Chapter 89
Was all it took for Dad to change his mind a fucking stabbing? 27
The moment they left the ward, Dad turned on him.
To hug him.
Eli froze in the grip, his own hands stuck out awkwardly by his father’s sides. They hadn’t hugged since Eli was twelve. And suddenly his father was crushing him in a bear hug, Eli’s ribs creaking under the pressure.
And then, just as quickly, he let go. And began to walk.
“Um,” Eli said, then jogged to catch up. “Are you…alright?”
“Both of my children, and my grandchild, were in danger tonight,” Dad said tersely. “I’m doing as well as you might expect.”
Eli opened his mouth, then thought better of it. There was nothing he could say to that.
Dad was silent on the long walk to the lifts, the longer wait for—and then in—said lift, and then the thankfully short walk to the ward. Eli fidgeted, unsure of what to say or how to say it, and then was distracted by his mother’s tired smile and warm embrace.
“Thank God you’re alright,” was all she said, and then Eli was steered into a curtained cubicle and pushed into a seat next to Jenny’s bed.
“You look like crap,” Eli said.
“Dick,” Jenny mumbled. She did look like crap, hair sweaty and plastered to her scalp. But she was beaming a pleased smile, and sitting up, a bundle of blankets cradled in her arms. “How’s Rob?”
“Alive.”
“Don’t—is he—”
Eli took pity at her stricken face, his usual wariness whenever his family asked about Rob easing. “He’ll be okay,” he said, and Jenny let out an audible breath. “The knife nicked his liver, and he lost a lot of blood, but he woke up about ten minutes ago and he sounded okay. The doctor…Danny said the doctor said he’s gonna be alright.”
Jenny reached out to squeeze his wrist, her eyes huge in her white face. “Good,” she said earnestly. “And—are you okay?”
“Better’n you,” Eli said.
“I only had a baby,” she teased, and they suddenly sniggered like children. The blankets stirred and mewled. Jenny’s face lit up, glowing despite the layer of sweat and sagging exhaustion. “Want to meet your new nephew?”
“Um—”
In truth, Eli wasn’t the world’s biggest fan of babies, especially newborn ones, but Mum was standing at the foot of the bed with her gleeful grandma face on, the same one she’d had when she’d held Flora for the first time, and Eli decided it wasn’t worth it to refuse.
“Okay.”
Mum arranged the passing of baby from mother to uncle. Soon a heavy weight was draped along Eli’s forearms, a head lumpy and misshapen in the palm of his hand, and tiny starfish hands groping at empty air above the blanket melee.
“Oh,” he said. “He’s, um. Beautiful.”
He was hideous, with a squashed nose and a mouth that looked like one of Rob’s dodgy dealer mates had beaten him up. His eyes were firmly shut, too, giving him a proper grumpy-old-man expression. Eli jiggled the lump warily, and sighed with relief when the moody mewling stopped and the new baby curled into his chest comfortably. Good. Babies were one thing; crying babies were another entirely.
“He’s not a bomb, Eli. You don’t have to look at him like he’s going to explode,” Dad said.
Jenny giggled.
Eli seized on the flash of a good mood, and pulled a face.
“He looks like a red potato,” he admitted.
“He does not!” Mum squawked. “He looks gorgeous! Doesn’t he, Jenny? And he needs a name, we can’t just keep calling him baby.”
“I haven’t decided,” Jenny said. “And shut up, Eli, he is gorgeous. And he likes you already, look.”
Eli pulled another face. He always felt like a gawky teenager again with babies. He just didn’t like them. Even his own niece—and now nephew—had failed to get that whole rush-of-love, parental-instinct thing going in him. He was already itching to hand the baby back.
“Someone has to, I suppose?” he hazarded. Flora had screamed the house down when anyone but Jenny held her for the first five months of her annoying life.
“How is Rob?” Jenny repeated. “I mean, is he in bed, or—”
“Well, yeah,” Eli said, surprised.
Jenny got her stubborn face on. “Then I’ll have to go down to see him, won’t I? Mum? Go and find that nurse and ask her if I can get washed and changed yet?”
Mum looked as bewildered as Eli felt. “Dear, you’ll need to get some sleep, first and foremost! You’ve had a nasty shock, and—”
“And Rob and Danny saved our lives,” Jenny said earnestly. “Literally, Mum, it could have been hours and hours before anyone came to help if they’d attacked us, Eli could have been hurt or killed and I’d have had the baby on the tarmac—I want to see him. And I want him to see the baby.”
“Er,” Eli said, going for diplomacy, “I don’t think Rob’ll be too cut up about having to wait a while to see the baby. He’s not a baby person.”
“I’m still going,” Jenny said stubbornly. “I’ll need to wash first, though. Mum, if she blows you off, just nick a basin and some towels out of the nurse’s cupboard, like you did when I had Flora? There’s a hairbrush and stuff in my bag—”
“Jenny, dear, really—”
“I am going!” Jenny snapped; the blankets wriggled against Eli’s chest and wailed. “Rob saved our lives last night, Mum! And I am going to thank him in person, today!”
Mum took the baby; Eli awkwardly got to his feet and said, “Um, well…d’you want anything from the vending machine, then?”
“Twixes. Lots of them. Dad, you get out, too,” Jenny said grumpily, glaring at their mother so hard Eli wasn’t convinced she wasn’t going to set fire to something. “I’m not bloody stripping in front of you all, bad enough I nearly had a baby in front of you.”
“Let’s, uh, let’s find a machine, then,” Dad said quietly, steering Eli out by the shoulder, the men for once united by Jenny’s ferocious manner in the aftermath of giving birth.