Chapter 37
Lovelyn
“Kane. It’s been a while since we last saw your face. Your mother will be thrilled.” A beaming woman in a smart, blue healthcare uniform ushered us into a bright reception.
The care facility had to have been a stately home in a previous life, converted from a beautiful old building, with Scots pine trees bracketing mossy lawns and benches near pretty nooks.
A resident was being wheeled along a hedgerow, a thick blanket over their lap and their carer chatting merrily.
When my mother had been in her final weeks, our GP had found her a place in a palliative care facility.
The staff had been wonderful, but it was run on a shoestring.
Kane’s mother’s care home was the other end of the scale.
It had taken us a couple of hours to get here, to the outskirts of a mid-sized Scottish town, and my stomach had twisted with worry.
Kane had practically turned to stone during the drive.
If I’d been more confident, I would have taken his hand.
Tried to comfort him. But although he’d made no comment about me coming along for the ride, I sensed how he’d reverted to being an island.
Walled in and alone in whatever torment that phone call had thrown him into.
In our hotel room, we’d been so close, but without any words spoken, I had no clue of his heart. Mine ached for that lack.
The staff member signed us in. “I’ll take you down.”
Kane watched a corridor. “I need to see the manager.”
“Of course. I’ll let her know you’re around. Pop along to the office when you’re ready.”
Either side of the hallway we walked were patients’ rooms, doors open to give a glimpse of individual yet inviting spaces with the medical side softened by pretty blankets and personal possessions. Every one of the patients appeared profoundly disabled.
The staff member talked chirpily about Kane’s mother. “She’s responding well to the dietary changes we trialled, but I should warn you before you go in, she has reduced mobility and communication. Even more than before.”
He didn’t reply.
At the end, she knocked on the closed door.
“Enter,” a woman called back.
I didn’t think it possible for Kane to appear any more freaked out, but whoever that was made him brittle.
We entered a spacious room with a hospital bed to one side and French doors letting in the morning light.
Two women occupied the space. The first, in the bed, had dark hair and olive skin, her resemblance to Kane immediate.
Tubes ran under her light blanket, one to her stomach, the other lower.
A feeding tube and a catheter, I guessed from where it connected to a night bag hanging from the frame. Mum had the latter in her end stages.
Kane’s mother’s hands curled inwards, and her feet were in some kind of soft boots. The air mattress under her whirred softly, and a laminated letter board sat at the end of her bed, maybe for communication.
Her eyes brightened as she took in her son.
A snort of derision came from the other woman. At a guess, and from the family resemblance, she had to be Kane’s aunt, but the look she levelled on him chilled me.
“At last, the prodigal son returns,” she intoned. Her attention jumped to me. “With a girlfriend, Bethan. Now we know how he’s spending his time.”
Not one word came from Kane. His lips parted over quicker breaths.
If I’d ever wondered at the source of his claustrophobia, I had my answer. His poor mother was in this hospital bed permanently. I couldn’t guess at how long, but the nurse’s comment suggested she was degenerating.
I stepped forward, my stomach tight with anxiety. I smiled at his mother whose attentive, bright eyes latched on me. They were grey, just like Kane’s. “I’m so pleased to meet you. I’m Lovelyn. You must be Bethan. Kane looks just like you.”
A muscle around Bethan’s mouth flickered as if she was trying to smile. Her focus jumped back to the relative then to the French doors.
The woman tutted. “It’s damp out there.” At whatever minute conversation they were having, she sighed and rolled her eyes. “Don’t blame me if you catch cold.”
The aunt climbed from her seat and opened the nearest door, fresh air filtering into the room. Behind me, Kane took an audible breath. His mother watched him.
I didn’t know her. I didn’t know anything about her. But I swear I recognised relief at the small provision she’d enabled for her son.
I switched my attention to the other woman, summoning a smile that I didn’t so easily feel. “Hi, it’s nice to meet you, too. You’re Kane’s aunt, is that right?”
I left the space for her to correct me or say her name. Her gaze flicked up and down me then returned to Kane, giving me no reply.
“If ye want an update, the manager can give it. That’s a conversation for ye to take outside the room and away from the gossips.”
There was a warning in her words with a glance at the nurse who was checking over her patient, quietly going about her work. I assumed his aunt meant the financial situation.
At last, Kane found his voice. “I told ye I’d handle it.”
“Aye, do it now.”
Bethan’s focus flicked between them.
Kane took a deep breath then stepped to his mum’s bedside. With something unreadable in his eyes, he reached for the outline of her bony arm under the bedclothes and gently touched her, a tender, featherlight press of fingertips to her shape.
His aunt hissed. “What do ye think you’re doing? You’ll dislodge her tubes.”
He retracted his hand as if stung.
The nurse turned. “Here, let me show you. Take Bethan’s hand this side. You won’t hurt her.”
“No. I’ll…” He backtracked, twisted, and left the room. His aunt glared then climbed from her seat. She stomped out, leaving the door ajar.
I stared after them, catching the aunt’s cutting tone.
“Why come to the room? Ye know how bad the stress ye bring can make her. Are ye trying to bring on the end faster?”
What a crappy thing to say. I went to follow, but the nurse frowned and stepped outside, shutting the door behind her and cutting out the sounds.
Half of me wanted to follow to hear what Kane’s aunt was saying, but that would leave his mother alone. She’d already have heard what I did.
Instead, I moved to her bedside and formed a smile, taking myself back to what it had been like when Mum was at her poorliest. To the words I thought she’d want to hear.
“While we have a minute alone, I need to thank you for the way you raised Kane. He’s a wonderful man.”
Bethan’s gaze darted over my face like she was memorising me.
I continued. “We both know he’s quiet, and how that hides a warm heart.
He can be so sweet. My favourite colour is purple, and he brought me a bouquet of only purple flowers the first time he picked me up at my house.
He also fixed my elderly neighbour’s guttering.
He’s the perfect gentleman, and I know I have you to thank for that.
I’m sorry if you don’t get to see him as much as either of you would like. ”
There were pictures on a shelf at her eyeline beside the bed. Her gaze landed on one, and I picked it up, taking in the beautiful woman with a small boy in her arms. “Is this the two of you? You’re so pretty.”
Her eyes lit up, crinkling at the edges.
A machine next to the bed beeped. A few seconds later, a nurse bustled into the room. “Time for your flush, Bethan? Nice work, keeping us busy.”
I straightened. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
The nurse grinned. “No, I joke. We have it covered, plus Blair keeps a close eye on everything.”
Blair was his aunt, then. “Is she often here?”
“Always. She sleeps in a pull-out bed when Bethan’s poorly. She’s the only person Bethan speaks to now.”
“This really is a lovely place.”
“Isn’t it? I wish all MS patients could have such treatment.” She eyed her patient then me. “If you wouldn’t mind giving me the room for a moment. Just for Bethan’s privacy, if that’s okay.”
I set the picture back in its place, murmuring that I’d be back.
Outside the room, I found my phone and searched on MS. I knew it meant Multiple Sclerosis but little about the condition.
The summary hurt my heart. The disease affected the central nervous system.
Chronic, degenerative, and incurable. Patients had flare-ups that got progressively worse, and though new treatments were promising, Kane’s mother wouldn’t get better.
Wandering down the corridor, I changed my search to whether it was hereditary. The answer was no, but it did have a genetic component that increased risk. Kane had had a vasectomy. A huge reaction to ensuring he never had kids who suffered the same as his mother did.
Overtones of an argument came from further down the hall. Kane and his aunt, though it was only her voice I could hear, angry and admonishing. I followed the sound.
“…then you’ll disappear again for months, only to appear with some girl. Do ye know what that stress will do to her? I know she’s an inconvenience in your life, yet ye always find new lows to stoop to.”
I found them in a communal kitchen area and stepped into the room, my stomach sickened by what she was saying. Blair had her back to me, and Kane hung his head low, none of his usual confidence or self-control in sight.
“I’ll handle the finances. Then if ye want me gone, I’ll go.”
Blair grew more strident. “Don’t come here and play the hero.
You don’t know what it’s like to care for her day to day.
I told your mother when she was pregnant with ye to hope for a girl.
At least a daughter would be there for her.
Instead, she bore a huge, worthless boy.
Do ye know what that pregnancy cost her?
How sick she became? She barely had any symptoms until she birthed ye, the burden of her life. ”
Anger on his behalf flamed inside me. I couldn’t stop myself. “That’s unfair and unkind.”
Blair spun around and glared at me. “What’s it to do with ye? Mind your business.”
I had no right to interfere. Kane had never called himself my boyfriend. But it was the way he stood there and took her abuse, no pushback on her words. I couldn’t stand it.
“It’s awful that Bethan’s illness has affected her so much, but that isn’t her son’s fault. A baby isn’t responsible for being born.”
Her lip curled in a sneer. “Ye have no idea what he did. The torment he put that woman through. Every fight he got into, she’d relapse. Every phone call from his school would set her back years. The only good thing he ever did was stay away from her.”
I shook my head once, my hands trembling with how wrong this was. “Which I heard you blame him for as well. He didn’t make her ill.”
“Wrong. Without him, she wouldn’t be nearly so sick.
She’s fifty-three years old. Fifty-three.
” She swung an accusing finger back towards Kane.
“Now you’d better have a solution for the money ye owe this place.
It’s your Marchant family. If ye tell me she has to move, you’ll be writing her death warrant, and she’s already close enough. ”
He took a shuddering breath and, without a glance at me, left to stalk down the hall. Blair followed, her berating words picking up again further along the corridor. For a few moments, I didn’t know what to do. Go after him or let him handle this.
No, he didn’t need to face this alone.
I followed them, guessing they’d gone back to the reception. But when I reached it, all the doors were closed and there was no one on the desk. Already I was shaken, and any lingering confidence wavered. I couldn’t walk into a meeting. If he’d wanted me there, he’d have asked.
Instead, I did the next best thing and returned to Bethan’s bedroom, knocking lightly on the door. The nurse let me in, finished with her task.
I took a seat at the bedside. “Kane and Blair had some business to discuss. I thought I’d come back to chat.”
Talking had always come easy to me. I told her about Kane taking me on a date, about how he’d helped with security for my house.
I was careful not to mention the skeleton crew or what he did for a living, but I did slip in that he’d been a hero in rescuing two women recently.
The more I spoke, the easier it became to pick up Bethan’s tells.
At any mention of his exploits and achievements, her eyes brightened and stayed on me.
Her breathing seemed to quicken, too. I guessed she liked what I had to say.
“I think he’d like a closer relationship with his sister as well,” I continued. “They aren’t alike in any way, but both have good hearts. Mila is lovely.”
One of Bethan’s machine’s beeped.
The door opened, and the nurse came back in, politely asking for the room again so she could carry out her care. I reached for Bethan’s hand and carefully squeezed it.
“I’ll go see what’s keeping them.”
Outside, I had the worst feeling about how the morning had gone. It was so clear to me how badly triggered Kane was. The question was, whether he could find a way out of it. My heart couldn’t decide whether to hope or despair.