Yet he wanted to make the move. He could, at least, admit that. He wanted to walk away from Pete and Lilybet and into the waiting arms of the woman he loved. She was his soulmate. They were in effect a single person cleaved in two by . . . who knew, really? Fate, a hopeless situation, his failure to act upon what he knew to be real and true? And while that failure didn’t need to define his future—or their future together—he couldn’t see a way to trigger events in his life so that they led ineluctably where he wished them to lead. Pete would never allow that to happen, and who could blame her?
She’d read him well enough to hire a helper, at least and at last. He was a retired male nurse called Robertson, who did not wish to spend his pension years becoming less and less useful to society. He was seventy-one, but in his case the seventies were the new forties. He spent his holidays walking various pilgrim trails in Europe—his favourite being the Rome-to-Santiago route, which he’d done an amazing three times—and his free time in England was dedicated to getting physically prepared for the next pilgrim walk. Mark felt like a sloth next to him.
Robertson was there days—to give Pietra a few hours of free time—so several of them passed before Mark actually met him. When he arrived on this particular evening, however, the bloke was still there, as there had been “a wee bit of a scare with baby girl’s breathing this afternoon,” as he put it. “I got to her directly the alarm sounded, but I haven’t liked to leave her without someone else here besides Mrs. Phinney.” Someone else meant Mark, and he was home later than usual. A new member had been assigned to his team—Detective Sergeant Jade Hopwood, she was called—and he’d been meeting with her each day’s end to bring her up to date on what had been either planned or achieved so far and to put her more fully into the picture of what they were trying to do next. She was a quick student—praise God—and she was equally good when it came to suggestions, but there remained many reports of actions to be gone through as well as much to discuss.
Mark asked Robertson at once about Lilybet’s breathing. What had happened? When? How?
Robertson’s reply was, “I’ll let the missus explain it.” Then with a glance at Lilybet’s room, he lowered his voice and went on. “Baby girl ought to see her specialist, though. This thing that happened? It came without warning. She was fine and then she wasn’t. She was breathing and then she wasn’t. Best have her checked.” And off he went, stopping at the front door to put on his hiking boots and to take up the walking poles he used to keep his arms in shape.
Mark went to Lilybet’s room. Pete was sitting on the bed with her, her arm round their little girl’s thin shoulders, Lilybet’s head on Pete’s breast. Both of them had their eyes closed. Only Pete opened hers when he entered.
“Robertson told you?” She paused to clear her throat. “For a moment I thought we’d lost her.”
“Did you ring 999?”
“I did, but you know how it is. They take so long. By the time they arrived, we’d resolved everything, Robertson and I. But Mark, she was turning . . . Her lips were going purple.” Her eyes brightened with tears as she spoke.
“Robertson says she should see the specialist.”
“What good would that do? She’ll say what she always says. ‘Her system’s compromised. In a situation this grave, she needs round-the-clock care.’ Anything can happen, she’ll say. Choking, suffocation, a stroke, an aneurism, cardiac arrest. But, he’ll add, the worst can still be avoided if she’s put into a care home with full-time medical staff.”
Mark looked at Lilybet, her head lolling against her mother. The television on the opposite wall was showing one of the Frozen films. The sound was muted. Only the bright colours remained. If her eyes were open, he wondered, would the vibrant hues be enough to stimulate her brain? Could her brain even be stimulated? Was Pete spending her life—these vital years—attempting to scale a mountain that could not be scaled?
“She might do,” he said to his wife. “But one way or another, we should take Lily to see her. Someone needs to assess her after she’s had an incident.”
“Assess her for what? Brain damage?” she asked derisively.
“You know what I mean, Pete.”
“I don’t want to hear the words another time.”
“What words?”
“The ‘put her away’ words. The ‘no one will blame you for making a decision like that about her care’ words. As if I’m worried about being blamed. As if I’m desperate to hand her over to someone who’ll put her in a bed in a ward and check on her three times a day so that I can be relieved of a burden, carefree, able to . . . I don’t know . . . go to a gym? Learn to play golf? Start swimming again? Have my hair styled monthly? Play tennis? Study French? This is my child, Mark. This is our little girl.”