TWO
“How did they pick him up without consent? I mean….”
“In cases of emergency, the police are allowed to collect dependents.” The nurse glides down the corridor with a speed that belies how softly her sensible flat shoes strike the linoleum. “He doesn’t know what happened, how bad it is, just that he’ll be with you until his mum feels better.”
I reach out and catch her elbow, bringing her to a halt. She looks down at the connection, her arm stiff around the patient files she holds close to her chest.
“How old is he?”
Her face says it all: He’s your nephew. How can you not know?
“It’s complicated,” I offer. “I’m not close with my sister.”
“He’s six.”
If she’d said two, four even, maybe it wouldn’t have been such a surprise. But hearing that he’s six, and adding at least nine months to that timeframe, somehow makes it hurt a lot worse when I realise Kath and I had barely parted ways when she fell pregnant with him.
And my family never said a thing. Why?
“Where’s his father?”
“Ms Harris, we can only do so much,” the nurse says gently. “You’ll need to discuss that with your sister when she’s well enough to talk.”
If she’s well enough to talk.
“Of course.” I gesture for the nurse to go ahead, and we resume our flight through the halls.
Mint green gives way to baby blue as we cross into an area that holds no sign of the trauma we’ve left behind. Televisions strategically mounted in the top corners of the large waiting area play sitcoms; something light to lift the mood, no doubt. The furniture is plush and inviting, the toys that spill over in the children’s corner invoking a false sense of home.
The nurse, whose name I never bothered to catch, swings left and leads me past an elderly couple reading tabloids, down to the far corner where the child I presume is my nephew is overshadowed by a uniformed officer. The space between my escort and me grows as my feet slow of their own volition; the realisation dawns that whatever this is, however this situation turns out, it’s all too real now.
I cross my arms over myself and draw my coat over my torso as though it’s a protective shield from the harm this innocent child’s presence can inflict on a cold heart like mine. The nurse catches the officer’s eye, and jerks her head toward me, before leaving just as fluidly as she arrived.
“Ms Harris?” His hushed tone wraps around me like a velour blanket, inviting and comfortable.
“Yes.” I can’t look away from the dark-haired boy as he builds what appears to be a garage out of a pile of blocks.
“You’re the mother’s next of kin?”
I nod, my breath firmly lodged in my throat as the child looks up and questions me with his eyes. What the hell? She couldn’t have. She wouldn’t have. Would she?
“Are you in a position to take on his care temporarily?”
I know what Mr Smooth Operator is asking in those dulcet tones: have I got my shit together enough to be in charge of something so precious?
I don’t know. Have I?
“I guess.” I finally tear my gaze away from my nephew—the child whose name I don’t even know—and address the cop.
The stunningly good-looking cop.
The all too familiar cop.
The cop whose head is cocked to the side as he waits for me to stop flapping my jaw soundlessly and say something.
“Evan?” My legs weaken, and I shoot my hand out in preparation should I collapse. “When …?”
“Hey, Amelia.” His lips quirk up in a soft smile, yet his piercing blue eyes hold all the pain I feel echoed deep in my soul.
He left me. Right when I needed him most, he just up and left. And here he is now, when I don’t need anyone anymore, and I’m not sure what to make of that. Questions float through my mind, blurring with each other as I stare at the boy I once loved—the boy I never stopped loving.
“Why did you go?”
“Why didn’t you call?”
“Did you love me?”
So many things I want to say. None of which are important given the current situation.
“My parents are on the way,” I word vomit, still mesmerised after all these years by those striking blue eyes that are the colour of a summer day in the middle, ringed with the deeper shade of an approaching storm. “They can help.”
He nods, gaze moving to the boy, and then back to me. Does he have questions for me too? Or am I a closed chapter in his life? An inconvenient reminder?
More likely he’s probably wondering why I haven’t cuddled the child, said hello, or so much as acknowledged he’s my problem now.
“What’s his name?” I whisper, the blush of shame burning at my cheeks as I avoid Evan’s stare.
“Briar.” He frowns.
“Okay.”
“Pardon me for asking,” Mr Sure-grew-up-to-be-sexy asks, “but he’s your sister’s kid, correct?”
“Right.”
“And you don’t know his name.”
I shake my head, not missing the fact Evan moves slightly to the side so he’s effectively body-blocking me from Briar. He’s dubious. And so he should be. It’s his job to be worried about the welfare of the innocent.
Pity he couldn’t show that eight years ago.
“Family problems,” I explain simply, craning my neck to look around him at the kid.
He nods, grumbling knowingly. He was there for the start of it. He doesn’t need me to elaborate on who the problem was. He just doesn’t know the crux of it, the reason for the fallout, what happened after he left.
“Why did you go?” I blurt, the question evading my internal filter.
His gaze swings my way again, and he frowns. “It’s complicated.”
“Just like using a phone was?” I can’t hold back a second longer. He left me hanging, heartbroken, and alone. He was the first boy to steal my heart, and he never gave it back.
“Amelia.”
I shake my head, lifting a hand to stop the placating rubbish that’s no doubt about to spill from those full lips. Besides, there’s a much more pressing issue currently manoeuvring a Hot Wheels car into the garage.
“How much does he know?” I ask, tucking my arms tight across my body.
Evan sighs as he removes his hat and tucks it under his arm, revealing shortly shaven hair. I admire the stretch of his uniform sleeve as it fails to adequately accommodate the swell of his biceps when he crosses his arms before him. “A little.”
I nod, running my gaze once again over the ghost from my past I never expected to see again.
At sixteen Evan was already big for his age; his T-shirts were always baggy, because to fit his broad shoulders he’d need to buy the next size up. But back then he was just like me—a skinny teenager, heavily into the Emo scene. I spent so many afternoons sitting opposite him outside the local shops, brushing his overgrown hair out of his face, so I could see both of those beautiful eyes. I never knew just how handsome he was underneath it all. I was in love with what I had, satisfied with the boy who owned my heart. But damn, he sure filled out to make one heck of a man.
Evan lifts his strong jaw, and jerks his chin away from Briar. “Let’s take this a bit further away, huh?”
I take a couple of steps to give us some form of privacy and turn back to face him. He stops short of colliding with me, apparently expecting me to have walked further away.
“He knows his mum got hurt, but he thinks—like any child would—I’m talking about a few scratches, a bump on the head, that kind of thing.”
“You’re partially right,” I murmur.
“Pardon?” He squints as he takes me in.
“She did take a bump to the head, but it was just a lot more severe than what Briar probably thinks.”
Evan jams his hands in the front pockets of his uniform pants, drawing my attention downward. I jump on the spot when he purposefully clears his throat, and burn from shame at being busted checking out his ... seams.
“Can I ask how your sister is?” His brow furrows, his eyes hard yet understanding. “Katherine, right?”
“Yeah, Kath.” I shrug in answer to his initial question, falling into the nearest chair. “She lost consciousness not long after I got here, and they whipped her off to do something that takes the pressure off the brain. Apparently, she had a bleed caused by the trauma. They said they’d update me a soon as they had something definitive, but that was over an hour ago.”
He settles in the seat beside mine, his body turned slightly toward me. “I’m sure they’re doing the best they can.”
“Yeah.” Isn’t everyone?
He looks across at Briar, who’s lost himself in his imaginary play again, and then over my shoulder at the vacant halls and the clerks doing their thing behind the station desk. “Look, I can stay a while if that helps, but I might get called away.”
As though to punctuate his point, the radio on his hip crackles some garbled message that reminds me more of the teacher from Peanuts than an actual string of coherent words. I look pointedly at it, silently questioning.
“Nothing I need to worry about.” He shakes his head. “Would you like me to stay for a bit?”
I don’t know, do I? My head wants him to stay, would appreciate the company, yet my heart screams no. He tore a hole in my heart the day he left that never quite healed. Having him so close, close enough that I can smell his musky aftershave, hurts. Am I strong enough to deal with the suppressed feelings he unboxes?
I have to be.
Evan watches as I check over his shoulder at Briar, feeling the same desperate fear creep into my chest that I get every time I’m around children. “Yeah, that might be a good idea actually.”
“He’s not as scary as he looks.”
“I don’t know the first thing about kids.”
“Neither did Kath when she gave birth to him. Everybody learns by jumping in the deep end.”
If only I knew how to swim.