‘Again! Again!’ Milly cried out.
‘Okay then… Itsy bitsy spider climbed up the water spout…’ Helena sang as she walked her fingers up the child’s pudgy arm pretending to be the spider. She had come in earlier to sit with her while Aidan attended the funeral. James was resting in his room on the floor below; he was exhausted after a gruelling rehabilitation session with the physiotherapist that morning. ‘Down came the rain and washed the spider out. Out came the sun and dried up all the rain and the itsy bitsy spider climbed up the spout again.’ When she reached the top of her arm, she tickled Milly beneath her armpit and she convulsed into a fit of giggles. It was the sweetest sound. After everything that had happened over the last few days, Helena couldn’t help but be buoyed up by it.
The blood transfusion seemed to have worked. She had taken Milly’s chart from the holder at the end of her bed and had a look over it. She saw that her blood counts had normalised and it was evident by the longer periods she was spending awake that her playful energy was starting to return.
‘Lena?’ Milly asked in her lispy voice. ‘Did you know that baby spiders are called spiderlings?’
Helena laughed. ‘I’ll tell you a secret, I’m a doctor and people think we are very clever, but I didn’t know that.’
‘Mama says I’m the smartest girl in the whole world.’
‘Well, she’s right,’ Helena agreed, feeling her heart twist at the mention of her mother. Aidan still hadn’t told her that she was dead. Although she had done a module in medical school on how to approach breaking bad news to people, she still couldn’t imagine how Aidan would ever find the words that would crush this little girl’s world.
Milly grinned back at her and used a chubby hand to push her fringe out of her eyes.
This child was so smart and joyous, so precious. It was hard not to look at her and wonder if she and James had had a daughter, if this was what she might have been like. She had assumed that Milly took after Rowan, with her sallow-skin and dark glossy hair, but James was dark too. As she had played with the child, she had noticed that Milly’s eyes were the same cornflower blue shade as James’s too.
Stop it, she warned herself. Lots of people had blue eyes. Was she seeing a resemblance because that was what she wanted to see?
Had Rowan known? she wondered. Had she suspected that there was a chance, even a small one, that Milly was not Aidan’s child? Or had the thought not crossed her mind at all? Was that why she had contacted James out of the blue, was that what she had wanted to tell him that morning? Perhaps she knew that there was a possibility but had chosen not to dwell on it. Some people could bury their head in the sand and block out things like that, but not Helena, something like this was an itch she had to scratch. She knew she thought about things far more deeply than most people; it was a personality trait that sometimes drove James mad, but that was just the way she was, which is why she had to know if Milly was James’s daughter.
‘Be the spider, Lena,’ Milly begged again, so she pretended to be the spider once more until Milly was breathless with laughter at the end of it.
‘Do you need a sip of water, sweetheart?’ Helena asked. She didn’t want to tire her out. She was conscious that Milly was still quite weak. She had been awake for over two hours now; Helena knew it was the longest period she had spent awake since she had been in the hospital and she didn’t want her overdoing it.
‘Yes, pease, Lena.’
Helena guided the plastic cup and straw towards her mouth and Milly took a sip.
‘When is my daddy coming back?’ she asked.
Helena looked at her watch. She guessed the mass was probably over at this stage and the burial would be taking place round about now. ‘He’ll be back very soon,’ she promised.
‘Mama never comes to see me,’ she said sadly. ‘I don’t know where she went. When I was in the car, I was calling her, but she didn’t come.’ Her whole face was screwed up with confusion.
Helena froze. ‘You were calling her in the car, sweetheart?’ she prompted gently. She didn’t want any traumatic memories that the child might have from the crash to resurface.
Milly nodded her head solemnly. ‘After the big scary bang. I was really scare-ded and my arm was really owwee and I was crying for my mama, but nobody could hear me.’
Helena felt a huge pang of emotion. How scared must she have been? This poor little mite had witnessed horrors that nobody should ever have to. She suddenly felt a rush of protectiveness towards this small girl and everything that she had been through. ‘It’s okay, sweetheart, you’re safe now,’ she said, stroking her hand. She imagined that this must be what it was like to be a parent and feel a primal instinct to protect your child from the world’s pain.
Milly sighed and fell back against the pillows. ‘Me tired, Lena.’
‘Well you get some rest, you’ve had a busy day today.’ She brushed the child’s hair back off her face and Milly closed her eyes, where a network of tiny blue veins ran along just underneath the surface. She stroked the smooth skin of her forehead that felt like silk beneath her fingertips. Helena watched as her breathing began to slow as her body relaxed. Was this how it felt to stroke your child’s skin ever so gently in feather-light, tracing movements until they finally gave into sleep, Helena wondered, or to watch the shallow rise and fall of your child’s chest as they drew breath into those ever so tiny lungs? All these intimate moments of parenthood that she would never get to experience.
Helena closed her own eyes. She allowed herself to imagine what it would be like if Milly was her child – just for a second – just to know how it would feel. She silenced the part of her brain that told her this was wrong. She just wanted to know the true depths of all she was missing out on. She had been through a lot as well. She may not have lost as much as Aidan, but she was also grieving – she was grieving for her lost dreams and her chance to be a mother. Was it really so bad if she briefly indulged herself and tried to forget all the heartache?
Suddenly she felt another presence in the room and she quickly opened her eyes, feeling guilt flood through her. What the hell was she playing at? She shouldn’t be doing things like this, especially after everything that had happened over the last few days and her realisation that her husband might be this darling girl’s biological father. It wasn’t fair to Aidan. She took her hand away from Milly’s face and sat back in her chair as if she had been slapped.
‘She’s out for the count again,’ the nurse, who Helena knew was called Sandra, said nodding in Milly’s direction.
‘She was awake for two hours, so that’s progress,’ Helena said, sitting up straight.
‘I didn’t see her daddy here today?’ the nurse enquired, lifting her chart and flicking through it.
‘He was in earlier, he’s at the funeral now.’
‘Ah, I see… It’s just desperate,’ Sandra said as she replaced the chart and began to carry out her checks. ‘I see that poor man sitting here day after day, your heart would break looking at him. His whole life turned upside-down like that in a split second.’ She shook her head. ‘It’s terrible. It makes you appreciate everything you have. You get one chance to live your life with no regrets.’
When she was finished, she retreated out of the room and left Helena alone with Milly once more. Sandra’s words were ringing in her ears. You get one chance to live your life with no regrets. If the crash had taught her anything it was that life was too short – it could all change on a sixpence. She felt like a failure for being the reason she and James couldn’t have a child, but maybe he already had one and he didn’t even know it? If Milly was his biological child, was it fair to deny him that? Perhaps they had a chance – a slim shot – at parenthood… well James anyway. It felt agonisingly close. It was in touching distance if she was brave enough to discover more. She had even thought about contacting Aidan’s GP to see if they would allow her access to his medical records so she could confirm his blood type, but she knew if she was caught violating data protection laws, it would have serious consequences for her career. Her head was in a spin. She felt tormented by the knowledge. At least if Milly wasn’t James’s daughter, she could put this out of her head and forget all about it, but at the moment, the secret was there, teasing her, tantalising her mind with silly fantasies.
It was then that she saw it: Milly’s toothbrush was sitting in a glass on her bedside table. She could take the toothbrush, nobody would notice it was gone and if they did, they would just assume it had gone walkabout somewhere. She could do a DNA test. Nobody would ever need to know. She was probably way off the mark about James being Milly’s father, but at least then, if the results showed that he wasn’t, she could put her mind at ease and forget all about this craziness. The way her mind was right now wasn’t healthy for anyone.
She stood up and walked over to the glove dispenser and snapped on a pair of latex gloves. She felt grubby for what she was about to do, but she needed to know the truth. She removed the toothbrush from the glass and took another glove from the dispenser and wrapped it around the brush-head to protect it, before putting it into her handbag.