Emergency: A Marriage Worth Keeping

‘That’s not true.’ Sav shook his head, pushed away his half-eaten dinner then shook his head again. ‘The plan was that you were going to go back to work next year—’

‘No,’ Isla broke in, ‘the plan was, once the children were at school I’d start back at work.’ It was Isla pushing her plate away now, Isla who couldn’t face another morsel, Isla trying to raise another subject that was out of bounds. ‘And the children are at school now. It would have been next year if…’

He was standing up now, ready to stalk off to the study or the living room, to pick up the phone and ring the hospital and hopefully find out that he had to go in. And on any other night, Isla would have followed him in, finished what she was saying, tried to force the conversation, but tonight she let him go, tonight she just let him walk off, because quite simply she didn’t have the energy to scrape at the stony walls of silence he so forcibly erected.

Just couldn’t do this any more.

‘I’m going for a run after I’ve tidied the kitchen,’ she was shouting into the hallway as he stalked off, and Isla saw his shoulders stiffen, an almost questioning look on that inscrutable face as he turned around, her lack of response clearly not what he’d expected. ‘I’ll take my mobile. You can call me if the hospital rings and I’ll come straight back.’

Sav didn’t call. In fact, he didn’t even come out of the study when she arrived home a good hour later, and barely looked up when, drooping with exhaustion, she popped her head around the study door and said goodnight.

She should have fallen asleep. Only half an hour ago she’d barely been able to keep her eyes open, but the shower had woken her, her mind spinning with guilt as she lay in bed, scarcely able to fathom where she had been today, reeling in horror as she pictured Sav’s face if he ever found out, tears slipping into her hair as she imagined the devastation on Luke’s and Harry’s faces if they ever had to break it to them that Mummy and Daddy wouldn’t be living together any more.

‘Isla?’ Sav whispered it gently as he tiptoed into the bedroom and Isla recognized the low throaty, unvoiced question.

At first, when Casey had died, their love life had been put on hold. They had clung to each other through the long dark nights more out of fear than intimacy, guilt impinging on guilt whenever passion had taken over, as if somehow it had been wrong to feel pleasure, to indulge each other. But as their marriage had dissolved around them as the communication gates had slammed firmly closed, still, surprisingly perhaps, the passion had remained, the huge sexual attraction that had sparked on contact all those years ago still burning brightly, the one shining light in their marriage apart from the twins. It was the only time Sav let his guard down, the sweet, sweet release of their lovemaking almost addictive in its nature, everything else temporarily cast aside as passion took over.

But not tonight.

Yes, she was going to give her marriage all she had, but the physical side of it wasn’t the issue. The physical side of it was the only bit that didn’t need rescuing.

‘Isla.’ He said it again, and when she didn’t answer, Sav moved into the en suite and she lay there staring at his reflection in the dressing-table mirror, watching as Sav quietly undressed then leant over the sink to brush his teeth, the vivid raised scar on his back so red and angry it was easy to make out even from this distance.

How she longed to touch it, longed to run gentle fingers over it, to ask him how much it hurt, wincing as she imagined the gnarled metal from the car wreckage stabbing into his beautiful back, the intricate operation to remove it.

Closing her eyes as the light flicked off, she concentrated on keeping her breathing even, willed her hammering heart to slow down as he came across the room and pulled the sheet back, felt the indentation of the mattress as he climbed in. She waited for him to roll over, to turn his back to her, only he didn’t. This time a strong arm reached out in the darkness, his body spooning in beside her, his face burying itself in her hair and inhaling the unfamiliar citrus scent of the hairdresser’s shampoo. She could feel his arousal nudging into the backs of her thighs, his hand dusting over the curve of her bottom. She could feel the stirring of her own arousal somewhere deep inside, her body responding just as it always did, her nipples jutting to attention at the mere suggestion of his touch. And it hurt, physically hurt, not to respond, to lie there feigning sleep when every nerve, every pore screamed for his touch, when her mind begged for the balmy oblivion only Sav could bring. But she couldn’t do it, couldn’t make love to him given where she’d been today.

Couldn’t pretend any more, even for a little while, that everything was OK.

CHAPTER TWO (#u7969a1a8-fb96-50e0-8f17-742f38a13702)

‘YOU look nice, Mum!’ Luke, as blond and as sunny-natured as his mother had once been, smiled up from the table as Isla poured milk over his cereal, lisping the words through the huge gap where his four front teeth used to be.

‘It’s my new uniform,’ Isla answered, glancing down at the navy trousers and pale pink polo top, a far cry from the starched white dress that had been the order of the day seven years ago, the same white dress she’d worn on her occasional casual shift to keep her nursing registration up to date. And even though Luke was completely and utterly biased and thought that his mother, no matter how she looked, was absolutely gorgeous, this morning Isla half agreed with him.

She felt nice.

OK, the blonde silk curtain hadn’t survived her evening run and two showers, but she’d piled it high in a ponytail on her head, added a dash of rouge to her pale cheeks and, given it was her first day, had gone the whole hog and put on mascara and a slick of pale lipstick. The image that had greeted her when she’d stared in the mirror had for once been pleasing.

She looked thirty.

OK, most thirty-year-olds didn’t want to look thirty, but for Isla it was as if she’d knocked off a decade in one hit. The agony of the past months had left their mark. Her natural good looks seemed to have faded into the shadowy greys of grief—not that it had even entered her head as appearances were way down on her list of priorities when it was an effort just to breathe, a physical effort to prepare the twins’ lunches, to paint on a smile when she got up in the morning, the endless hours between four and seven when her grief was put on hold to give the twins the mother they needed. But finally, after all this time, despite the agony of her personal life the proverbial silver lining was if not shining through then glowing on the edges occasionally. The odd spontaneous laugh at something on television, even managing to listen without drifting off when her friend Louise banged on about the war against cellulite. Tiny milestones perhaps, but to Isla they were monumental—and now she was wearing make-up.

‘What do you think, Harry?’

Harry didn’t answer, his dark hair sticking up at all angles. He merely scowled into his cereal and carried on eating, a mini-version of his father in both looks and personality, though fortunately at this young age he was a lot easier to read than the larger version.

‘I’m only going to be working three days a week, Harry,’ Isla said, picking up her coffee cup and taking five minutes she really didn’t have this morning to sit down at the breakfast table. ‘Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays—and even on those days I’ll be finished in plenty of time to pick you up from school.’

‘But you’re not going to take us to school,’ Harry pointed out, managing somehow to load a simple statement with a hefty dose of guilt. Another wave of panic seemed to rush in. If even this small change to his routine was causing his little world to rock, what would it be like if—?

Not now!

Forcibly Isla pushed that thought out of her mind. There was enough to be dealt with this morning, without dwelling on the bigger picture.

‘But Daddy will take you!’ Isla responded in a falsely cheerful voice. ‘Won’t that be fun?’

‘Not if he has to go to work as well,’ Harry said accusingly. ‘Then we’ll have to go to Louise’s.’

‘You like going to Louise’s,’ Isla said, feeling as if her face might crack, and realizing suddenly that the words Daddy and Mummy were no longer in the twins’ vocabulary, another sign if she’d needed one that they were growing up fast.

‘I like going to Louise’s after school,’ Harry said with such a dry edge to his voice that Isla half expected Sav to look up from the cereal bowl. ‘I want you to take me.’

‘Harry, I can’t,’ Isla said firmly. ‘Because I have to work.’

‘Why?’

A perfect mum would have answered the eternal question, Isla thought, closing her eyes in exasperation. A perfect mum would have taken yet another five minutes out of an already rushed morning and come up with some impromptu speech about the merits of a work ethic, that even though they didn’t need the money, sick people still needed nurses and that even though Mummy loved him very much, Mummy had a brain that wasn’t quite stretched enough practising her serve at the local tennis club.

Only this perfect mum seemed to have hung up her apron strings, Isla thought darkly. How could she begin to explain to Harry the real truth? Not just about his parents’ marriage, but the long, lonely days rattling around a house that was too big, too empty without a little boy that should be getting ready to go to kinder now? Who could she tell, who would begin to understand the loneliness, the panic, the agony that gripped her when everyone had left? How she lay for hours on Casey’s bed, staring at the ceiling, trying to inhale his sweet pudgy scent, imagining those reddish curls on the pillow beside her, whispering stories into the air and praying he could hear…

‘Why?’ Harry asked again, and Isla took a deep breath, swallowed the tears that were always close and stood up. ‘Why do you have to go to work?’

‘Because I do, Harry.’

Not the best answer, but the best she could do today.

‘Will it be fun?’ Luke poured himself a glass of orange juice, and managed to get more on the table than in his glass. ‘Working with Dad?’

‘I guess, though I’m sure we’ll both be so busy that we’ll hardly see each other.’

Who was she kidding?

Loading up the dishwasher, not for the first time Isla questioned the wisdom of going to work alongside Sav, especially given the fact that in a few short weeks their marriage might be over, but it had been the only way to get back into nursing. There may well be an impossible shortage of nurses, but nothing had been done to make the shifts more parent-friendly. OK, there was a crèche at the hospital, but because Luke and Harry were way past that now, it didn’t help matters for Isla. Late shifts were out of the question—she could hardly land Louise with two boisterous twins for three evenings a week, and as for night shifts, with the amount of times Sav was called to the hospital in the small hours, it quite simply didn’t even merit a mention.

The emergency room had been the only department willing to offer her three early shifts, and, no doubt, the fact her husband was the consultant there had been an influencing factor. Still, Isla had consoled herself when she had accepted the job, there was a new hospital opening up nearby in a few weeks. Every time they drove past the once massive empty field, another wing seemed to have been put on. They were up to concreting the ambulance bay and according to the local paper they would be recruiting staff within a month. Once her foot was back in the door, once she was earning a wage and had her confidence back, she could put in an application there.

‘OK, I’m off.’ Kissing the boys, Isla forced another bright smile. ‘Dad’s just gone to get dressed and then he’ll be down.’

‘Mum?’ Harry’s single word stopped her in her tracks. She could almost hear the fear behind it, see the confusion in his guarded eyes as Isla threw her mental clock in the bin and walked back over to him. ‘Will it be fun? For Dad, I mean. Do you think you going to work with him will make him happier?’

Oh, God. If Sav heard this it would kill him, Isla thought with a stab of pain that was physical. He tried so hard to hide it, tried so hard to paint on a smile when the kids were around, but seeing the torture, the utter angst in Harry’s eyes only confirmed to Isla that change, however hard it might be at the time, was definitely needed.

This was affecting them all.

‘You make Daddy happy,’ Isla said softly. ‘You and Luke.’

‘And you!’ Luke chimed in, but there was a tiny wobble in his voice that didn’t bear thinking about.