Chapter 85
“Mum!” he called—and promptly forgot all about the nameless, faceless copper. He walked right into her hug, folding himself into the smell of fabric conditioner and whatever she’d been making for dinner, and fought back the urge to cry.
“Oh Eli,”she breathed, clutching him back. Mum hadn’t hugged him properly for years, ever since he’d come out to them and that odd distance had evolved between him and his own family. And now, quite suddenly, the gap had snapped shut, and she was clinging to him as though he had never drifted away. “Oh, Eli, love.”
“How’s—how’s Jenny?”
“Jenny’s fine, dear,” Mum said, stroking his hair like he was a child again. “She’s just fine, the baby’s a little upset by all the chaos but they’re both doing fine. They just don’t want to upset them again by moving them to a full maternity unit, so here we are!”
Her voice nearly snapped on the would-be cheery note.
Eli let go, stepped back, and scrubbed both hands over his eyes.
“Fuck,” he whispered.
“Eli, dear, your father rang, but he was very—confused, I suppose. What happened?”
“A couple of fucking kids tried to nick Jenny’s car,” Eli whispered.
“And—he said something about Rob?”
Eli’s throat ached, and he shook his head. “Rob—I texted him. I was going to—I was…Rob asked me to live with him, Mum.”
“He—what?”
“I was packing up my stuff and me and Dad were arguing and then—then Jenny rang me saying her car wouldn’t start and could I pick her up, and I knew Rob would probably be closer so I texted him asking him to go, so…so he and Danny, his brother, they turned up just as these kids were gonna set on me and Jenny for Jenny’s car keys and…and fuck, Mum, one of them stabbed Rob. He just—he literally—he took a fucking knife for me and Jenny, he’s in surgery here somewhere and I don’t know what’s happening and—and—” Eli’s face burned hot and damp,
Mum’s face was a picture of startled horror and something…something else, lighting behind her eyes. She closed her fingers around Eli’s wrists and began to tow him towards the toilets, murmuring something about getting his hands cleaned. Eli let her take over, his vision foggy and everything in him begging to be able to abandon Jenny and find Rob…
“Here, let’s get these washed.”
The water in the sink was hot, and Mum began to knead at Eli’s skin, spreading the hand soap over his knuckles with gentle ease. She hummed lightly as she did, and Eli felt a little of the tension between his shoulders loosen. “He…he saved our lives, Mum. They’d have attacked me. And Jen. I refused to give them the keys. I—I said no, and one of them had a crowbar, and then this other one stabbed Rob…if he hadn’t been there…if he’d not…”
“What we are going to do,” Mum said softly, “is get you cleaned up and settled down in the ward with Jenny, nice cup of tea and a blanket, get you settled. And when there’s some news about Rob, then we’ll have you up to see him and make sure he’s going to be alright—and then your father or I will come with you, and thank him in person.”
“Oh, right, yeah,” Eli mumbled hoarsely. “Because Dad is ever going to thank Rob for anything.”
Mum squeezed his wrists.
When Eli looked up at her, her usually soft, genial face was firm and tight-lipped.
“From what you’ve said, Eli, then Rob Hawkes took a blade for my children and my grandchild,” she said quietly. “And I never would have thought that of him. Which says to me that we have…rather dramatically misjudged him. And I will not waste time now I know that we’ve done that in trying to mend those bridges, and find out who this man really is.”
The tears welled up again, and Eli balled his hands into fists. “I told you,” he whispered fiercely. “I fucking told you.”
“I know you did, darling,” Mum whispered, “and I’m so, so sorry. But sometimes…sometimes it takes a shock for people to realise they’ve been…wrong. And we have. And we will fix it, I promise you—because I do know some things about your Rob, and that’s that one little idiot with a penknife is not going to keep him down for long.”
Eli laughed—then cracked, his chest heaving, and felt the shock shudder and buckle under the sudden sharp wave of grief. Mum hugged him tightly, murmuring nonsense, as he began to cry…In spite of his wet hands, the smell of antiseptic, and the ache in his chest that was made of pure fear for what was happening to Rob in some shadowy operating theatre…
Eli felt something, finally, after long years of chilly rejection and misunderstandings, begin to heal. 26
Exhaustion must have caught up to him, for the next thing Eli knew was his phone buzzing by his hip, and the dizzying tip of the gleaming corridor as he almost fell out of his chair. He had been settled in a chair in the main corridor of the ward, with the promised tea and blankets formed out of his and his mother’s coats, and…he didn’t remember sleeping, but he had. And his leg had gone to sleep. A passing nurse seized his arm and righted him, chuckling lightly. Eli groaned as he fumbled for the phone.