Dusk had fallen beyond the drizzle-spattered window which looked out onto the hospital car park. It felt like Aidan had been waiting for hours. He hadn’t seen or heard anything since they had wheeled Milly’s stretcher through a set of double doors and instructed him to wait in the corridor. Finally, he saw Callum and Jack running down the corridor towards him, with James who was carrying Milly’s pink scooter over his shoulder, trying to keep up with them. He had forgotten all about it with everything that had happened. The boys smacked into his body with full force, telling him that this wasn’t some awful nightmare that he was going to wake up from – this was real. He clung onto them, pulling them tightly into him. He was glad to feel the weight of their arms around him – they were the only things keeping him from sinking into the abyss.
‘How is she, Dad?’ Jack asked, his lips trembling.
Aidan shook his head. ‘I don’t know, nobody will tell me anything,’ he said angrily.
‘She’ll be okay,’ Callum reassured him. ‘I called Auntie G,’ he said. ‘She’ll tell Granny Aggie and Grandad Bill and Granny Sheila and Grandad Philip too.’
Aidan had totally forgotten to let them know with everything going on, but Callum had taken on the responsibility without needing to be told. Aidan looked at his son, who suddenly seemed to have matured overnight. When had that happened? Why hadn’t he noticed before now? Was it the events of recent months or was this the normal child to teenage transition? ‘Thanks, son,’ he said, feeling a surge of pride for the young man that Callum was growing into. Rowan would have been so proud of him.
‘Any update?’ James asked, placing the scooter down when he had caught up with them. He had the audacity to look shaken by what had happened, and Aidan felt his fists curl into tight balls at his side.
‘If anything happens to her…’ Aidan began pacing. His fear was multiplying, like mitosis, filling every part of him and sweat prickled his neck.
James reached out to put an arm around him but thought better of it and let it fall down by his side again. ‘Hey, she’s going to be okay.’
Aidan knew he was talking in platitudes, filling the air with empty words because he didn’t know what else to do. ‘She has to be. I can’t lose her too,’ he replied.
He sat down onto the bay of plastic chairs that were attached to the wall in the corridor and held his head in his hands. How were they back here at the hospital again? None of it made any sense. He thought of Milly’s daring smile just moments before she fell. Guilt wrapped itself around him like a python. Why didn’t he sprint faster? He should have spoken sterner to her. Ordered her to get down from the frame. What other parent would let their three-year old climb so high, let alone one that was only just recovering from a serious accident?
‘Here, thought you could use this,’ James said, handing him a coffee, bringing him back to the present. When Aidan looked up, he noticed that it was dark outside now and they sat under the bright glare of the artificial lights. Aidan hadn’t even realised James had left. Time seemed to have taken on an ethereal quality, the minutes seemed to stretch out forever until they all fudged together. He saw Callum and Jack were sipping hot chocolates on the chairs opposite him. They were watching something on Callum’s phone.
‘Thanks,’ Aidan exhaled heavily, clasping his hands around the cardboard cup but not drinking it. ‘When are they going to tell me how she is?’
‘It feels like she’s been in there forever,’ James agreed, taking a seat beside him as they both fell quiet.
Eventually there was a swish as the set of double doors opened and a nurse dressed in green scrubs with a plastic apron covering the front emerged.
Aidan stood up in front of her, blocking her path. ‘Can someone please tell me how Milly Whelan is?’ he demanded. ‘I’m her father.’
‘She’s having a CT scan at the moment, Mr Whelan,’
‘How long will that take?’
‘We’ll update you as soon as we can,’ she replied as she continued out past them, telling him nothing at all.
Aidan began pacing once more. He noticed that the hospital had grown quieter as visitors went home and patients bedded down for the night. Ward lights were dimmed, and voices grew softer. His watch told him it was after nine o’clock. Why the hell was it taking so long?
He walked down to the end of the corridor and he saw Helena was coming towards him in the distance. He realised James had probably called her. Her hair was wild and windswept, and raindrops glistened on her waterproof jacket.
‘Aidan, I’m so sorry – how is she doing?’ she said quickly as the words tumbled from her mouth.
He shook his head. ‘I don’t know, nobody will tell me anything.’
He led her back towards the others and James jumped up as soon as he saw her, running towards her, pulling her in close.
‘I got here as soon as I could,’ she announced breathlessly as they embraced one another.
Aidan felt a pang of regret as all the pain of his loss was stirred up fresh inside him. His missed his wife, no matter what had happened between them, he really wished she was by his side right then.
‘Why don’t I go see what I can find out,’ Helena offered, pulling away from James after a moment and looking at Aidan.
Aidan nodded.
‘Helena will be able to talk doctor to doctor, she might be able to find out something,’ James tried to assure him as they watched her heading back down the corridor. He placed a hand on his arm, but Aidan brushed him off.
After a few minutes, Helena returned shaking her head and Aidan’s heart sank. ‘I’m sorry, I tried my best, but nobody was able to tell me anything.’
She took a seat beside James on the bank of chairs opposite to where Aidan and the boys were sitting. They all sat in awkward silence, as they waited for news, punctuated only by the sounds of the overexaggerated shrieks of some YouTuber that they boys were watching.
Eventually a doctor in a white coat came towards him. He was a balding man, a little older than Aidan, with an open, friendly face. Aidan felt his breath stall as he tried to read his face for clues, but it gave nothing away. Aidan stood up on one side and James and Helena did the same opposite him.
‘Which one of you is the father of Milly Whelan?’ he asked, looking across the corridor at both men.
Aidan looked at James and James looked back at him as both men exchanged a look that said so much but told nothing of the pain they shared. He noticed Helena watching them both anxiously. Aidan felt his heart twist: how was the doctor to know the agony that such a seemingly innocuous question could cause?
The doctor was looking from one man to the other now, waiting for a response. ‘Which one of you is Mr Whelan?’ he repeated, with a note of impatience in his voice.
‘He is,’ James said after a beat.
‘I have good news for you, Mr Whelan,’ the doctor announced, directing his attention at Aidan. ‘The results of the scan show that although Milly has sustained a linear fracture on her skull, there is no bleeding or swelling on her brain. We’ve cleaned the wound and dressed it. We will keep her overnight for observation, just as a precaution, but we expect her to make a full recovery.’
‘Oh, thank God,’ Aidan broke down. ‘I-I thought I was going to lose her…’
‘She’s a lucky little lady. Not her first visit to hospital by all accounts… She’s down this way if you’d like to see her.’
The five of them hurried down the corridor after him and entered a ward.
‘Daddy!’ she called as soon as he rounded the corner of her bed.
She was awake. Aidan felt relief flooding through him. Her lispy voice was the sweetest sound, like birdsong on a crisp winter’s morning. ‘How are you feeling, love?’ He squeezed her hand tight. Aidan wanted to wrap her in cotton wool. Never let her more than a foot away from him again.
‘I have a big plaster on mine head.’ She raised her chubby hand to point to the bandage that surrounded her forehead.
‘That’s just your princess crown,’ Callum said, laughing.
‘Don’t do that to me again, you hear, no more climbing!’ Aidan warned through a mix of laughter and tears.
He noticed Helena and James hanging back at the door watching them.
‘Lena!’ Milly cried as she spotted her. ‘I was trying to be the itsy-bitsy spider, but I fallded.’
Helena smiled. ‘How are you, sweetheart?’ she asked, joining them at the bedside. ‘You gave everyone a fright. Let’s leave the climbing to the spiders from now on, yeah?’
‘I’m so glad she’s okay,’ James said, coming up beside Aidan.
Milly wrinkled her nose when she saw him standing beside them.
Aidan nodded as awkwardness charged the air between them. He felt himself stiffen; although he was grateful to James for looking after the boys, the matter of Milly’s paternity still loomed over them. What if James said something in front of the children? His head began throbbing, as the events of the day caught up with him.
‘I appreciate you taking the boys for me today,’ Aidan mumbled.
‘Don’t mention it, I’m just glad I could help…’
Aidan held his breath, waiting for something more; another blow or a dig was coming, he could feel it.
‘We… eh… better leave you guys to it,’ James said, looking at Helena after a minute.
The short-lived truce was over. Two men stood at Milly’s bedside, each claiming to be her father, but they both knew only one of them could be.