One Night with Morelli(80)

                We both know that’s not true…he’d said! If she hadn’t forgotten how to, Eve might have laughed.

                The fact was she felt she knew nothing, and understood even less! Her head was literally buzzing from lack of sleep and the unremitting stress of not knowing if her mother was okay. Her hormones were all over the place and last but not least was the fact that her secret lay very heavily on her conscience… Draco might be saying what she wanted to hear or she could be totally misconstruing a simple kindness.

                Eve couldn’t trust her own judgement and this was too important to make mistakes and open herself up to ridicule or, even worse, pity!

                Draco moved a little closer, lowering his voice as he approached the glass cot with its high-tech attachments. ‘How is he?’

                ‘They say he is a fighter.’

                It seemed to Draco that he would need to be, but he kept silent. ‘How long have you been here?’

                ‘I’ve no idea,’ Eve admitted dully.

                ‘You’re exhausted.’

                ‘I’m fine. It’s Charlie who’s a wreck… He really loves Mum but I never thought he did. I thought he married her because of—’ her eyes slid to the incubator ‘—the baby, but I was wrong, so wrong, about so many things. If Mum dies I’ll never be able to say sorry.’ Her lips trembled as she blinked away the fresh rush of tears that threatened to overflow from her luminous eyes.

                He took hold of the back of her chair. ‘Your mum is having the best possible care here.’ She turned her head slowly to look up at him, the shadowed sorrow in her incredible eyes wakening every protective instinct he possessed. He just wanted to hold her…for ever.

                He touched her cheek lightly with one thumb, curling his hand to frame the side of her face, not touching but close enough to raise the sensitive, fine downy hair on her skin.

                ‘I j-judged Mum because of her affair with Charlie, but I always thought that she had been trapped into it, that she felt she had no alternative. That if she finished with him, she would lose the security of her job and her home. I told myself that was what kept her with him.’ She shook her head. ‘It made me feel better about their relationship somehow. Does that sound crazy?’

                ‘It sounds very normal.’

                ‘It never occurred to me to ask her, and we never spoke about it. It was one of those things she knew I knew, and I knew she knew I knew…’ The sound of a high-pitched alarm made her flinch and stare fearfully at the cot, panic building inside her. ‘Should we do…?’

                Before she could finish a uniformed figure entered the room. Eve felt the comforting pressure of Draco’s fingers on her shoulder as they watched the midwife glance at the baby before she pressed a few buttons on the array of glowing dials and the noise stopped immediately.

                ‘Is he…?’

                ‘He’s fine. All our parents get spooked at first but after a while they read these things better than we do. The parents’ room is down the hall if you fancy a coffee or a break. Oh, I’m Alison, by the way. I’ve just come on shift and I’ll be looking after…any ideas of a name yet?’

                Eve shook her head.

                ‘See you later, then.’ The rosy-cheeked midwife angled a questioning look at Eve’s face. ‘You OK, Mum?’

                She didn’t trust herself to speak, let alone correct the mistake. It might be a mistake now but in the not so distant future she would be able to claim that tagline…Mum.