The Wish. Alex Brown

rely on you any more and haven’t been able to for a long time.’

      ‘OK, fair enough. But you could have told me when I came to see you and Holly. Why didn’t you? Or were you in too much of a rush to go out?’

      ‘That’s not fair! I wasn’t in a rush. It’s like I said before, you can’t just turn up and …’ She paused, and Sam heard her take a deep breath, as if bracing herself for more conflict. But he didn’t want to fight. And he was beginning to wonder if calling had been a good idea. All he seemed to be doing was antagonising her further. ‘Anyway, it’s tricky to talk about in front of Holly,’ Chrissie cut into his thoughts. ‘You know how she is when it comes to the diabetes … it’s hardly her favourite topic of conversation.’

      Sam fell silent, knowing that his anger was misplaced. It was his anger at Holly’s condition that was making him snappy. He’d always struggled with it … the sadness and frustration at his little girl getting such a raw deal and there being nothing he could do about it. He’d often wished that he could take the diabetes away and have it himself instead of her … he would gladly have done so without a moment’s hesitation.

      He swallowed hard and tried again, keen to turn the phone call around.

      ‘I’m sorry, Chris, I’m not blaming you. I’m really not …’

      ‘Well, our feelings don’t matter right now.’ Her barriers had gone back up. ‘I just need to be on the ball for Holly.’

      ‘We do … we need to be on the ball, Chris,’ he reminded her.

      ‘I know what I meant,’ she retorted, sharply.

      Sam felt the situation slipping away from him again. A familiar feeling of being at sea, where the tide dragged him out, his limbs flailing against the strong current as he desperately tried to swim back to the shore and onto steadier ground.

      ‘So what happens now?’ he asked, still battling the surging tide inside his head as he also tried to come up with a solution to fix everything.

      ‘I …’ Chrissie started, and then corrected herself, ‘We … just have to wait for the test results … And, in the meantime, we keep a close eye on Holly.’

      *

      ‘There you go, love. Sit yourself up over here.’ Back at Dolly’s cottage, Sam settled into the cosy patchwork-covered armchair next to Beryl, aka the buttercup-yellow Aga, as Dolly handed him a cup of tea and a plate with a very large and delicious-looking homemade slice of Victoria sponge heaped upon it. ‘You look shattered. That’ll be all that tramping out and about through the sprawling grounds on the Blackwood Estate.’ She tutted and shook her head. ‘Never mind, you’ll get a bit of time off work soon enough for the annual May Fair on the bank holiday. That reminds me, will Chrissie and Holly be coming over this year for Holly’s birthday tea? Only, I didn’t want to assume … not with everything that has gone on. And I was wondering about Tony, well, and Jude too, now that she’s back home. I know he’s been coming to us for years on all the special occasions like Christmas, bank holidays and birthdays, what with him being on his own … and he was friends with your dad so it’s always been lovely having a bit of a reminisce over the years. But with Jude being Chrissie’s friend, it might be a bit awkward if she isn’t coming and …’ Dolly paused to ponder on the situation, creasing her forehead and fiddling with her silvery grey hair. ‘Maybe I’ll get in all the ingredients for a lovely afternoon tea in any case, and then at least we’ll be properly prepared whatever happens. Holly has been talking about wanting to do afternoon tea for ages … I think it’s quite the rage these days with the young girls. We could have scones with jam and cream, diabetic options of course! And sausage rolls, dainty sandwiches, mini-quiches – and she was showing me rainbow candyfloss on that YouTube film show too … but that might be full of sugar. Oh well, I’d best get planning …’ She stopped talking suddenly and gave her grandson’s shoulder a reassuring squeeze. ‘Oh dear, I’m sorry son, I let myself get carried away without a second thought to how you might be feeling about the state of things between you and Chrissie …’

      Sam took a gulp of the tea as a distraction. But it was no use; he couldn’t stop his left eyelid from twitching as he desperately willed the scratchiness in the back of his throat to bugger off. Jesus, what on earth was wrong with him? He felt like crying he was that miserable, which was unlike him. Usually he was pretty good at going with the flow, trusting that the good stuff will win out, but with Holly it was completely different. He didn’t think he would ever forget the diagnosis of Type 1 Diabetes. The feeling of ice in his stomach and the lurch in his chest as the doctor in the hospital delivered the devastating bombshell that would change Holly’s life forever.

      He knew it was from his side of the family. Sam’s dad, Rob, had been diabetic, and that was why Holly had it – hereditary factors, the doctor had said. Their daughter would be insulin-dependent for the rest of her life. The doctor had talked on, the words barely registering in Sam’s mind, saying stuff like ‘developments in research are moving so fast’ and ‘there are now more efficient ways to manage the illness’. But all he could think of were the complications that could happen, the stress on her organs and the rest of her body, the things that could go wrong.

      His father, Rob, had been a brilliant bloke, whom Sam had thought the world of, the best dad ever, but it still broke Sam’s heart that he had been taken too soon. Sam had been just a boy, younger than Holly was now, when his dad had died, and he had never really come to terms with losing him. He wished his dad was still around, so that he could turn to him now. Rob had always seemed to know the right thing to say.

      And Rob had always been there. Sam certainly had no memory of his dad ever going away, not for a weekend, or even to a football match followed by a night in the pub with his mates; he wasn’t that type of bloke. Family first – that had been one of his mottos. So unlike his mother, Linda, who would give Cruella De Vil a run for her money. Yes, Sam’s dad had been the type of man who had done everything he could for his family. Wasn’t that what Sam had been trying to do: be the provider, the man who looked after his family? Just like Rob had.

      And the look in Chrissie’s eyes when they got the news sitting there in the doctor’s office at the hospital. Blame. Written all over her face. She didn’t say anything, of course, but that was what she must have been feeling. She had still been unable to make eye contact with him when the doctor had sat back in his chair, made a steeple with his fingers and observed that, ‘An earlier diagnosis would have been advantageous.’

      Sam knew, knew deep down, that he should have considered it a possibility earlier. He should have realised what was wrong as soon as Holly got ill – the tummy aches, the headaches, the getting up in the night to go to the loo, and then her being too tired to go to school the next day, being thirsty all the time. Until Holly experienced her first hypo, he had passed off her getting up in the night as messing around, assuming she was angling for a day off school to hang out down by the river in Violet Wood, just like he had done at her age. If he had been more vigilant, then maybe Chrissie wouldn’t have felt so let down.

      If Sam had been on the ball, had involved himself more in Holly’s care, in the day-to-day minutiae of their family life, instead of burying his head in the sand and thinking mostly about himself and his work, then maybe he would have spotted it. Not maybe – yes, he would have spotted it. But he didn’t. He hadn’t been there when he should have been; hadn’t seen the warning signs, so that was his fault too.

      ‘Want to talk about it?’ Dolly asked gently, sinking down into the chair opposite him. Sam took a deep breath, sighed it out and stared into his tea as he pushed a big wedge of jammy sponge into his mouth. ‘Better out than in,’ she coaxed, in direct contrast to the sponge cake, which was very much better in than out, Sam mused miserably as he savoured the comforting sweetness. ‘Come on, let it all out, love – why didn’t you come back before now, you know … to sort things out?’

      Sam put the mug and plate on the side before pushing a hand through his hair. ‘I wish I could explain it, Gran. But after Holly was diagnosed, I just felt like I was in the way. Chrissie seemed to have it all