Chapter 50
It was the last week of September, and the first signs of autumn were making themselves known. Through the windows, the leaves on the trees outside were starting to turn, various shades of green edging into ambers, pinks and browns.
Hallie’s phone began to ring. She saw who was calling and pressed Answer. ‘Hi.’
‘Hey,’ said Bea. ‘Where are you? What are you doing?’
The questions her oldest friend had been habitually asking her for years. ‘Oh, nothing much. Just finished a 5K run. I’m going to dive into the pool next, probably swim twenty or thirty lengths. Then after that I’m planning to head over to the restaurant and have a nice lunch with this friend of mine, I forget her name . . .’
‘Her name is Bea, and she’s wondering if you’ve happened to notice the guy over to your right.’
‘Which guy?’
‘The one on the cross-trainer. Black vest, gorgeous biceps. Gorgeous everything.’
‘I may have noticed him . . .’
‘Yay!’
‘No, not yay.’ Twisting round to survey Bea over by the rowing machines at the other end of the gym, Hallie said, ‘I also noticed his wedding ring.’
‘Oh bum, that’s a shame. You could have asked him to join us for lunch.’
‘Will you stop trying to set me up? If I wanted a man, I’d organise it myself.’
‘OK, fine. How are you feeling, anyway?’
Hallie smiled, because she’d just told Bea she’d completed a 5K run on the treadmill and it had been true. ‘I’m great.’
And this was true too. It hadn’t all been plain sailing, of course. The first few days following the transplant had passed in a muggy haze of sedation, discomfort and tubing, peppered with endlessly being woken up when she’d far rather be asleep. But from day one the hospital staff had informed her that the surgery had been a success, and even in her drugged-up state, Hallie had been aware that breathing was easier, that the endless weight of the cystic fibrosis in her lungs was gone.
She’d been lucky not to succumb to any infections. After the initial post-op period, recovery had been smooth and utterly miraculous. The fog had cleared, physiotherapy had intensified and eventually visitors had no longer needed to be masked and gowned-up when they came to see her.
A stranger’s heart and lungs were now functioning beautifully inside her chest, and somewhere, hopefully, her own heart was beating inside another person’s body. It was just the most extraordinary thing . . . yet it didn’t feel extraordinary; it just felt normal and right.
Two and a half weeks after the surgery, she’d been discharged from the hospital. And yes, she still had plenty of tablets to take and regular tests to undergo – that went without saying – but it didn’t matter; it was a tiny price to pay in return for the unbelievable gift she’d received.
And now, three months on, Hallie found herself appreciating each day more and more, jogging and cycling and amazing everyone with her achievements. This was the new life she’d never truly expected to get the chance to live, and she wasn’t going to waste a moment of it. In due course she planned to do all the things other people took for granted – get a proper job, take foreign holidays . . . even having a baby at some stage was now a possibility.
Basically, who knew what the future held?
As they drove back to Carranford later on that afternoon, Bea said, ‘I was reading some of the problems on your website last night.’
Since Hallie had outed herself on the night of the transplant, it had become common knowledge that she was Dear Rose; even Carranford’s least internet-savvy inhabitants now knew about threethingsaboutyou.com. Hallie said, ‘Oh yes?’
‘There’s something I feel really bad about.’
Mystified, Hallie looked at Bea. ‘Go on.’
‘There was a message from a girl called Fran who had loads of scars after a car accident. She was in love with her best friend’s boyfriend but knew he’d never be interested in her.’
‘I remember.’
‘And you said you knew exactly how she felt.’
‘Yes.’ Hallie nodded. She remembered that too.
‘And I saw the date you replied to that message. It was the night of Marilyn’s party at the pub,’ said Bea. ‘When you first met Ross and he didn’t know you were ill.’
‘Right.’ Baffled, Hallie tilted her head. ‘Why are you being weird? What’s he got to do with anything?’
‘Because you told me you didn’t fancy him, but when I read that, I realised you must have done . . . and it just made me feel terrible all over again . . .’