Page 25 of Lessons in Love at the Cornish Country Hospital

‘If she’s as bad as you say, I’ll take her to the hospital myself.’ Wendy gently extricated herself from her daughter’s embrace. ‘But try not to worry. There are a lot of reasons she might be having pain and it doesn’t necessarily mean she’s losing the baby.’

‘I think that’s why Chloe doesn’t want to go to the hospital. If she gets there and they tell her she’s lost him, I don’t think she’ll cope.’ Zara shivered and Wendy nodded. Her daughter shouldn’t have had to witness this, and if Mike had answered his bloody phone neither of them would be here, but all they could do was their best to help Chloe until they could track him down.

‘I’ll speak to her and make her understand she needs to do this.’ Wendy took her daughter’s hand, and followed her down the hallway and into the sitting room where Chloe was curled up on the sofa, with her knees drawn up to her chest, still crying andin obvious pain. Something inside of Wendy stirred, and it was almost as if it was one of her own daughters lying there.

‘Oh sweetheart, what’s going on?’ Crouching by the sofa, Wendy pushed Chloe’s hair away from her forehead.

‘The pain is so bad, it’s feels like something is crushing my insides on the right-hand side of my groin. It started off as a dull ache, but it’s got worse and worse.’ She looked at Wendy, her eyes filled with fear. ‘I’m losing him, aren’t I?’

‘I really hope not, but we need to get you to hospital, so they can take a look at you both.’

‘I can’t bear to hear them tell me he’s gone.’ Chloe buried her face in the cushion and when Wendy put a hand on her shoulder, it felt rigid with tension.

‘It might not be that, it could be the cyst, and the sooner you get seen the better it’ll be for you and the baby. The ambulance will probably take a while, but I can drive you in.’ She kept her voice level and did the best she could to sound hopeful, but this amount of abdominal pain in a pregnant woman was terrifying to witness, and she could only begin to imagine how scary it was to experience.

Chloe turned to look at Wendy again. ‘Only if you promise you’ll stay with me until Mike arrives.’

‘I promise.’ It was an easy commitment to make in the end, and she told herself it was because she’d do the same for anyone in that kind of distress, even a total stranger. But the truth was she felt something more for Chloe than just passing sympathy. She wouldn’t have been able to define what that was if her life depended on it, but it was there all the same.

Chloe had been sick at least three times on the fifteen-minute journey to the hospital, and Wendy had questioned whether they should have waited for the ambulance, but once they were on the road she wasn’t going to stop driving. When she’d run upstairs to try and find Chloe some bits to take into the hospital, she’d asked Zara to phone the ambulance again for an update, and they’d said at least another hour. They couldn’t just sit around and wait. Wendy parked as close as she could to the entrance to A&E, without blocking access for the ambulances, but she couldn’t have cared less if she got fined a month’s wages for parking there. All that mattered was getting Chloe the help she needed. Wendy had debated whether to take her straight to the maternity department, but she had no idea if it was a pregnancy-related issue or not, and her money was still on the ovarian cyst. Either way, she figured that the emergency department were best placed to deal with it, and she didn’t want to delay Chloe getting seen by someone who could help her for a second longer than she had to.

Thankfully, the first people Wendy had spotted when she’d burst through the doors of the emergency department had been Amy and Isla, who’d rushed out with a trolley to bring Chloe inside. Taking Zara to the relatives’ room, Wendy had said she wanted to get them both a drink, while they waited to hear when they could see Chloe, but the truth was she wanted to see if she could reach Mike. Whatever the reason for his fiancée’s pain, he needed to be here, and Wendy was ready to tell him that in no uncertain terms. When she tried her ex-husband’s number, she wasn’t surprised that it went straight to voicemail, but she had something else she could try.

‘Alright, Wend. I didn’t expect to see your number flash up on my phone.’ Tony Poston had been Mike’s best friend since they were at primary school together, and they’d been as thick asthieves in the five decades since, which was why Alice and Zara had always called him Uncle Tony.

‘Me neither, but I’m trying to get hold of Mike.Urgently.’ She was in no mood for small talk, and Tony and his wife Vanessa had made it perfectly clear whose team they were on over the years, but especially since the divorce.

‘I can’t help you there.’

‘Really?’ She tried and failed to keep the irritation out of her voice. ‘Only I was told he was playing golf with you.’

Tony laughed. ‘Christ! This is even more of a blast from the past. I thought the days of me bullshitting you to cover for Mike were long gone, but apparently not. I’ve got no idea where he is, but he’s not with me. Just don’t tell Chloe.’

Tony laughed again, and if Wendy had been face to face with him, she’d have landed a punch right on his nose. She was so angry, but the rage she felt had nothing to do with all the times Mike’s best friend had lied to her; it was entirely reserved for what the pair of them were putting his fiancée through. ‘Well maybe you’d better try and find out where he is, because I’m with Chloe in the hospital. She’s in agony and she might be losing the baby. So, tell that selfish bastard you’re always so willing to defend to get his arse to St Piran’s now, or I swear to God I won’t be responsible for my actions.’

‘You’re joking.’ Tony sounded shocked, but Wendy still felt like punching him.

‘Even a moron like you must know I’m not joking about something like that.’ Wendy cut off the call before Tony could answer. The adrenaline that was pumping through her was making it feel as though her veins were closer to the surface than they had been before. She had no idea how she’d react if Mike suddenly turned up, but she wasn’t entirely sure she wouldn’t be capable of murder.

Despite the warmth of the room, Wendy was still shivering as she grasped the hot chocolate between her hands. Stealing a glance across the room, she noticed Zara shiver too. Neither of them could relax and every time there was the sound of footsteps in the corridor outside, Wendy held her breath, but no one had come in yet. And then came the knock on the door.

‘How are you doing?’ Esther gave a half-smile as she walked into the room and it was all Wendy could do not to cry, but she gave a small shrug instead, and glanced towards her daughter.

‘We’re just worried about Chloe.’

‘She’s been sent for a scan and she’s on an IV because we’re concerned about dehydration and we also wanted to be able to give her stronger painkillers, but Chloe asked if you can go in there to be with her before they give her the results of the scan. I can stay with Zara if you want?’

‘No!’ Zara’s response seemed to echo in the room, and Wendy looked at her daughter. She had more right to be with Chloe than Wendy did, and if the news was bad, she was probably better placed to comfort her soon-to-be stepmother than Wendy was.

‘If Chloe’s okay with us both being there, I am too. I’ve tried to get hold of my ex-husband, because he’s the one who should really be here, but I haven’t had any luck.’

‘I think she’s going to need a friendly face.’ The downturn of Esther’s mouth would have said it all, even if Wendy hadn’t picked up on the implication of her words. Whatever the news was, it wasn’t going to be good.

Chloe had been moved into a private room after her scan. She was hooked up to an IV as Esther had said, but there was no foetal heart monitor and the last shred of hope that Wendy had been holding on to drifted away. Chloe was ashen and she flinched when they came into the room, like a dog that expected to be beaten.

‘Thank you for being here. I couldn’t look at the screen while they were scanning me and I told them I didn’t want to know what they’d seen until I had you with me, but I’m sure they’d have said if everything was okay.’ She whispered the words to Wendy, her eyes filling with tears as she spoke. Chloe shouldn’t have needed to be grateful to her partner’s ex-wife for being there in her hour of need, but Mike had left her with no choice. Wendy knew that might not make him the worst person in the world, but it made him the worst person in hers. She’d tried so hard not to hate him after the way their marriage had ended, for the girls’ sake if nothing else, but there was no denying how she felt about him now. She’d wasted so much time thinking that Mike leaving had destroyed their chances of having a perfect family life, and wishing that things could be different. When the truth was he’d been hellbent on destroying their chances of being a happy family right from the start. He was too selfish to put anyone but himself first; he’d let them down over and over, and yet she’d still spent years convincing herself that holding their family together was better for the girls than the alternative. What a fool she’d been, but she couldn’t bear that Mike was making a fool of Chloe too, and hatred wasn’t a strong enough word for him any more. She couldn’t focus on that right now, though; the energy those feelings took up was needed elsewhere.

‘It’s okay, sweetheart.’ Wendy had stopped seeing Chloe her rival in any way, and all she cared about now was that somehow she’d survive this. But looking at the fragile young woman, who’d already told her she had no one to rely on, she was terrified this might be the final straw. When Ravinder Parvid, one of the consultant obstetricians, came into the room and introduced herself, less than two minutes after Wendy and Zara had got there, her expression made Wendy’s heart feel as though it had hit the floor. Ravinder took a deep breath and then said the words none of them wanted to hear.

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