Page 70 of A Wedding in a Week

Marc and I follow Lukas again, who says, “The highest risk of death is on-scene or immediately post-injury, and Noah’s already made it through both, so there’s room to be optimistic. The trauma team will know a lot more once they have the post-surgery imaging.”

I see Noah then. Of course, I’ve seen him before in photos over the years, but it’s only here with white sheets as a contrast that I see the same bright beacon as Marc’s in real life, if only for a moment. The team around Noah parts, making room for the only next of kin who’s raced here for him, and Marc joins them.

That leaves me with Lukas, and I’m not sure of when I last held his hand—when we were kids, maybe?

No.

We’d worn black the last time. Now he wears a lanyard as if he works here.

“Noah will be okay, yeah?”

“He’s in the best possible place.” That would sound like a platitude if his hand didn’t tighten around mine. “That’s why I mentioned this team in my uni application, Stef. Why I’m trying out for a summer spot shadowing here. It’s the busiest cardiac unit in the country. Non-stop emergency cases.”

That sounds the opposite of him resting up or taking it easy with a girlfriend. He squeezes my hand as if he sees my confusion.

“I was going to tell you and Mum as soon as I heard if I got it.” He looks about to say more when we’re joined by a consultant. Her gaze is another sharp blade, honed and pointed like her questions. She fires them as fast as bullets, and I have no clue what a pseudoaneurysm is, or what mitral valve insufficiency means, or what the treatment protocols would be for either if Noah is found to have them.

She straightens her own lanyard while Lukas answers. Mrs. Abeke Destiny is printed on it, which makes sense once I read the rest. Surgeons don’t use the title doctor, not even cardiac ones, and that’s what her lanyard states as her specialism.

If this heart expert is who Lukas has been having dates with, they must have all been right here in this building, his answers sound so certain.

“Good attempt.” She allows a split-second flash of a smile. “But in this case, the imaging doesn’t suggest either.”

She returns to the bed, speaking with Marc. I can’t hear what she tells him. I’m only aware that Lukas finds my hand with his one more time, his grip tight again, but it’s my voice that comes out strangled.

“Does that mean he’ll be okay?”

Lukas sounds choked too, but he’s measured, and I’d tell him who he reminds me of if he didn’t speak first.

“It means we’ll need to wait and see.”

But that’s okay.

If I have to wait, I’m glad it’s with my brother.

25

It takes three days for Noah to turn a corner. Four days for healing to take over from bare survival. Five for his cardiac consultant to say, “Good. Move him out.”

Mrs. Destiny is a woman of few words, but that’s enough to set wheels in motion to lead Noah in a new, more hopeful direction. Lukas shows us where he’ll be headed, walking with us to Noah’s next location. “He’ll be in a side room on this ward.” He rests a hand on the small of Marc’s back, his fingers brushing mine, which are there already. “He’s been incredibly lucky.”

Marc shakes his head, speechless like he’s been so often between police questioning and social-worker encounters since we got here, so I speak for him. “What’s next?”

“A few more days of close observation.” Lukas rattles off more medical terms and potential procedures, using language we’re all fluent in now. We walk through a ward full of babies, their parents learning to speak it from their children’s very first days, and my heart goes out to them because, fuck me, I’ve ploughed some tough furrows over the years, but the parents of these infants? Theirs is surely tougher.

This ward is also a reminder that Noah might be fifteen but he’s far from an adult. A toddler waves through the bars of a crib, alone like Noah had been when someone knifed him—like Marc was so often, as well—and Lukas waves back. In fact, many parents wave too, their frowns melting, and Lukas explains why.

“It helps the parents here to know I’ve been through it. That there isn’t only bare-minimum survival ahead for their kids. That it’s good their children’s issues have been caught early, although that’s got to be hard for families to believe when they’re in the middle of it.”

I nod because dread combined with waiting for the worst to happen feels second nature. I’ve had years of fucking practice.

“But their kids can do much more than survive, like I did. There’s little they can’t do later in life if they’re supported instead of smothered.”

Lukas isn’t speaking to me. This is aimed in Marc’s direction, but I finally—finally—hear my brother.

“You should talk to some of them while you’re here, Marc. They’ll tell you that you can’t stay this tightly wound forever, expecting the worst to happen. You just can’t. It only keeps you locked into negative thinking. I know it doesn’t look it, but the future’s bright for Noah if he keeps responding this well.”

He repeats what he’s said to me so often. “Believe that he can be okay, Marc. That he can flourish like I got a second chance to.” His next glance lands on me. “Planting him somewhere different might help Noah to do that even faster.”

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