Marion Lennox - Bushfire Bride

Hugo stood at the ward door and watched Rachel. She was sleeping. Her bright curls were tangled on the white coverlet. Her hand held his. Her face rested on his chest.

Hugo’s eyes moved to the monitor and stilled. The heartbeat was fast and irregular. He watched.

He’d learned so much over the last few days. Questions that should have been asked of Rachel had been answered by the consultant he’d called.

‘Eight years in a coma. He was a strong young man, Hugo, with nothing but a bleed into the brain to maim him. We thought he could live even longer than this. There’s been no end in sight. But a few months ago he suffered a clot…’

‘Deep vein thrombosis?’

‘You know it’s not uncommon in cases like this. The body’s so inactive… We thought maybe we’d lose him then. I think his parents and Rachel said their goodbyes. But he rallied. And Rachel went on waiting.’

‘Rachel…’

‘I’ve known Rachel since she was a medical student,’ the consultant said bluntly. ‘She and Craig were a great pair-lovely creatures with the world at their feet. Since the accident it’s as if someone’s blown Rachel’s flame out. She’s clever, she’s an extraordinary doctor but every night she sits by Craig’s bedside and she simply…well, she simply is.’

‘She must have loved him.’

‘It’s so hard to move forward,’ the consultant said gently. ‘Without a death. Dottie and Lewis, Craig’s parents, well, after the clot they seemed to let go. They pushed Rachel. She was making the first tentative steps. And now… The clots have reappeared. One’s sitting in his lung. This is the end, Hugo. The end of a very long story.’

So now Hugo stood at the door and watched her. He simply…watched her.

As she’d watched Craig for all these years.

With all the love in her heart.

She’d gone for coffee.

It had been one hell of a day. The emotions in Rachel’s tired mind were threatening to overwhelm her. How could this happen? While she was falling in love-for the second time-her first love was deciding to slip away from this world.

She didn’t feel guilty. She couldn’t. How could she? In a sense it was because of Craig that she’d fallen so heavily for Hugo. The love she felt for both men was mixed up, intertwined.

Because she loved Hugo, her love for Craig couldn’t die, regardless of what happened to the man in the bed. The man she’d loved for ever.

But she couldn’t think of Hugo now. He was still there in the background-a warmth and a joy in the back of her mind, a vast tenderness that filled the cold and the emptiness that had been with her for so long.

But for now there was only Craig. His breathing had become shallow. There was a pneumonia that wouldn’t clear. It was his time.

Time to let go.

She filled her coffee-mug in the relatives’ kitchenette at the end of the ward and walked slowly back to the small room where Craig lay by himself. And stopped short in the doorway.

Hugo was there. Hugo was sitting in the chair beside Craig’s bed and he was speaking.

‘Mate, I have no idea whether you can hear me. The jury’s out on brain injury-on this dying business. How much you know. How much you can sense. But I figured…the way I felt I had to come. I had to talk to you. You have the right.’

Rachel stepped back. He hadn’t heard her return. She leaned against the wall of the corridor and she closed her eyes. And listened while Hugo spoke to Craig.

While one love spoke to another.

‘I don’t know how much Rachel has told you, but I’m Hugo McInnes. I’m a country family doctor. I’m a widower, with a kid and a dog, and I’m thirty-five years old. And I’m in love with your wife.’

And I’m in love with your wife. It was such a bold statement that Rachel drew in her breath. She swallowed. And she waited.

‘It sounds pretty dreadful, doesn’t it?’ Hugo said, and paused. ‘I never thought I’d say that to someone I think of as a friend. That I’m in love with your wife. But maybe it’s because that’s the way I think of you that I can say it. As a friend.’

There was a long pause then. Out in the corridor Rachel set her coffee-mug down on the floor. Her fingers were trembling. A couple of nurses walked past and looked at her in concern but she waved them on.

He’d come…

‘Craig, you and Rachel have loved each other for a long time. I know that.’ Hugo’s voice was soft but pervasive, reaching where she strained to hear. ‘I know that. I can see it in Rachel’s eyes. I can see how deep your love was. After all this time…part of Rachel is you. Well, now I’ve fallen for her-fallen for her in a big way, maybe as hard as you ever fell. But, of course, it’s different. I’m not loving a girl straight out of school. I’m loving a woman who’s been loved before-who’s loved before. Who’s become what she is because some guy a long time ago made her smile. Lit up her world. Took her in his arms and loved her and made her feel that anything was possible when love was around.’

Hugo hesitated, as though finding difficulty in finding words. The right words. But somehow he kept going.

‘I’ve never felt like that,’ he said at last. ‘I drifted into a marriage that was a bit of a disaster. My wife died and that made me feel even more self-contained. Like love-married love-was something you read about in romance novels. Not something that changed the world. Only then I met Rachel.’

Another silence. Then…

‘She’s really something,’ he whispered. ‘She’s the best. You and Rachel must have been amazing. And what Rachel’s grown to be…because of you…

‘You know,’ he said, his voice still soft, ‘that’s why I’m here. To tell you that you’re a part of Rachel. And because of that… I guess you’ll be a part of our family. You’ll be with us. You’ll live on.’

Rachel’s eyes were filling with tears. She lifted a finger and wiped them away but more followed. Still he spoke.

‘It sounds corny, doesn’t it?’ Hugo was saying ruefully. ‘Lives on for ever in our hearts. It’s true, though. I’ve finally figured this love thing out. The more you have the more you seem to get. The more you give, the more it grows around you. Because you loved Rachel and she loved you…she’s reached out and she’s enveloped us. Me. My kid-did I tell you that? I have a six-year-old called Toby who thinks your Rachel is the best thing since sliced bread. Rachel’s promised to teach him to kick a football. She says you taught her that. Your football…living on in my kid.

‘And there’s more.’ He was smiling. Rachel could hear it in his voice. ‘We have a couple of dogs. Digger-he’s mine. He’s a mutt. And there’s Penelope. She belonged to some creep we met and didn’t like. I’m about to give the guy an offer he can’t refuse because our family’s too small. We need at least two dogs. We have another-Pudge-who’s staying with us while someone else we know and love recovers from an injury. There’ll be more. Rachel is the sort of woman who’ll keep an open door to strays, and I’m with her there. And there’ll be kids.’

Rachel drew her breath in at that. The tears dried. She was smiling. Stupidly she was grinning. The nurses passed her again and she grinned at them like a fool and they looked at her like she was demented.

It didn’t matter. What had he said?

How could she forget? There’ll be kids.

‘We’ll have babies,’ Hugo said softly. ‘At least, I hope like hell we’ll have babies. I haven’t actually discussed this with Rachel yet but, hey, this is the equivalent of girls’ talk with a bloke. We can say anything in here, right? Right. Well, having babies… Before Toby was born I thought one was enough, but he’s twisted himself round my heart like you wouldn’t believe. And if it was Rachel’s kid… Your kid…’