Page 26 of Lessons in Love at the Cornish Country Hospital

‘I’m so sorry.’ The wail that filled the air came from Chloe, but the pain in Wendy’s chest almost made it feel as though it had come from her. She held the younger woman’s hand, as Ravinder outlined the terrible results of the scan. The cyst on Chloe’s left ovary had suddenly increased dramatically in size, twisting it and cutting off the blood supply. They couldn’t be sure whether it had been a direct cause, but the blood supply to the placenta had been compromised and her baby had died. All of the young woman’s worst fears had come true and her anguish was unbearable. It was almost ten minutes before Ravinder could outline to Chloe what was going to happen next. It took that long for her to be able to stop sobbing, and Wendy held her the whole time, the front of her top soaked through with Chloe’s tears by the time she was able to cope with being told what would happen next.

‘Ovarian torsion requires emergency surgery and we’re preparing theatre for you now. We’re hoping we might be able to save your left ovary, but there’s a chance we may have to remove it if the blood supply has been cut off for too long.’

‘What about the baby? Will you take him out too?’ Chloe was gripping Wendy’s hand so tightly it hurt, but she was glad of the physical pain, it was almost a relief.

‘We wouldn’t if you weren’t already going under a general anaesthetic, but I think it would be best in this instance.’ Ravinder patted Chloe’s shoulder, and Wendy let go of the breath she hadn’t even known she was holding. The thought of Chloe having to give birth to her son after losing him was unbearable. Nothing could make this situation any better, but there were definitely things that could make it worse.

‘Will I be able to see him?’ The desperation in Chloe’s voice was breaking Wendy’s heart again and, when she stole a glance at Zara, her daughter was frantically wiping tears out of her eyes.

‘You will, but I think it would be best if we wait until afterwards for me to advise you whether I think it would be a good idea. I really am so sorry.’ Ravinder sounded like she meant every word, and as Chloe started crying again, it was echoed by Zara’s inability to stifle her own tears. This was agony for all of them, even Wendy. They had no idea where Mike was and she dreaded to think what he was doing. Now wasn’t the time to wonder whether Chloe would ever be able to forgive him, but one thing Wendy knew for certain was that she never would.

16

Wendy hadn’t known if she should stay at the hospital until Chloe came out of her operation, but there was still no sign of Mike, and Zara had begged her mother to wait with her. Alice was on her way too, having got a call from her younger sister. They both wanted to be there for their father’s fiancée, and yet the man himself was probably with another woman, either not knowing or not caring what Chloe had gone through. If someone had told Wendy when they’d first split up that she’d later discover Mike was still being unfaithful, despite having a beautiful and much younger partner, she’d have imagined that giving her some kind of satisfaction. After all, it meant that the cheating had nothing to do with her, or that she’d let herself go and only had herself to blame for him straying, as she’d feared at the time. Yet she felt nothing but anger and sadness that Mike was still up to his old tricks.

The young woman lying in bed recovering from major surgery was already broken by the loss of her son, and no one with an ounce of compassion could have taken any satisfaction from Mike’s absence. But the sadness she was feeling wasn’t just sympathy, or even empathy for another woman caught up in thesame web of lies she’d been caught in for so long. The pain was deeper than Wendy would ever have believed possible, and she’d needed to hide from Zara in the toilets so that she could sob until her chest ached. And the truth was she wasn’t just waiting for Chloe to come around from the operation for Zara’s sake, she was doing it because she couldn’t bear to leave her in the hospital and just walk away.

‘Mum, Chloe wants you to come in.’ Alice had arrived ten minutes earlier, and had exchanged a brief hug with Wendy before going in to join her sister at Chloe’s bedside. She’d been given another private room after being brought up from post-operative care, and she’d still been very woozy. They’d been told by the surgeon that the operation had gone well, but because of the amount of time the blood supply had been compromised and the extent of the torsion, Chloe had lost both her left ovary and fallopian tube. Zara had gone into the room to be with her as soon as she was brought back up, while Wendy waited outside, relief flooding her body when Alice had turned up to join her sister. She’d thought about going in with Zara, but she didn’t want to do anything to make Chloe feel uncomfortable. But Alice’s tone was insistent. ‘She wants to see the baby, but she says she can only do it if you’re in there with her.’

‘Me? Is there no one—’ Wendy stopped herself before she said any more. She already knew the answer to the question she’d been about to ask. Chloe didn’t have anyone else, at least not family. She might have had friends, but Mike had been quite skilled at encouraging Wendy to drop her own friends when they were together, to focus on friendships he could control – the wives and partners of his buddies, those same men, like Tony, who’d help him keep whatever secrets he chose to keep. There was a good chance he’d done the same to Chloe, and that was why there was no one else she could call on right now. Wendycould only imagine the desperation she felt to see her child, and to hold him.

One of the midwives, a woman called Jess, had come along to talk to the next of kin while Chloe was having her operation, which was a mantle Zara had been forced to adopt in her father’s absence. Jess had been so kind, and had explained that because Chloe was twenty-six weeks pregnant, the loss of her son was classed as a stillbirth and not a miscarriage. His birth could be registered as a result, and she’d said that could often give bereaved families comfort, knowing their baby’s life was recognised in that way. She also told them that there were a team of volunteers, from the Friends of St Piran’s, who knitted bonnets and blankets for babies like Chloe’s, and that a special memory box would be made with his hand and footprints. Jess had said that Chloe would be told all of this when she’d recovered sufficiently from the operation, and that the decision about whether to see her son would be down to her, but the memory box would be put together either way, because sometimes it was later – after the shock had receded a little bit – that parents desperately wanted those things to hang on to.

It was after the conversation with Jess that Wendy had needed to hide in the toilets, and she cried for a mother who’d never get the chance to see her son grow up, and the little boy who hadn’t even got to take his first breath. And if Chloe felt having Wendy there when she saw him would help in any way, then that was what she was going to do.

‘Okay.’ Wendy stood up and followed her daughter into the room, her heart breaking again as she looked at Chloe lying in the bed. She seemed even younger and more delicate than before, and the grief she was so obviously feeling was etched on her face in a way Wendy wasn’t sure could ever be erased. It hit home in a completely different way than it had before that Chloe was just a few years older than Wendy’s girls, yet she’dhad to face the worst thing imaginable without her partner or her parents. The thought of either of the girls going through something like that alone made Wendy’s chest ache, and the rage she felt towards Mike threatened to spill out. Alice and Zara had been forced to witness Chloe’s pain, and it was just one more thing Mike should have protected them from but had spectacularly failed to do. Far worse than that was what he’d done to Chloe, by failing to be there for her and their son at a time when nothing else should have mattered. Chloe was already scarred by the hand that life had dealt her, but Mike would probably never comprehend just what his absence had done to Chloe or his daughters, because he simply didn’t care.

‘Oh darling.’ It was all she could say, and instinctively she reached out towards the younger woman, who lurched forward, almost throwing herself into Wendy’s arms. Her sobs echoed in the room, just as they had when she’d been told he was gone, and it was all Wendy could do not to give in to tears again too. She had to remember this wasn’t her pain, even if it felt like she was far more involved than she was.

‘I should’ve done something, I should’ve known.’ Chloe’s words were muffled as she pressed her face into Wendy’s shoulder, but it did nothing to dull the torment within them. ‘I could have had an operation for the cyst, but I was worried it might put the baby at risk. I didn’t know what to do and when I tried to talk to Mike…’ She trailed off as sobs wracked her body again. Wendy knew now shewascapable of murder, with her bare hands if it came to it, and God help Mike when he finally turned up.

‘Remember what the doctor said. This was something they or you could never have anticipated. What happened is incredibly rare. The cyst was quite small and they can’t say why it suddenly increased so much in size, or even if that was why the placenta stopped working the way it should. I know it’s awful,sweetheart, but this isn’t your fault.None of it.’ She emphasised the last part. Mike wouldn’t feel guilty. He wasn’t capable of it, otherwise he couldn’t have lived the life he’d shared with either Wendy or Chloe. But another of his skills was managing to make other people feel like they should shoulder the blame for his behaviour. She didn’t even know if Chloe was taking in what she was saying, or whether she understood what Wendy was inferring, but she hoped the words would come back to Chloe when she needed them most.

‘I want to see him. To tell him I’m sorry and that I wish he could have stayed, but I don’t think I can face it on my own.’ Chloe pulled back slightly, her eyes sliding towards Zara and Alice. ‘And I don’t want the girls to see him until I’m sure he doesn’t look…’

It was just one more sentence Chloe couldn’t finish, and she didn’t need to. She might not get to hold a living, breathing baby in her arms, but she was a mother, and she would have been, even if she’d never been pregnant. She was already a mother to Alice and Zara in all the ways that really mattered, putting them first at the darkest time in her life. And an overwhelming surge of something that felt a lot like affection for Chloe welled up inside of Wendy.

‘I’ll go and find someone and ask them to bring him to you. The girls can wait in the hospital restaurant until you decide what you think is best.’ Wendy nodded as she spoke. This was a decision she was happy to leave entirely in Chloe’s hands. She trusted her to do what was best for Alice and Zara, and she’d go along with whatever decision she thought was right. The girls didn’t argue either, both of them seeming to understand that it was up to Chloe who got to see her son, and that the choices she made would be because she cared about them so much.

Wendy’s hands were shaking when Jess brought the baby into the room. He was wrapped in a blanket of purest white, his tiny face perfect beneath the knitted bonnet on his head, and his rosebud mouth slightly open, as if he might suddenly take in the breath they all wished he would.

‘He’s beautiful, Chloe.’ Wendy desperately tried to blink back yet more tears, as Jess put the baby in his mother’s arms, but she couldn’t and, when she looked up, she could see that Jess was crying too. It was only Chloe who had yet to shed a tear at the sight of her little boy. Instead, her face was a picture of awe, as she gently loosened the blanket to get a better look at her son. He couldn’t have been more than about eight inches long, like a tiny doll. But he really did look perfect; he’d just needed more time to grow.

‘He is beautiful, isn’t he?’ Chloe looked up at her for a second. ‘We were never sure about a name, we couldn’t agree on one, but I know what it should be now. I want to call him Beau.’

‘That’s lovely.’ It felt so strange, watching Chloe’s instant bond with the baby she’d never get to take home. It was still heartbreaking, but there was a beauty to the moment that Wendy would never have been able to describe to someone who wasn’t there. The bond she was witnessing couldn’t be broken by death; Beau would always be Chloe’s son, even when she couldn’t see him, or touch him, any more.

‘I think it would be okay for the girls to meet him, if that’s alright with you?’

‘You don’t need to ask my permission. Beau is their brother and you’re his mum, so whatever you think is right, is fine by me.’ Wendy put a hand on her shoulder and Chloe leant her headagainst it. There was something unspoken exchanged between them again. And when Wendy looked back on it later, she realised that was the moment they’d somehow become family, in a way that had absolutely nothing to do with Mike, and never would.

Wendy had always been proud of Alice and Zara, but never more so than on the day they met their little brother. They’d both decided to hold him, something Chloe had encouraged, and Wendy had done what she could by capturing as many photographs as possible. Mike had finally phoned Alice, with some utter rubbish about being in a valley with a no-signal area, but when he’d asked to speak to Chloe she’d shaken her head. Alice had told her father that Chloe wasn’t up to talking yet, and had relayed the message that he was on the way. He’d also pre-empted any conversation that might be coming about the discovery of his lie, by saying that Tony had been forced to pull out of the golf trip at the last minute, which was why Wendy hadn’t been able to reach him that way; a message that Alice had also passed on. What he didn’t know, was that Wendy had never told Chloe she’d tried, or that she’d discovered Mike was using his old friends to cover up his lies yet again. So, what he’d managed to do was to out himself with absolutely no help from his ex-wife. That was something else that Wendy might once have imagined would give her satisfaction, but just like before she’d been wrong about that too.

When Mike crashed through the doors almost ninety minutes after the phone call to Alice, he was panting like a marathon runner, his face a picture of devastation, until he spotted his ex-wife.

‘What the hell is she doing here?’ It was the first thing he said, before he even moved to comfort his fiancée, or noticed his son lying in the special cuddle cot, which allowed the parents of stillborn babies to keep their children with them for longer than they otherwise might.

‘Wendy brought me to the hospital, and she’s been by my side the whole time.’ There was a note of defiance in Chloe’s voice, and a strength in the look she gave Mike that Wendy had never seen from her before. ‘Thank God I found someone I could rely on, because I couldn’t rely on you.’

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