Chapter Forty-three
As Sylvie strode swiftly through the open doors of the minor injuries unit her heart was in her mouth again.
She meant what she had said; life could turn on a sixpence and she promised a prayer that if Sam was all right, then she would stop taking things for granted and be a lot more grateful for the good she had in her life.
If Sam was all right she would make sure she was always kind to everyone, properly kind, not just slapdash like she was now.
She didn’t want to promise to be a saint because that would be an out-and-out fail but she was going to be the best person she could be and she was going to take every opportunity to tell the people she cared about how much she loved them.
She’d ring Tom for a start in the morning and tell him how she appreciated him having her at the farm for so long.
And that he should hurry up and get a ring on Julie’s finger.
And then she would stop being scared and…
‘Hello, hi, I’m Sylvie Williams and I believe you’ve got my son, Sam Williams, here. Can you tell me anything? Is he OK? Can I see him?’ Reaching the desk meant her promises for the future got overtaken by the need to know now about her son.
‘Oh yes, hello, Sam’s mum. We knew you’d be coming.
Although your friend who rang ahead to let us know was a little …
um… unusual. However, the important thing is that Sam is here, he’s all good, ready to go home almost, sprained wrist but otherwise looking all OK.
We’re just waiting for a couple of things to come back and then the doctor will come find you, but it shouldn’t be long.
He’s a real daredevil, your boy, from all accounts. ’
Sylvie heard herself laugh. It sounded slightly hysterical but then she figured she probably was, and that was fine.
For here, in front of her, was a medical professional reassuring her that all was as Rosy had said.
Everything was OK. Sam was OK. Now she was going to have to make good on those promises.
She just needed to see him with her own eyes, hold him in her arms and possibly never let him go.
‘Can I see him? Is he just around there?’
She indicated past the nurse to the bays behind her that stretched down the corridor. She had been to this hospital more than once over the past few years.
‘Yes, love, just follow the giggles. Your boy hasn’t stopped laughing since he arrived, a real breath of fresh air, and your husband, I know I shouldn’t say but – phew.
He’s caused a flutter or two, I can tell you!
Not often you get drop-dead gorgeous, attentive and good with kids. You’ve hit the jackpot there!’
‘Oh no, he’s…’ Sylvie didn’t get a chance to finish her sentence as the doors swung open and a trolley was wheeled in, a paramedic astride a patient doing CPR, and the nurse rushed from the desk shouting emergency medical codes that Sylvie didn’t understand but was truly grateful for an NHS staffed by people who did.
She wandered down the corridor, fears about having to pull back curtains and disturb people dissipating as she realized the nurse was right – she could hear the giggles of Sam and Ellie and Alex from here.
She rounded the corner and her heart smiled as she saw her boy, all curled up in the crook of Alex’s arm and chuckling away as Ellie did some kind of dance in front of him, shimmying her hips whilst shouting, ‘I say, Rufus darling, that’s really not how people like us behave.’
Alex was wiping tears from his face whilst holding on to her son as tight as tight could be and Sylvie realized, in that moment, that her family wasn’t just Sam.
Or indeed Sam with Tom on the periphery.
But her family, her core family, was this – Sam, this man and his daughter.
These three people here in front of her right now, these were the people she wanted to be her family for ever.
All she had to do was put her head above the parapet, find the courage and tell them.