Harry bounced against Yiannis’s hip and grinned and waved his arms and clapped his hands at his grandmother who returned the salute and the smile.
“You are a man among men,” she told Yiannis as he put the boy in his car seat and figured out how to strap him in.
The nearest hospital was just up the coast a few miles. Yiannis had never been there before, but Maggie knew it well.
“It’s where Walter died,” she said.
“You’re not going to die,” Yiannis said, his jaw tight with conviction.
Maggie laughed. “Not today.”
“Not any time soon.” He wouldn’t permit it. He didn’t say anything else, just focused on getting to the hospital as quickly as he could. When they arrived, he pulled into the emergency area and went to get a wheelchair. But before he could, an orderly and a nurse appeared. They efficiently bundled Maggie into the chair and started into the building with her.
“You can fill out the paperwork as soon as you’ve parked,” the nurse told him.
“I’m not—” he began, but they had already disappeared inside the building leaving him alone.
Well, not quite alone. He had Harry.
He was bouncing up and down in his car seat and making cheerful noises. He even smiled when Yiannis bent down to look in at him.
Yiannis managed a semblance of a smile of his own. “Come on,” he said, going around and getting back into the car. “Let’s go find a parking place.”
By the time he did, then extracted Harry from the car seat and went back to the emergency room, Maggie was nowhere to be found.
“They’ve taken her to x-ray,” the lady at the admissions desk beamed at Harry. “Aren’t you a cutie? How old is he?” she asked Yiannis.
“I don’t know.”
Her brows lifted in surprise.
“He’s not mine.”
“Ah, well. Too bad,” she said. Yiannis didn’t think so, but he didn’t bother saying it. “They’ll be back shortly. She did all the paperwork herself, so you’re home free,” the receptionist said. “You can wait here—” she pointed to a busy waiting room where someone was coughing and someone else looked decidedly bloody “—or in the room we put her in.”
Harry was wiggling. Yiannis didn’t think waiting in a room where Harry couldn’t touch things was going to work. “We’ll go for a walk.” He gave her his mobile phone number. “Call me when she’s back.”
In the meantime, he would wander around outside with Harry and make a few calls of his own. He’d been out of the country, scouting out wood suppliers for the past two weeks. He’d dealt with emails while he was gone, but he had a dozen or more phone calls to return. So he played back his messages and began to return his calls, all the while letting Harry crawl around the grass, while he waited for Maggie to be ready to go home.
He was on his fifth call when the receptionist rang him. “Mrs Newell is back from x-ray.”
He scooped Harry up and hurried back to the emergency room.
“Room three,” the receptionist pointed them down the hall when they returned.
Room three was like all emergency rooms everywhere—filled with machines clinking and beeping as they surrounded the gurney on which Maggie lay. The nurse patted her on the arm. “I’ll be right back,” she said. “I just need to make the arrangements.”
“Thank you,” Maggie said to her. She almost didn’t look like Maggie. The Maggie he knew was quick and energetic—and dressed. This Maggie was wearing a hospital gown. Yiannis’s brows lifted.
Maggie grimaced. She looked strained and pale, though when she saw Yiannis, with Harry on his shoulders, she managed a smile.
“Hurting?” Yiannis guessed. But he grinned at her because she would expect that.
“A bit.”
“They’ll take care of it,” he assured her. “You’ll be fine in no time. Ready to run that marathon you’re always talking about.”
“That’s what they tell me. Well, not the marathon part, but the rest.” But she didn’t sound happy about it.
Yiannis grinned, hoping she would, too. “Well, maybe a half-marathon, then,” he said cheerfully. “It’ll be okay,” he assured her.
“They said that, too.”
It wasn’t like Maggie not to look at the bright side. He studied her closely. “Well, then—”
“It’s broken.”
He blinked. “What’s broken?”
“My hip.” Her voice was flat, resigned. “They’re arranging surgery now.”
“Surgery?” he echoed stupidly. Harry thumped him in the ear.
Maggie nodded. “For tomorrow morning.”
Before the implications could begin to swim in his head, the nurse returned.
“It’s all set,” she said to Maggie. “They’ve got a room for you on the surgical ward. We’ll be moving you there now. I’ve talked to Dr Singh’s nurse. He’ll do the replacement tomorrow morning at nine.” As she spoke, she began to unhook Maggie from the monitors, eventually leaving in only the IV that was connected to the back of Maggie’s hand. When she finished, she stuck her head out the door and called for one of the orderlies to come help.
Then she turned to Yiannis. “I’m sorry, but I’m afraid you can’t come with her. Since the flu outbreak this past winter, hospital regulations don’t permit children under fourteen on the ward.”
“He’s not mine.”
“But you’re holding him,” the nurse pointed out.
“But—”
“If you have someone with you that you can give him to,” she suggested, her voice trailing off, the implication obvious.
Yiannis shook his head.
The nurse shrugged and gave him a conciliatory smile. “Sorry. Rules, you know. Go home. Call her in half an hour. We’ll have her settled by then. Or she can call you. Don’t worry. We’ll take good care of her.”
“Yes, but—”
But the orderly came in then, and the nurse had other duties. She disappeared, leaving Yiannis holding the baby while he watched the orderly put Maggie’s clothes in a bag, then stow it in the bottom of the gurney. In a minute he was going to wheel her down the hall and leave him here—alone—with Harry.
“Maggie?” he said, as the realization came home to roost.
“I know,” Maggie said sorrowfully. “What will we do?”
“I don’t think you’re going to be doing anything,” Yiannis said flatly.
Maggie looked guilty. “I should have realized.”
“There’s no way you could have known,” Yiannis assured her. “Don’t worry. It will be fine.” He could cope for a couple of hours.
Maggie didn’t look too sure.
“All set?” the orderly asked Maggie, hooking the portable IV unit to the gurney and beginning to wheel it toward the door.
“You can manage until tonight?” Maggie asked over her shoulder.
“Tonight?”
Misty wasn’t