Chapter 53
NEW YORK LOWER MANHATTAN HOSPITAL
Gabriella was pacing. Back and forth over the tiles, up the corridor then back to the Christmas tree in the reception area, repeat.
She checked her watch. It was almost thirty minutes since she had arrived here, yelling for help, Phoebe screaming in pain, a nurse arriving fast and asking questions she only had some of the answers to.
What was taking so long? Surely someone could come and tell her something so she didn’t have this sickening feeling in the pit of her stomach.
People were looking at her as she headed towards the Christmas tree again.
People with injuries waiting for their turn with the medical staff.
She knew she should sit down, take a breath, manifest a positive outcome but all she could feel was a sickening sense of some kind of déjà vu.
And it was all her fault. She about-turned, headed up the corridor again and at that very second the nurse who had come to the initial rescue was walking her way.
Gabriella upped her pace, trying to read the expression on the nurse’s face, heart thumping.
‘Everything’s fine,’ the nurse said as Gabriella got to her, rolling up like a ball of pure anxiety.
It would have been easy to release the taut breath burning her insides, but she needed to be certain. ‘You’re sure?’ Gabriella asked.
The nurse smiled, kindly, caring, then she put a hand on Gabriella’s shoulder. ‘Everything is OK. You can come and see Phoebe now.’
Finally Gabriella let the air whizz from her lungs and with it went her balance. She reached out, found the wall with her fingertips. A flashback of another hospital corridor in another time, an outcome that hadn’t been favourable. Where was the air in here?
‘Hey, hey, breathe in now,’ the nurse said, supporting Gabriella until she finally began to gain control of herself.
She drew in a breath and let it fill her lungs, stabilising.
Ella-Bella, everything is OK. Phoebe is OK. It wasn’t your fault. With Lulu’s voice in her head she stood up straight and regrouped.
‘Come on,’ the nurse said. ‘I’ll take you in.’
A few minutes later, Gabriella was pushing open the door to the room Phoebe was in and greeted her niece with a big smile.
‘So, the good news is,’ Gabriella began, ‘the doctor has prescribed chocolate. Apparently it’s the only complete cure.’ Gabriella hastened towards the bed. ‘How are you feeling?’
‘I’m fine,’ Phoebe replied softly.
She wasn’t fine. She was sitting up on a trolley bed.
Her face looked red from crying and the skin around her eyes looked angry and sore.
The whites of her eyes were pink and Gabriella felt a piercing stab of guilt.
This was on her. She had been the one to act first and ask questions later.
She was the one who had sprayed the perfume at the would-be kidnapper only to get Phoebe full in the face instead.
‘Phoebe, I am so, so sorry,’ Gabriella said, pulling a chair up to the bedside. ‘I should have assessed the situation first. I should have stopped and asked questions but you were speaking Russian and Russian is our go-to language for dire situations.’
‘Or it’s the language you use when you’re giving directions to a Russian tourist and trying to do a good thing.’
Yes. Apparently it was also that. Because the man with Phoebe, the one Gabriella had set upon with all the ferocity of a lioness protecting her cub had been an innocent visitor to New York City, not someone about to human traffic her niece…
‘I did tell you to stay where I could see you,’ Gabriella stated. ‘I was worried.’
‘You overreacted,’ Phoebe said. ‘And nearly blinded me.’
She swallowed. ‘But your eyes are OK? The nurse said that—’
‘They are going to be sore for a few days and blurry but they’re going to give me some eye drops. I just have to wait here for them and then we can go. They said it would have been worse if I hadn’t had my glasses on.’
‘OK,’ Gabriella said, taking a breath. ‘OK, good.’
‘So, what happens next?’ Phoebe asked.
‘What d’you mean?’
‘I mean Cheyenne is going to be pissed you left the book signing.’
‘Probably.’
‘Definitely.’
‘Well, some things are more important. We talked about this over doughnuts,’ Gabriella reminded her.
‘We talked about some things,’ Phoebe said. ‘But we didn’t talk about lots of other things that are more important.’
‘Like what?’
‘Like how you talk to Mum most nights when you think I’m not listening.’
Gabriella swallowed and felt a wave of heat roll over her, a sensation somewhere between embarrassment and shame. She toyed with the edge of the sheet on Phoebe’s bed.
‘I talk to her too,’ Phoebe said.
Gabriella looked up. ‘Really?’
‘Yes,’ Phoebe said. ‘Because there are things I want to tell her. And I don’t see why I can’t tell her just because she isn’t here physically anymore.’
Luca had said something so similar and it replayed like a sad echo. ‘You know that you can talk to me, right?’ Gabriella said. ‘About anything.’
‘I know that,’ Phoebe said. ‘And I do. But sometimes I just want to talk to my mum and… sometimes you just want to talk to your sister, don’t you?’
Gabriella nodded, emotion knotting in her throat. ‘Yeah.’
‘So,’ Phoebe continued. ‘Does she talk back to you? I mean, I know she can’t talk back but… do you hear her voice?’
Gabriella swallowed. ‘Do you?’
‘I asked you first.’
She had asked her first and Gabriella needed to do two things now. She needed to remember that she was the grown-up and that opening up to Phoebe like this was the beginning of tentatively unlocking a joint vulnerability.
‘Yes,’ Gabriella said, nodding. ‘I hear her voice.’
Phoebe nodded back, a smile on her face. ‘Me too. And it’s so clear and the things she says are things that she would say.’
Gabriella smiled. ‘Yes, it’s the same for me.’
‘I like it,’ Phoebe said with a soft sigh. ‘Even though I know it’s really just my thoughts, it feels real. Like when I told you that sometimes I feel she’s still with us.’
‘Well,’ Gabriella said. ‘Maybe in a way she is.’ She took a breath and held one of Phoebe’s hands in hers. ‘Because of all the memories we shared with her. There were so many fun ones even when times were difficult.’
Phoebe nodded. ‘Like when she threw paint over my dad’s car and then jumped on the roof and danced in the paint and pretended to be Shakira.’
‘Your dad went mad,’ Gabriella reminded.
‘He was always mad about something,’ Phoebe said. ‘I’m glad he moved away.’
‘Do you ever feel like contacting him?’ Gabriella asked. ‘Because if you do, we can and—’
Phoebe shook her head. ‘We’re not the same.’
‘People don’t need to be the same to get along.’
‘But if one person is nice and the other person is horrible, that’s a problem.’
Gabriella couldn’t disagree. She smiled. ‘I think that’s exactly how your mum felt about him in the end.’
‘And probably the beginning too,’ Phoebe said. ‘If she was honest with herself. I think she only stayed with him so long because of me.’
‘She would have done anything for you,’ Gabriella said, nodding.
Phoebe sighed. ‘I know she loved me, but there was one thing she didn’t do for me.’
‘What?’ Gabriella asked, squeezing her hand.
‘She didn’t stay.’
And as sadness and grief filled Gabriella’s heart at Phoebe’s statement, she leaned in, attempting to draw her close. ‘I know,’ she whispered. ‘But, you know, that wasn’t her choice. It was an—’
‘Please, Gabriella,’ Phoebe broke in, pulling away as her voice cracked a little. ‘Don’t say it was an accident.’
Gabriella’s heart stalled. ‘What?’
‘Don’t you think it’s time we started telling the truth?’ Phoebe asked. ‘To everybody.’
Gabriella lifted her head and went to say something else, anything else to make this conversation better. Then she remembered what Phoebe had said to her before. Stop papering over the cracks.
‘Gabriella,’ Phoebe said, eyes now not looking like they were watering from the perfume incident.
‘I know Mum had depression. Everyone knows she had depression. But I also know that what happened to Mum that night wasn’t an accident like Grandmama tells her friends and the reporters who turn up.
’ She sighed. ‘I know that whatever happened on the edge of the balcony, she put herself there because she wanted to be there… because she couldn’t face anything else anymore. ’
Before Gabriella really realised it there were tears spilling from her own eyes as if someone had opened up a dam of emotions that had been stockaded for as long as she could remember.
‘And I think that not speaking about it makes it feel shameful,’ Phoebe continued. ‘And it’s nothing to be ashamed of, is it?’ She paused for a second.
Gabriella shook her head. ‘No, of course not.’
‘So perhaps the next book, if there is a next book, it should just be more honest,’ Phoebe said. ‘Not perfumes or new green covers, just real life. All the bits of it.’
And, as the tears continued to fall from their eyes, Gabriella realised exactly what she had to do. If anyone needed to give zero fucks now, it was her.