Chapter 7
Leo’s care needs had meant Will’s wife, Heather, having to give up her job even before his diagnosis, and they’d been struggling to pay the mortgage on their own place ever since.
Like Nathan, Will had done well on climbing the property ladder, but had remortgaged the place after Heather had left work.
It wasn’t just the drop in her salary, there’d been experimental treatments for Leo, and expensive rounds of IVF in their attempt to have another child.
After Leo’s diagnosis, they’d qualified for some NHS treatment, where the embryos would be screened for genetic abnormalities, but unfortunately the funded treatment had been unsuccessful.
Heather had fast been approaching the NHS cut off and a major decline in her own fertility.
So they’d thrown everything at funding private treatment and had finally had a successful round of IVF, but Heather had miscarried the baby two months later.
It had broken everyone’s hearts and taken a huge toll on Will’s mental health and Nathan was terrified about what he might do.
It had put incredible pressure on them all and things had got even worse when Nathan had been sent to prison.
After Nicole said she was leaving Nathan, their mother suggested they divide up the former family home so that Will and Heather could sell their place, and it had seemed the perfect solution.
The agreement was that the house would be put into Will’s name so that when their mum died the property would be theirs.
Nathan hadn’t had any objection to the proposal, even though it meant his stake in the family home would disappear.
The byre, as the old cow shed was now known, and the paddock behind it, were now officially in his name, so technically he owned a property outright again, but he had a long way to go before it would be anything like the home he wanted.
The best thing about the building was that it was single storey and easily accessible to Leo.
One of the first things he’d done was to open up a space in the back of the byre and put in glass bifold doors which looked directly out on to the paddock.
Leo loved coming down from the big house and sitting there to look out on to the field, which was currently home to three goats.
He’d often stay for hours, chatting away while Nathan worked.
Being with his nephew made everything he’d gone through pale into insignificance, and everything he’d lost feel like nothing.
There’d been a small miracle for Will and his wife too, Heather was now almost six months pregnant with a baby girl from a final round of IVF.
The pregnancy hadn’t been without its challenges and Heather was having more monitoring than an expectant mother usually would.
She and Will were at the hospital for another scan today, which was why he was looking after Leo.
Not that he ever needed an excuse to spend time with his nephew, it was his favourite thing to do.
‘Do you think the sea will be cold?’ Leo looked up at him and Nathan smiled.
‘It’s still August, which means the temperature should be okay.
But you’ve got a wetsuit on, kiddo, so you’ll be fine either way.
It’s your poor old uncle who’ll end up with a numb bum if it’s a chilly one.
’ The mention of bums was met with a peel of laughter from Leo and a warm feeling washed over Nathan, that not even the iciest of waves could have taken away.
These were the things to be treasured and held on to, which mattered far more than how perfect his house was, or what other people had to say about him.
Hearing Leo’s laughter was the best thing in the world and, whatever else happened, it meant this was already a very good day.
* * *
They’d stayed in the water for almost twenty minutes before Nathan pushed Leo’s wheelchair back on to the sand. Dashing up to the beach hut, he wrapped his nephew in a dryrobe and picked up the picnic basket he’d left there, before taking Leo back down on to the beach.
‘Do you want to sit on the blanket or stay in your chair?’ Nathan spread the picnic blanket out on the sand as he spoke and tried not to think how much more difficult it would be to give Leo the options everyone took for granted, once he got too big for his uncle to lift him in and out of the chair.
Most children with Duchenne’s muscular dystrophy didn’t need a wheelchair until they were about twelve or thirteen, but the previous Christmas Leo had fallen down the stairs at his maternal grandparents’ home in Scotland and the accident had accelerated the deterioration of the muscles in his legs.
Despite physiotherapy, he could only walk short distances with the aid of a frame and it had been his decision to use a wheelchair, which in many ways had given him his mobility back.
What would happen as he got older was a problem for another day; for now Leo could choose where he wanted to sit.
‘I’ll stay in the chair; I don’t want to get sand in my bum crack!
’ Leo laughed in that wonderfully infectious way he had and there was no chance of Nathan not joining in, even though he knew he shouldn’t.
Leo was seven, nearly eight, but he often seemed decades older because of everything he’d had to face in life, so it was brilliant to see him being the cheeky little schoolboy he was supposed to be.
‘No one wants sand in there.’ Nathan pressed his lips together to stop himself from laughing again.
‘I definitely don’t.’ Leo grinned and then suddenly gestured up the beach. ‘I know that boy. He came into our classroom to see if he wants to come to our school, just before we broke up for the summer.’
Nathan turned towards where Leo was looking and saw Rowan and her mother walking down the beach with two children. One of them was a boy who looked to be about Leo’s age, which must have been Theo, and the other was a girl, a couple of years older at least.
Nathan had heard about Rowan’s wedding and the birth of her children on the village grapevine, and he’d felt certain that marrying a vicar would more or less guarantee her marriage lasting forever, but now she was back for good and all sorts of rumours about why would no doubt be circulating. He just hoped she was doing okay.
When he’d heard Rowan’s name mentioned over the years, he’d sometimes allowed himself to wonder what might have happened between them if she hadn’t moved away so suddenly.
But there were a million what-ifs in life and he’d put any thoughts of Rowan to the back of his mind when he’d been married to Nicole.
Except looking at her on the beach now, that night up on the cliffs came rushing back into his mind, and he had to physically shake himself to dislodge the thought.
Rowan wouldn’t be interested in him, even if he hadn’t sworn off getting seriously involved with anyone again.
His family were all that mattered and the few people who’d stuck by them after his sentencing.
It was a smaller circle than he’d had before, but he loved every person in it and that counted for far more than a big group of people who had never really been there for him.
‘Shall we call them over to say hello? I think it’ll be really nice for him if he’s got a friend when he starts at school, especially when everyone already knows each other.’
‘He might not want to be friends with me.’ Leo lowered his eyes and Nathan’s heart constricted.
He’d never been a violent person and had kept his head down in prison, avoiding any kind of confrontation if he possibly could, because physical altercations weren’t his style.
But the thought of anyone rejecting Leo or making him feel like he wasn’t worthy made Nathan’s blood rush through his veins.
Not long after Leo had started using the wheelchair, a group of lads in their twenties had slowed down their car as they’d passed, rolling down the window and shouting a word that Nathan couldn’t even bear to say out loud.
He’d broken into a run, chasing the car down the road and only coming to his senses when he realised that he’d left Leo on his own.
Nathan had always hated bullying of any kind and, when it came to defending his nephew, he knew he could be capable of almost anything and sadly he understood why Leo was afraid of rejection.
Rowan’s son wouldn’t be a bully, though.
Somehow Nathan knew it with absolute certainty.
Most people were good and kind, and they lived in a community that had rallied around Will and Heather for the most part, donating to fundraising causes, like the half marathon Nathan had organised.
People looked out for Leo, and the parish council had voted unanimously to assign funds to purchasing accessible equipment for the play park.
Volunteers from the PTA were helping out at the school and most of the other pupils seemed to love Leo for the wonderful kid he was.
It was what had made Nathan fall in love with Port Agnes again and feel able to continue to call it his home, despite the way some people had reacted after his release from prison.
As long as they treated Leo the way he deserved, Nathan didn’t care what they thought about him.
‘Of course Theo will want to be your friend and I bet he’ll be thrilled you want to be his.’ Nathan put a hand on his nephew’s shoulder.
‘How do you know that’s his name and that he’ll want to be friends with me?’ There was still a slight wobble in Leo’s voice and Nathan wished he could make his nephew believe that anyone would be lucky to have him as a friend.