Chapter Thirty-Two
The brilliant late May sunshine held steady into Tuesday afternoon, turning the wild grass of the garden a vibrant, clear green.
Inside the kitchen of Cliffside House, the space felt unusually quiet.
William wiped down the pine table after the children’s lunchtime sandwiches, then took the cloth to the sink.
He was just rinsing it out when a sharp scream tore through the open back window.
William dropped the cloth instantly. It wasn’t a standard, bickering cry from a squabble over toy cars. It was the raw, breathless shriek of a child in sudden, real pain. He sprinted through the back door and out into the garden before the sound had even faded into the salt air.
“Ollie!” he called out, his eyes scanning the lawn.
He found him near the old greenhouse boundary line. Ollie was writhing in the tall twitch grass, his knees tucked tightly to his chest, clutching his left forearm. His face was white, large beads of sweat already breaking out across his forehead as he sobbed hysterically.
“Ollie, look at me. Nice and steady,” William said, dropping heavily to his knees in the dirt beside his son.
His first responder training took over. He resisted the instinct to examine the arm, supporting it carefully above and below the injury instead.
The forearm was already swelling, and the unnatural bend between the wrist and elbow left little doubt that it was broken.
A few yards away, Jake stood completely frozen, his red toy car dangling forgotten from his fingers, his lower lip trembling violently. Mia and Sophie had scrambled out of a thicket where they had been playing house, their eyes wide with immediate panic as they took in the sight of the injury.
“Mia,” William said, forcing his voice to remain low, steady, and anchored despite the adrenaline spiking in his veins. “Take Jake and Sophie inside right now. Go on. Give them a glass of squash.”
“Is he going to be okay, Dad?” Mia whispered, her face pale.
“He’s going to be fine. Inside, please.”
As Mia carefully guided the younger two toward the back door, William’s mind raced through his options.
He needed to get Ollie to A&E immediately — but he couldn’t leave the three younger children unsupervised, and taking them all into a hospital waiting room would only frighten them further.
His parents were still away on the short holiday they had taken during his week off.
Ethan was at the harbour with Simon and Christopher, testing the speaker positions and cable routes.
Even if William called him now, he couldn’t get home quickly enough.
He needed help. He needed an adult to stay with the house.
He looked over the wild dividing hedge toward The Gables. Supporting Ollie’s injured arm against his chest, William lifted him as carefully as he could and carried him across the lawn toward Lydia’s back door.
Before he could knock, the door swung open. Lydia must have heard Ollie’s scream through her open window. She stood on the threshold with a pencil tucked behind her ear, but the moment she saw Ollie’s white face and the way William supported his arm, her expression sharpened with concern.
“William? What happened?”
“Ollie’s fallen by the greenhouse,” William said, his voice clipped and urgent. “It’s a broken arm. I need to get him to A&E right now, but I can’t take the others. Ethan’s down at the harbour, and my parents are away. Lydia… can you come over? Just to keep watch until I get back?”
He braced himself, half-expecting the icy, defensive distance she had been maintaining on the beach to return. Instead, it vanished in a heartbeat. Her eyes cleared, replaced by the unflappable, practical efficiency he had admired from the moment they met.
“Of course,” she said without a second of hesitation. She snatched her keys from the kitchen counter behind her. “Go and get him into the car, William. I’ll go straight into your kitchen and look after Mia, Sophie, and Jake. Don’t worry about a single thing here. Just go.”
A profound, overwhelming wave of relief hit William’s chest, so heavy it made his voice thick. “Thank you,” he murmured.
He carried Ollie quickly to the drive, settling him carefully into the rear seat, securing him with the seat belt and using a folded jacket to support the injured arm.
As he started the engine and looked back toward the house, he saw Lydia already walking through his back door, her presence steady and calm.
He pulled out of the gravel drive, the tyres crunching loudly as he drove carefully but quickly toward the main road. The heavy weight of his family’s safety was still there, but as he shifted gears, he realised it felt just a fraction lighter, safely shared with the neighbour next door.