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CHAPTER TWO

‘ABBIE...’

She knew it was Rafael well before she turned to face him. It had always been unique, the way he said her name. It wasn’t just the Italian accent or the smooth, deep voice. It was the subtle note of...wonder, almost. Or reverence? As if she was the most wonderful woman on earth and that made her name special, too.

Unique. One of a kind. Like Rafe.

Abbie braced herself, as she turned, for the first sight of her husband in what suddenly seemed a vast amount of time.

Three months.

But, at this moment, it felt like three years.

What would she see in his face? The joy of knowing she’d brought his daughter back to him? Anger that had burned away to leave a residue of resentment?

Echoes of the unbearable pain she’d seen before she’d turned her back and defiantly taken Ella away from him?

When she had turned and found herself facing Rafael with only a few feet between them, Abbie had to brace herself all over again.

How could she have forgotten the effect this man had on her? It was so much more than purely physical. More than emotional, even. It was a visceral thing. She was facing the part of her own being that had been torn free.

It stole her breath away. Made her heart stammer and trip.

‘Rafe...’

Abbie tried to smile but it wasn’t going to happen. Her lips simply wouldn’t co-operate. She could only stare, drinking in this first glimpse, anxiously scanning his body and face to try and collect her impressions.

Dear Lord, but he looked so tired. As though he hadn’t slept well for weeks. As though he hadn’t even shaved for more than a day or two. He hadn’t had a haircut for a while either, and... Had he just come straight from his stint in Theatre? Black curls were flattened in places and still looked damp with sweat. Were his scrubs a size larger than he usually wore or had he lost weight?

Yes. He looked exhausted. And wary but not angry.

He looked...

Wonderful.

Tall and commanding and every bit as gorgeous as the first time she had laid eyes on him. Despite everything, Abbie could feel a curl of sensation deep in her abdomen as her body responded to being this close to him, but this overwhelming awareness wasn’t anything as simple as physical attraction.

They knew each other so well. On so many levels. They made up two halves of a whole.

They loved each other.

At least, they had.

If only Rafael would smile. Or step closer. Hold his arms open so that she could fall into an embrace that would magically erase the pain they’d caused each other and make everything all right again.

But he wasn’t moving. He seemed to be staring back at her with a mirror image of her intense scrutiny of him.

‘How are you, Abbie?’

‘I’m...’ The word ‘fine’ tried to form on her lips but it wasn’t true. Abbie didn’t feel fine at all. She felt overwhelmed and unsure. ‘I’m...okay. A bit tired. It’s been a big day.’

A big twelve weeks.

A traumatic journey that she’d had to take alone. Abbie swallowed hard as she felt the hurt coalesce into the shape of the painful rock inside her chest that she’d lived with for so long now. ‘And you? How are you, Rafe?’

‘I’m...also okay...I think.’ The familiar gesture as Rafael raked his hair with his fingers made the rock shift a little and sent a painful shaft through Abbie’s heart. He was as overwhelmed as she was with this reunion. Unsure of what to say. Or do. ‘I...wasn’t expecting this. It’s...’

‘Sudden, I know.’ This was weird. To feel the hurt this man had caused her and yet to feel so much compassion for him at the same time. ‘I would have let you know sooner but it...just happened.’

He didn’t believe her and Abbie could understand that. The possibility of sending Ella back to her home town to continue her recuperation had only been talked about in the last few days. She was still fragile. How much organisation had been needed to send a sick baby to another country?

‘They only started to make enquiries first thing this morning. And things just fell into place. There was space available on a flight and a bed here at the Lighthouse and they didn’t have to arrange a medical escort. And...when her results came through later, looking so good, Dr Goldstein just looked at me and smiled and he said...he said, “How ’bout it, Mom? Would you like to go home today?” And...’

And Abbie’s voice was shaking now. Could she tell him that the first thing she’d thought at that point had been how badly she’d wanted to see him again? That the picture in her head of Rafael holding his baby daughter again and seeing how much better she looked had filled her heart with so much longing that it had felt like it might burst?

No. She couldn’t tell him because he had started speaking himself. She had to stop saying anything. Rafael had to repeat his question.

‘What results? What were the tests?’

Did it matter? This was a doctor talking, not a father. Was he still that distant? This was what had caused their separation in the first place, wasn’t it? The way he could remove himself from the emotional involvement of being a parent. To step back and see the bigger picture through a professional lens. To decide that the quality of what would be a very short life was more important than the desperation to keep your own child alive as long as humanly possible.

‘They took a bone-marrow biopsy yesterday. And bloods. We already knew she’d got through the dangerous cytokine release syndrome that the treatment caused. What we didn’t know was whether the T cell therapy was really working.’

‘And...’ It looked as though Rafael was having to swallow a large lump in his throat, judging by the way the muscles in his jaw and neck were working. ‘It’s looking good?’

That was more like it. The doctor would want the exact figures. A copy of the test results, like the one Abbie had ready for him in her bag. But for a father? Knowing that the results were good would be enough to create such a wash of relief and hope for the future that the numbers were irrelevant.

Abbie nodded. It took a moment to trust her voice. ‘She still needs protection for her immune system and she’ll need another bone-marrow biopsy at the three-month mark but...’ She took a deep breath as she blinked back tears. ‘It’s looking good, Rafe. As good as I hoped it would. The treatment’s worked.’

* * *

As good as she’d hoped?

The choice of pronoun pushed him away. Just as Rafael had been about to pull Abbie into his arms so that they could celebrate this miraculous milestone together as Ella’s parents.

To rush into the room they were standing outside and see for himself that Ella wasn’t the critically ill baby she’d been the last time he’d seen her.

But it was true. He deserved to be dismissed as having been one of the hopeful parents. As soon as Abbie had heard about the experimental treatment that took T cells from the blood and reengineered them in a laboratory so that they could be put back into the body to find and kill the cancerous leukaemia cells, the hope had been born on her side.

All Rafael had been able to see had been how experimental the treatment was. That the success rates with adults had not been consistent and it had never been tried in a baby. That the risks were enormous and going through with the treatment would only cause so much more suffering that would probably still end in Ella’s death. And he’d been right. The new T cells had caused an illness that had come within a heartbeat of killing Ella. She’d hovered between life and death in a paediatric intensive-care unit for weeks.

And he should have been there but he hadn’t been able to bring himself to travel so far in order to watch his baby die. And, yes...even though it shamed him to admit it, part of what had kept him here had been that it seemed like a fitting punishment for Abbie for taking his beloved child away from him.

So much pain. On both sides.

What would Abbie do if he tried to take her in his arms right now? Push him away? Flinch?

He couldn’t bear it if that happened.

But somehow he had to try and find a way to bridge this awful gap between them.

‘It’s been so long, Abbie. So...hard...’

So hard. It had been a nightmare ever since their precious baby had hit the headlines at becoming one of the rare cases of ALL being diagnosed at such an early age. Gruelling months of chemotherapy that had failed to produce remission, let alone a cure. And having them both disappear from his life had only plunged him deeper into his personal hell, especially in the wake of the fights over whether it was the right thing to do.

Missing his wife every day but being so angry at the way she’d made things so much worse. Missing his child with an ache that had gone even deeper than his bones. Sleepless nights and days waiting for the phone call that would deliver the dreaded news that the battle had been lost. Days when a fierce focus on his work had been the only thing that had kept him sane.

He heard the way Abbie’s breath left her lungs in an incredulous huff. The pain he could see in her eyes hit him like a physical blow.

‘How would you know, Rafe? You weren’t there.’

Would they ever be able to get past this?

‘I’m here now.’ His voice sounded as raw as it felt. ‘Isn’t that enough?’

Abbie just stared at him for the longest time. He could see her lips tremble as her hands gripped the opposite arms, crossed over her breasts as if she was defending her heart.

‘No,’ she whispered. ‘I don’t think it is.’ She took a ragged, inward breath. ‘We...needed you, Rafe. And you...you weren’t there.’

Dio, but this was hard. Did they have to go through it all again? Every impassioned fight? He’d never felt this tired in his life.

‘You know why.’

‘Yes.’ Abbie’s voice was tight. ‘I know why. But I still don’t understand. How could you not be there if you really love someone?’ There were tears on her face now but Rafael couldn’t move to brush them away. He’d lost the right to offer comfort because he’d caused the pain.

‘You weren’t there,’ Abbie said again. ‘For me or Ella. And...and it was awful, Rafe... You have no idea....’

‘That’s not true.’ He couldn’t help the hard edge that made the words clipped. But it seemed like they did have to go over the old ground just to get to a place where they could talk to each other again. ‘I have a very good idea. That’s why I didn’t want you to go. To put Ella through that.’

Flashes of pain from other, long-ago cases were never far away. Especially cases like little Freddie.... Years ago, now, but it was still an effort to push the memory of that particular little boy away. Rafael had started in paediatric oncology determined to beat death for those innocent children but he’d learned the hard way that there had to be limits. That fighting too hard could only make things worse for everyone involved. Including the surgeon. He’d had to leave the specialty in the end because the toll it had taken on him personally had been too great.

‘And if I hadn’t, we wouldn’t be here now. Ella wouldn’t still be alive.’

‘No...’ The word was a weary sigh.

This was also true. And suddenly nothing else mattered. Ella was still alive. She was in the room right beside him. He couldn’t stay out here a moment longer. Taking a step closer to the door brought him a step closer to Abbie, but she moved a little. And now Rafael could see through the window of the room.

He could see Ella.

Sitting in a cot and playing happily with a toy.

A toy he recognised. Called Ears. A soft pink rabbit with disproportionately long legs and ears. A silly toy he’d bought when she’d first been sick and been admitted here, which had fast become her ‘cuddly.’

Ella was holding Ears in one hand as she knelt in the cot and then pulled herself up using the side of the cot. He could see the nasal prongs supplying oxygen taped to her face and one arm was bandaged, keeping the IV line that went to the port beneath her collarbone safe from being tugged. It didn’t stop her getting to her feet, though.

Dio...she was strong enough to stand?

It didn’t stop Ears being dropped over the side of the cot either, but Ella didn’t burst into instant tears, like most children her age would. She just looked down at the floor and then up, perfectly confident that help would not be far away.

And then Rafael could really see her face for the first time. Those big, dark eyes were looking straight at him.

For a long, long moment they stared at each other. Rafael could remember the first time he’d held this baby and the overwhelming need to protect her. He could remember the feel of her downy skin. The smell of her when she’d been freshly bathed and fed. The sound of her voice when she’d been learning her own baby language.

But would she remember anything at all about him?

It seemed that she did. Her eyes got even bigger and those rosebud lips curled and curved into a smile. And Ella held up her little arms, which was enough to make her lose her balance and sit down on her padded bottom with a thump, but she was still smiling.

Still holding out her arms to her father.

And nothing else mattered.

Without even another glance at Abbie, Rafael rushed into the room.

* * *

Abbie stood and watched through the window.

It had been only a few minutes since she’d been doing exactly this, watching to see if Ella would be happy for a few minutes while she went to... What had she been going to do? Go to the bathroom? Make a coffee in the staffroom?

Whatever her intention had been, she’d forgotten it the moment she’d heard Rafael call her name and she’d had to brace herself for their reunion.

And now it was over.

They’d seen each other again. They’d talked.

But had anything been resolved?

If anything, Abbie felt more unsure than before.

Slow tears were leaking from her eyes and rolling down the side of her nose as she watched Rafael gather up his daughter into his arms and press his cheek against the top of her head. He had his eyes closed so he couldn’t see that she was watching. And...oh, God...did he have tears tracing the edge of his nose, too? No...Rafael would never cry. But if he ever did, his face would look exactly the way it did right now.

The love he had for his daughter was almost as palpable as the wall Abbie had to reach out and touch for support.

He’d never expected to be able to hold her again, had he?

Or to see her smile. To hear that noise she made when she was really happy—a kind of cross between cooing and giggling that sounded like water going out of a sink.

Being a plughole, they’d called it. Ella’s being a plughole, they’d tell each other and then they’d both hold each other’s gaze and smile because they knew it was such a happy noise and it had been such a rare thing amongst the pain and sickness. Those poignant smiles and the silent communication of eye contact had been moments of connection that had given them strength to go on. That had made them feel that sharing this heartbreaking journey was making their relationship stronger. But, in the end, like it did so often with this kind of unimaginable stress, it had torn them apart.

Yes. Rafael still adored his daughter. She could see him rocking her now and hear his voice as he spoke rapidly in Italian. She caught the word fiorella. Ella’s proper name. His little flower. And he was singing now. Softly. Still in Italian. Stroking the odd patches of wispy hair on Ella’s head so gently. It was one of the things she loved about this man, that he could be so passionate. So demonstrative.

And for a moment when he’d been out here with her, he’d looked as if he still loved her like that, too.

Just before he’d stupidly said how hard it had been for him.

He hadn’t been there. Hadn’t sat for countless hours amongst the bank of monitors in the intensive-care unit, wondering if each breath Ella took would be her last.

Maybe she shouldn’t have taken the bait and reignited the old conflict but...it still hurt, dammit.

It wasn’t going to just go away by itself.

Being together in the same place wasn’t enough because it felt like there was no common ground between them.

Or if there was, the only person inhabiting it was a baby called Ella.