wondered if Nathan had really been to see his father. She knew pathetically little about his background, and what she did know was hardly up to date. She knew his mother was dead and that his father was virtually a recluse—at least, that was the excuse he’d given her for Jacob Wolfe not attending their wedding. And it must have been true, she supposed, or her father wouldn’t have encouraged the match.
Weariness descended like a cloud upon her. What was she really doing here? she wondered disconsolately. Why had she let her father persuade her to make this trip? Whatever had happened, Nathan wouldn’t want to see her. She should have told her father the truth and made him send someone else.
Marshall O’Brien could have done it. Her father’s personal assistant—secretary—henchman—would have handled the less attractive details far better than she. He wouldn’t have felt as helpless as she did staring round this vast foyer, with no earthly idea where her husband might be. And no helpful nurse to direct her. She sighed heavily. Just a cacophony of voices, and squealing gurneys, and—noise!
Yet it was she who hadn’t allowed Marshall to accompany her, even though her father had suggested it. After living a lie for almost three years, she was not about to expose the travesty of their marriage just because Nathan had been involved in a plane crash. Dear God, when she’d first heard the news, for a second—for the minutest, most shameful second of her life—she had actually believed that it was over. In spite of all the guilt and recrimination she had felt later, for that one fleeting second she’d thought she was free….
A harassed receptionist eventually informed her that her husband was in a ward on the twelfth floor. “Just take the elevator, take the elevator,” the woman exclaimed when Caitlin asked for directions. Then turned away almost immediately to answer another query.
She could have been a serial killer and she’d have received the same instructions, Caitlin thought wryly. Any security there had ever been had been eclipsed by the very real demands of the situation. It was no one’s fault; there simply weren’t enough staff to handle it. In circumstances like these, the most you could hope for was a civil tone.
The lifts, when she found them, were jammed with stretchers and still more people. Everyone seemed to be talking at once, and the mix of sounds and dialects was deafening in the ponderous, clanking cubicle. But they ascended, albeit ponderously, to the upper reaches of the hospital, stopping at every floor to disgorge and take on more passengers.
Caitlin inevitably found herself pushed towards the back of the lift, with the iron rails of a gurney crushed against her stomach. She had never felt claustrophobic before, but the panic of confinement rose sharp and unfamiliar inside her. Only the awareness of the injured child on the gurney kept her silent, the bottle of plasma held high by an orderly providing a steadying focus on which to fix her gaze.
They reached the twelfth floor at last, and Caitlin forced herself to step out onto the vinyl landing. The gurney had swished away to her left, and her fellow passengers rushed off to find the nearest nursing station. But Caitlin took a moment to compose herself, as the smells of the hospital washed around her. Nathan would not expect her to rush to his bedside. In the circumstances, her being here at all seemed out of place.
She should never have married him, she thought again, with a sense of vulnerability. It was a feeling she’d had many times before. But it had been what her father had wanted, and after resisting him for so long, it had seemed the most logical thing to do.
How wrong she’d been…
Another lift stopped beside her, and realising she was causing an obstruction, Caitlin began to walk towards the busy nurses’ station. Around her, the tide of humanity continually ebbed and flowed, and listening to the unmistakeable sounds of grief, she wondered how she could be feeling sorry for herself when many of these people had lost friends and loved ones. At least Nathan was alive, and God willing, he’d make a full recovery. She should be glad he’d survived. Not bemoaning her fate…
She waited her turn silently, relieved that she was not obliged to make trivial conversation. It was a huge hospital, with the corridors stretching away to left and right evidently accommodating many wards. The sign, hanging above their heads, announced Neurosurgery and Neurology, and she was just absorbing the significance of this when the busy nurse asked her name.
“Um…” Caitlin looked at her a little blankly. “I—Wolfe. Caitlin Wolfe.”
“We don’t have any Caitlin Wolfe on this floor,” the nurse declared impatiently.
She was already turning to the next inquirer when Caitlin exclaimed, “It’s Nathan. Nathan Wolfe.” She flushed unhappily. “I misunderstood. I thought you wanted my name.”
She glanced at the couple behind her, hoping for their support, but the woman seemed dull-eyed and lifeless and the man looked right through her. Evidently the news they’d received had left them in a state of shock, and once again Caitlin felt guilty for her lack of grief.
“You’re Mrs Wolfe, is that right?” the nurse asked with more compassion, and Caitlin nodded quickly. For the first time, she felt a prickle of alarm. The nurse was eyeing her with some sympathy now. How serious could Nathan’s condition be?
“I’m going to have to ask you to take a seat, Mrs Wolfe,” the nurse declared at last, compounding her fears. “The doctor would like to speak to you before you see your husband. If you’d just wait over there…”
“He’s not dead, is he?”
Caitlin blurted the words urgently, and this time even the man and woman behind her in the queue showed some response. But the nurse was professionally reassuring. “He’s doing very well,” she declared, shuffling the folders on the desk. “The doctor just wants to talk to you. It’s nothing too serious.” She lifted her hand as if taking an oath. “I promise.”
Caitlin wasn’t sure how sincere the nurse’s promise might be. She was still troubled by those two words: Neurosurgery and Neurology. It must mean that Nathan had injured his head. Oh, God, he wasn’t brain damaged, was he? That would be the cruellest blow of all.
But she wouldn’t think about things like that, she decided, taking a seat on one of the steel-framed vinyl chairs. She had to be confident, and optimistic. Someone would surely have told her if Nathan was in a coma.
A little girl of perhaps two or three was waiting with her mother a couple of seats away. Although she was obviously too old to do so, she was sucking her thumb, and Caitlin wondered what anxieties she was suffering in her own small way. She had to know something was wrong. Her mother had been crying. Was that why she was seeking comfort in the only way she knew?
Caitlin attempted a smile, but it wasn’t returned, and even that effort was too great to sustain. Dear God, she thought, let Nathan be all right. Whatever he’d done, he didn’t deserve to be here.
The little girl continued to stare at her, and Caitlin wondered if things would have been different if she and Nathan had had a child of their own. It might not have changed his character, but he might have loved their child.
Her mind drifted back to her own childhood. When had she become aware that her own father had wished she had been a son? Was it when he’d realised her mother could have no more children after Caitlin? When he’d learned the dynasty he’d hoped to found was never to be?
To begin with, it hadn’t seemed that important—at least not to Caitlin. All through her childhood, all the time she was growing into adolescence, she had never felt she was a disappointment to either of her parents.
