Emergency: Wife Lost and Found. Carol Marinelli

warming unit was on—a large inflated duvet, that would help maintain her temperature, and she looked tiny beneath it with just her head and shoulders visible.

      He’d wanted this moment with her, would have pulled rank or just stormed his way in to get it, only now it was here, James didn’t know what to do, didn’t know what she’d want him to do.

      A chair had been placed by the bed so he perched on it. Angela took over from the float nurse who had been watching Lorna and now she sat, high up on a stool at the end of the bed, reading all the equipment and filling in the charts, watching Lorna every second, which was what Intensive Care was, after all, but he’d have killed for just a couple of minutes alone with her.

      ‘She’s the most private person.’ James glanced over at Angela. ‘I mean, she’d really hate all this. I know anyone would, but…’ He was rambling, really didn’t know what to do. Her collar bones were exposed so he pulled the warming unit up higher around her neck. She’d always been slim but she was skinny now. As Angela exposed her arms to check her reflexes he could see the veins, see her neat, short nails which, unlike her toes, were left unpolished.

      ‘Here.’ Angela left one skinny forearm out from under the warming unit. “Why don’t you hold her hand, tell her that you’re here? It might be reassuring for her to hear a familiar voice.’ He hadn’t held Lorna’s hand in ten years and he didn’t know if he should, but when he did her hand felt cool, but that was how she had always felt. He stared at the bony fingers and the blue veins on the back of her hand and the smattering of freckles that he had adored but she had so hated.

      ‘She was always cold.’ He was talking to Angela but looking at Lorna. ‘She’d come in after a night shift and she’d be frozen.’ Now he was remembering things that he had chosen not to, those freezing winter mornings when she’d climb into bed beside him as cold as the ice outside, or when he’d crawl into bed beside her at 7 a.m., cold himself to find her for once warm. He wanted to warm her now, wanted to crawl into bed and hold her, feel her again. Only he couldn’t, hadn’t been able to for a decade now.

      What to do, what to do? His head was spinning. She’d left him, would she even want him sitting beside her now?

      Yes.

      Accidents did happen—James Morrell knew that better than anyone, but for her to be here when she was so very ill… His head tightened at the thought that she might die, or be brain damaged, but somehow there must be a reason that she was here. Somehow she had come back to him, even if it was just to say goodbye.

      He was holding her hand to his face now and it was like a dam breaking. Feeling her skin beneath his lips he leant over, buried his face in her hair, inhaled the last wisps of the lavender shampoo she had always used, felt her cheekbone rest beneath his.

      For a second he thought someone must have died in the next bed, because he could hear crying—a deep, pained crying. It was only when he felt a hand on his shoulder that James realised it was him.

      ‘Talk to her, James.’ Angela must have gone and got May, because it was her at his shoulder, urging him to say what he had to while he had this chance. So he did—told Lorna all the things he’d wanted to say, all the things he never had, told her over and over in the pathetic hope that maybe she could hear him.

      ‘Her family just arrived.’ Ages later, but way too soon, May prompted him to move. ‘They’ve asked that you leave.’

      He’d worked in Emergency for years and had never understood it—those flashpoint rows that were so out of place in a hospital, rows that infuriated the staff and prompted review panels to be set up to avoid them. But seeing that smug face come towards him, seeing the beatific smile of Minister McClelland as he approached him, suddenly James understood.

      ‘James.’ Minister McClelland held out his hand. ‘Thank you for sitting with Lorna till we arrived. It is much appreciated.’

      James knew that he should nod, shake his hand, take his exit cue and just leave, except he couldn’t.

      ‘Of course I sat with her.’

      ‘James!’ How did one smile and shoot venom at the same time, but Minister McClelland had it down to a fine art. ‘It was very kind of you to take time out of your schedule—’

      ‘What do you mean “take time”?’ James interrupted. ‘She was my wife.’

      “Now your ex-wife,’ Minister McClelland neatly pointed out. ‘She left you, remember?’ He wasn’t smiling now, just dripping false compassion. ‘Lorna divorced you more than ten years ago. As I said, Betty and I have drawn a lot of comfort knowing that someone who used to be close to our daughter could sit with her till we arrived. But we’re here now—and we’d like you to leave.’

      ‘Lorna would want—’

      ‘I know what my daughter would want, James.’ Minister McClelland broke in. ‘You haven’t seen her in years. She’s a very different woman to the one you took advantage of then—and, I can assure you, the woman Lorna is now would not want you sitting by her bedside. Now, you’ve caused my family enough pain in the past, you’ll forgive me if I don’t invite it in again.’

      He headed to his daughter’s bedside and James stood there, knowing he had to leave, but loath to.

      ‘Come on, James.’ It was close to midnight, but that wasn’t why May was in a hurry, she just wanted James away from the toxic atmosphere the minister had created. ‘You’ve seen her, you’ve spoken to her.’ And with that he had to be content.

      ‘Thanks for all you did,’ James said to Angela, and took a long, last, lingering look at Lorna. ‘Will you call me if there is any change? I’ll be staying at the hospital.’

      ‘Her family have asked that only they be given information as to her condition.’

      Bastard. The word hissed in his head.

      ‘There’s a lot of press interest and things—they’ve made their wishes very clear.’

      Oh, they’d always made their wishes very clear. He could see them all praying around her now and wondered what Lorna would want him to do, only he truly didn’t know. Out of control and hating it, he asserted himself as best he could. ‘Well, I’m not asking as the press and I’m not asking as her ex-husband. I am the emergency consultant—and she did come through my department. I have every right to be informed if our prolonged resuscitation was successful. Page me when there’s any change either way.’

      ‘Certainly, Dr. Morrell.’

      ‘Mr Morrell,’ James corrected, and then he gave her a small smile. ‘Again, thanks for your help.’