’
‘I think we both owe it to each other to try.’
‘It’ll take time…’
‘And effort.’ Their words crossed each other; the tears flowed some more. Both of them wanted, needed, to see what the future held for them.
But they didn’t get to do much more talking because Giles barrelled into the ward with a call from his father to walk, not run.
And after Nadia passed Bella to her daddy, she hid her emotions behind a hug with her nephew.