Chapter 13 #2
‘It’s going to be okay. I promise.’ It was Bex’s turn to wrap her arms around him and she offered up a silent prayer that it would be, because Ken wasn’t the only one who couldn’t imagine a life without Donna.
She was an amazing woman and if Bex could be half the mother she was, she’d feel incredibly proud of herself.
She’d known, long before Ken said it out loud, that if her mother had one wish it would be for her daughters to be reunited, but she couldn’t grant that wish, not even for Donna.
The scars ran far too deep and, from what she’d seen, Briony didn’t seem to have changed at all.
She was still far too willing to pretend to be someone she wasn’t.
Now Bex was going to have to do that too.
Make believe was the best she could offer her mum and she was going to put on a hell of a show.
She had no doubt it was for Donna’s benefit, because she desperately needed the transplant, but that didn’t stop Bex feeling guilty.
She knew her mum would forgive her though, no matter how sad and disappointed she might be.
After all, she’d already forgiven Briony for so much more.
Unlike the secrets and lies her so-called sister had weaved back then, nothing bad could possibly come of the lies Bex was telling now. She was certain of it.
Briony grimaced as she swallowed the effervescent painkillers she’d just dissolved in the water.
They tasted bitter but they’d definitely taken the edge off the pain.
She’d always struggled with swallowing tablets, and it had been a running joke in the family.
It had all started when she’d been seven and had a headache on one of the rare occasions their father had taken them for a sleepover, in the house of a woman who was a complete stranger to them.
Their father had been passed out drunk on the sofa, and his girlfriend had shouted at Briony for crying.
Being completely unprepared to have his children overnight, the woman had tried to force an ordinary adult paracetamol tablet down Briony’s throat without even breaking it in half.
She been terrified she was going to choke and had thrown up everywhere, earning her a barrage of verbal abuse from their father’s girlfriend, who was also drunk, which might well have turned physical if Bex hadn’t stepped between her and Briony, promising to clear everything up.
It had been her big sister who’d stepped in again when Briony was about twelve and needed to take some antibiotics to clear up an infection that had been causing her a lot of pain.
‘You’ll still be taking Calpol when you’re thirty if you don’t get over this, sweetheart.
’ Her mother’s tone had been gentle, but she’d sounded exhausted too.
It was clear she didn’t have time to deal with the fuss Briony had been making about the prospect of taking the antibiotics.
Donna had been rushing out to her second job, cleaning at a solicitor’s office in Port Tremellien and had been forced to delegate the task of getting Briony to swallow her tablets to Bex.
‘Make sure she takes her antibiotics won’t you, my love?
Otherwise, she’s going to be up all night again with that ear infection and none of us will get any sleep. ’
‘Of course I will, Mum, don’t worry.’ Bex had made the promise and their mother had known she’d do whatever it took to fulfil it. She’d always been able to count on her older daughter and so had Briony. Bex had been a brilliant sister, who was like a second mum to her when she needed one.
‘I don’t think I can do it.’ Briony had grimaced and begun to gag at just the prospect of swallowing what to her looked like a tablet intended for a horse rather than a human.
‘Of course you can. You can do anything you put your mind to, but there’s no hurry.
We’ll get there.’ Bex had been as good as her word, patiently encouraging Briony and talking her through the process.
She’d told her to relax and visualise herself swallowing the pill, getting her to place it on her tongue and breathe slowly before using a straw to draw some water in.
There were a couple of failed attempts where both the water and the tablet were expelled with considerable force.
The second one leaving water dripping down Bex’s face, but she never lost her temper or her patience.
When Briony finally managed to swallow the tablet, Bex had high fived her as if she’d done something amazing like winning an award.
After that, Briony had managed to take the remaining course of antibiotics without anywhere near as much fuss.
Over the years, she’d learned to swallow tablets when she had to, always using the method Bex had taught her.
That was until everything happened with Liam.
After that her throat had just seemed to close up every time she tried to swallow a tablet, and no matter how many times she tried to follow the advice Bex had given her back when she’d been twelve, she just couldn’t swallow any medication.
It was why she’d had to ask the doctor to prescribe effervescent painkillers for her ankle injury and, if he hadn’t, she might really have been forced to resort to Calpol, just as her mother had predicted.
The knock on the van door as she set the glass back down on the table made her jump, despite the fact she was expecting it.
‘Come in,’ she called out and a second later Tristan opened the door, nearly getting knocked off his feet by Casper, who shot into the van ahead of him.
‘Sorry about my dog, he’s got absolutely no manners.
’ He grinned and Briony tried to ignore the effect his smile had on her.
He’d just been kind to her that was all, at a time when she felt extremely vulnerable; a state she didn’t feel comfortable being in around anyone, even her parents.
There couldn’t be anything else between them, even if she wanted there to be, because he was part of Bex’s new family and that’s where his loyalties lay.
‘Casper just can’t wait for Merlin to come and stay with us. ’
‘Thanks so much for offering to take him while we get the assessment done. I don’t know what I’d have done otherwise.
’ She hated to admit how true that was, even to herself.
She didn’t have friends she could just ring up and ask to dog sit Merlin, not with Gray and Janey being right at the other end of the UK.
There were plenty of strangers online, who thought they knew her, who’d probably be only too willing to take Merlin, but no one she trusted.
No one other than Tristan and, in truth, she barely knew him either.
It was a sad state of affairs if she thought about it too much, so she chose not to.
‘It’s no problem at all, and Casper isn’t the only one who’s looking forward to it. I meant what I said about Merlin being welcome to stay on with us if the operation goes ahead and you need to recuperate.’
‘Thank you, but I think I might need him with me afterwards. I could try and find somewhere to move Woody to, but I was thinking of renting an Airbnb near the hospital until they sign Mum and I off to leave. There’ll be regular visits to the transplant centre initially, after they release us from hospital, so we’ll need to stay somewhere nearby.
Linda’s daughter, Iris, has offered us her flat and Mum and Ken will stay there, once Mum is discharged, but I want to have Merlin with me, if it’s going to be a long haul.
Although there’s a chance that because we live so far from the transplant centre, they might be able to work in partnership with St Piran’s for some of our aftercare, which means we can come home sooner.
’ Briony caught herself, but not before she’d already said the words that Tristan picked up on straight away.
‘So you still think of Port Agnes as home?’
‘I meant that Mum can come home and I can get back on the road, because she’ll need a lot more aftercare than me.’
‘Just don’t push yourself too fast.’ Tristan sounded as if he genuinely cared and she chose to believe he did, because she needed someone other than her parents to care.
She wanted them to be able to concentrate on her mother’s recovery, not hers.
Briony had chosen not to mention the possibility of the transplant to Gray and Janey either, not wanting them to worry when they were so far away, which meant she could use all the support she could get from Tristan.
She hated the thought of relying on anyone though, and she was already trying to brush off any trace of vulnerability.
‘I’ll be fine and let’s face it, Bex is not going to want me hanging around for long.’
‘She said you can stay until all this is over, you know that.’ Tristan looked away for a moment, making an elaborate gesture of rotating Merlin’s collar until the tag was sitting at the front.
‘What else did she say?’ He’d relayed some of what had happened after the accident, when he’d been speaking to Matt, and Bex had overheard them, but he’d been evasive about the details, and she knew he was hiding something.
‘She’s just anxious about the boys. She doesn’t want to confuse them.’ Tristan attempted a casual shrug, but it was obvious he still wasn’t being completely honest with her.
‘You mean she doesn’t want me to have anything to do with them.’ Briony could tell by the look on Tristan’s face that she’d hit the nail on the head.
‘I think with everything that’s going on with your mum it’s a bit too much. Just give her time.’
‘Sixteen years hasn’t been long enough.’ Briony swallowed hard. ‘I know what I did was terrible, but the intent wasn’t. I thought I was saving her from making a terrible mistake. No, scratch that, I know I was saving her from making a terrible mistake.’
‘You don’t have to tell me any of this.’