‘She’d made me promise not to.’
‘But even so …’
‘I can’t think about that now, Jed.’
‘Come on.’ He put his arm round her and led her into her mum’s room, and even if it was what he would do with any colleague, even if she no longer wanted him, she was glad to have him there strong and firm beside her as she saw her mum, the strongest, most independent person she knew, with possibly the exception of her elder sister, strapped to machines and looking very small and fragile under a white sheet.
‘Hey, Mum.’
Jasmine took her hand.
‘I’m sorry,’ Louise said, but for once her voice was very weak and thin.
‘It’s hardly your fault. Don’t be daft.’
‘No.’ She was impatient, despite the morphine, desperate to get everything in order before she went to surgery. ‘I haven’t been much support.’
‘Mum!’ Jasmine shook her head. ‘You’ve been wonderful.’
‘No.’ She could see tears in her mum’s eyes. ‘Most grandmothers drop everything to help with their grandchildren.’
‘Mum,’ Jasmine interrupted. ‘You can stop right there. I’m glad you’re not like most mums, I’m glad Penny is the way that she is, because otherwise I’d be living at home even now. I’d be dumping everything onto you and not sorting my own stuff out, which I have,’ Jasmine said firmly, and then wavered. ‘Well, almost.’ She smiled at her mum. ‘And that’s thanks to you. I don’t want a mum who fixes everything. I want a mum who helps me fix myself.’
‘Can I see Simon?’ She felt her mum squeeze her hand. ‘Or will I scare him?’
‘I’ll go now and get him.’ Before she left, Jasmine looked at Jed.
‘I’ll stay.’
And it meant a lot that he was with her.
Oh, she knew Mr Dean was around and Vanessa was watching her mother like a hawk, but it wasn’t just for medical reasons it helped to have Jed there.
She couldn’t think of that now.
The childcare staff were wonderful when Jasmine told them what was going on. ‘Bring him back when you’re ready.’
‘Thanks.’
Jasmine really didn’t know if it would terrify Simon or how he’d react when he saw his nanny, but she knew that the calmer she was the better it would be for Simon. ‘Nanny’s tired,’ Jasmine said as they walked back to the department. ‘She’s having a rest, so we’ll go and give her a kiss.’
He seemed delighted at the prospect.
Especially when he saw Penny standing at the bed. Then he turned and saw Jed there and a smile lit up his face.
‘Jed!’
He said it so clearly, there was absolutely no mistake, and Penny’s eyes were wide for a second as she looked at Jed, who stood, and then back at Penny.
‘I’ll have to put in a complaint,’ Penny said. ‘The hospital grapevine is getting terribly slack.’
‘Tell me about it,’ Jed said, but whatever was going on, whatever questions needed answers, it was all put aside as Simon gave his nanny a kiss and a cuddle. He was amazing, not bothered at all by the tubes and machines, more fascinated by them, if anything, pointing to the cardiac monitor and turning as every drip bleeped. But of course after a few moments he grew restless.
‘We’re going to take your mum up to the catheter lab soon,’ Vanessa said. The cardiac surgeon had spoken to them in more detail and her mum had signed the consent form, and it was all too quick and too soon. Jasmine had just got used to the idea that she was terribly ill and now there was surgery to face.
‘Can I just take Simon back?’
‘Of course.’ And in the few weeks she’d been here, Jasmine found out just how many friends she had made, just how well she was actually doing, thanks to her mum. ‘Tell the crèche that I’ll pick up Simon tonight. He can stay at my place.’
‘You’re sure?’ Jasmine checked. ‘I can ring Ruby.’
‘It’s fine tonight. You’ll probably be needing Ruby a lot over the next few days. Let me help when I can.’
The crèche was marvellous too and told Jasmine that she could put Simon in full time for the next couple of weeks, and somehow, somehow Jasmine knew she was coping with a family emergency and single motherhood and work combined.
And she didn’t want to lose her job, no matter how hard it would be, working alongside Jed.
Except she couldn’t think about it now.
Right now, her heart was with her mum, who was being wheeled out of Emergency, a brusque and efficient Penny beside her, telling the porter to go ahead and hold the lifts, snapping at Vanessa for not securing the IV pole properly, barking at everyone and giving out orders as she did each and every day, while still managing to hold her mum’s hand as she did so.
And her heart wasn’t just with her mum.
It was with her big sister too.
The time sitting in the Theatre waiting room brought them possibly the closest they had ever been.
‘Is that why you were asking about Jed and I?’
They were two hours into waiting for the surgery to finish, an hour of panic, ringing around friends and family, and then an hour of angst-filled silence, and then, because you could only sit on a knife edge for so long, because sometimes you needed distracting, Penny asked the question that was starting to filter into both their minds.
‘For all the good it did me.’ Jasmine smiled. ‘How come we don’t gossip?’
‘I never gossip,’ Penny said. ‘I don’t do the girly thing and …’ Her voice trailed off and she thought for a moment, realising perhaps how impossible for her sister this had been. ‘You could have asked me, Jasmine.’
‘What if I didn’t like the answer?’ Jasmine’s eyes filled with tears and she couldn’t start crying again. She’d shed more tears since her mother had gone to Theatre than she had in a long time.
‘You’re still not asking me.’
Jasmine shook her head, because if the truth were known she was scared to. Not just for what it would do to her but what the truth might mean for her sister.
‘Nothing has ever happened between Jed and I.’
Jasmine felt as if a chest drain had been inserted, or what she imagined it must feel like, because it felt as if for the first time in days, for the first time since Vanessa had inadvertently dropped the bomb, her lungs expanded fully, the shallow breaths of guilt and fear replaced by a deep breath in.
‘Nothing,’ Penny said. ‘Not a single kiss, I promise you.’ And Jasmine could now breathe out. ‘Who said that there was something going on between us?’
‘It’s common knowledge apparently, though I only heard this week. My friend couldn’t believe that I hadn’t notice the tension between you two.’
‘The only tension between us,’ Penny continued, ‘is who might get the promotion.’
‘I thought you were worried about getting it and upsetting Jed.’
Penny just laughed. ‘Worrying about upsetting or upstaging Jed Devlin is the furthest thing from my mind—believe me. Do I look like someone who would step aside from a promotion for a man?’ She actually laughed at the very thought.
‘No,’ Jasmine