Page 74 of A Wedding in a Week

Kids heal so much faster than adults. It’s true. Just ask my elbow, which still twinges after what must be over six weeks. Lukas finds a PT who shakes her head at my sling and sets exercises that make my eyes water for a whole new reason. Noah, on the other hand, is healing fast enough to cause a different kind of trouble.

He sets off heart monitor alarms each time he’s restless, but Lukas seems happy with his progress, and now that he’s impressed Mrs. Destiny enough to score a coveted summer spot under her wing, I’ve learned to trust his heart-health insight.

Lukas is less happy about Marc. I hear that in a rare show of whispered worry. “He really doesn’t need to stay up all night watching Noah.” He points at the equipment array at the head of Noah’s bed. “You can hear how sensitive the monitors are.” He also points across the hallway. “And his room is directly opposite the nurses’ station for a reason. Marc doesn’t need to be here twenty-four-seven, and neither do you. He’s stable and improving. That means you can both take some time to rest now.”

“We have been. You saw us.” I tap the arm of the recliner.

“That’s not resting, Stef, and that’s what you both need. Real rest, not catnaps.” His eye contact is frank. “I’m not kidding. You two have been existing. Now you need to get back to living. That means getting some solid sleep and some solid time together to think, and to discuss what’s coming.”

He says what I haven’t wanted to acknowledge, not while Noah’s life balanced on a knife-edge. Now it doesn’t, so I need to face what my brother spells out.

“Having a loved one in critical care is like stopping a clock. Like being in suspended animation. Normal life stops existing. You know that. But it’s still out there.” He points out the window where buildings go on forever, barely anything green in view. There isn’t a lush ribbon of farmland hemmed by moorland or sea here. We’re walled in by an ocean of concrete. It’s as hard-hitting as what he tells me. “You’ll have to leave this bubble soon.”

This serious version of Lukas crouching beside me almost makes me miss his pixie iteration. It also makes pride swell, and I wish Mum could witness what a seed she and Dad planted has grown into.

“Stef, you need to know that the immediate danger has passed but there’s still a long haul ahead. It’s going to be weeks yet before he’s home, and deciding where that will be isn’t going to be quick or easy, not with the police and Social Services involved. He needs safeguarding, but not by you.” He studies a boy I’ve had intense days to watch over—to hope and pray for—but who doesn’t know or need me, not like he needs his brother. My own brother says, “You can’t watch over him here forever.”

I can’t. But I also know Marc will want to until Noah’s future is settled, and Lukas is right, we do need to talk about that.

Marc and I make a start much later that evening, on the way to a South Kensington address.

The walk takes us away from that concrete view and thundering traffic, bringing us to quieter tree-lined streets where we pass townhouses that must cost millions. Jack was right about it taking less than ten minutes, and yet the duke’s London home is a whole world away from where we’ve come from.

Marc keeps looking back over his shoulder until I say, “He’ll be okay.”

He faces me outside a glossy front door, watching me take out a key before slowly nodding. He isn’t convinced though. I know him well enough to see it, so I pause before turning the key in the lock. “We can go back to the ward, Marc.”

“When?”

“Now, if you want, or in an hour, after some dinner. We could even wait until later and swoop in before Lukas arrives to stay overnight with Noah.”

“He doesn’t have to sit with him all night.” Marc looks over his shoulder again. “I should be there with him.” And here comes what Lukas mentioned earlier while crouching beside that recliner. “But you don’t have to stay too.”

“I know that.” There’s no have to about it for me. “I want to.”

“I know you do. I just mean that you need to get back to the farm.” That’s less easy to refute, and he knows it. “People have helped, Stef. They’ll keep helping, but the second cut is due, and that’s a lot to ask when everyone will have their own pastures to cut and bale. And that’s only the tip of an iceberg at this time of the year. It’s too much to leave any longer.”

He’s right. There are a hundred and one farm tasks stacking up while we’ve been in a bubble. It pops the moment he says, “You should be there, at home.” He looks back again, his voice fainter. “Like I should have been here before Noah was stabbed.”

There are plenty of reasons why he wasn’t, not least parents who kept him at a distance. I offer another. “But you were in Cornwall helping me when it happened, so let me return the favour. Or at least let Lukas by sitting with Noah for the evening?”

I also catch his chin and cup it, and for all that Marc looks like his younger brother, his stubble is rough enough to strike a match on. It prickles my palm, and something else I haven’t had time or headspace for tingles at the feeling, dry kindling waiting to crackle, only I defy anyone to feel desire where we’ve just come from. Hospitals are too full of worry. Full of caring as well, which I hope he hears in my repeated promise.

“We’ll go back to the ward right away, if you want.” I slide in what Lukas told me, and I can never let him know how right he’s been lately, not without his head swelling, but this advice is bang on. “Just know that you being too exhausted to make decisions won’t make Noah recover any faster.”

Here’s another clear sign of what Lukas mentioned: Marc’s response is delayed, his thinking dial-up slow instead of its usual high-speed broadband connection. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that now Noah has turned a corner, you’ll need to be wide awake. For him, Marc. To speak up for him.” I use a word Carl Lawson must have told me. “To advocate for him.” I picture Marc holding a shield between his brother and more disaster, and I know how much energy it takes to be that person. Lately, I’ve also learned how to drop mine. “So how about you let Lukas take the night shift like he offered?”

“He’s already done—”

“Enough?” I ask quietly beside a front door, offering another shield for Marc, at least for one night. “You think Lukas has already done his work, so he deserves a night off?”

Marc nods in the shadow of this townhouse.

I shake my head. “Lukas could say the same applies to you, Marc. Plus, you’re his best friend and he’s off work all day tomorrow. Plenty of time for him to rest then, so let him help you tonight.”

It’s a version of what so many people have told me, but telling never works, does it? I try my best to show him.

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