CHAPTER FIVE

      AS THEY EMERGED from the airport terminal, Ben took her elbow and led her to a waiting car. It was long and low with blacked-out windows and Ben spoke to the driver before sliding in beside her.

      ‘Until I know what’s happening I’d like to—’

      ‘You don’t want me there.’

      She flicked an anxious look at his face. There was nothing to read in those strong lines and angles but she knew that she’d offended him. She seemed to have a knack at this and on this occasion she really didn’t want to.

      ‘You’ve been so kind.’

      His chiselled jaw tightened. ‘Kind is what a stranger is. I’m a father.’ Sounds good but what does it mean? What did he actually know about being a father? Oh, arranging transport and second opinions he could do. That was the easy stuff. The other things...what if he was no good at them? What if he was a lousy father? His own father had probably meant well, but that hadn’t stopped him failing miserably. Two parents waging their own silent war of attrition and he’d been the silent casualty.

      ‘I didn’t mean...’ She looked at his shuttered profile and, responding to an instinct she didn’t pause to analyse, laid her small hand on his.

      Ben looked from the small hand to her face. The muscles in his brown throat worked as he swallowed but his expression revealed nothing.

      ‘You’re a good mother.’

      She blinked at the abrupt declaration before responding with a guilty flood of self-recrimination. ‘I wasn’t there... I should have been... Emmy needed me and I was with you—’

      Ben felt the tortured guilt in the swimming green eyes that met his like a dull knife sliding between his ribs. He pressed a finger to her lips. ‘You are now.’

      She took a deep shuddering breath. ‘Sorry.’

      ‘When I was a kid I had a fall...fractured my skull.’ He lifted a hand to the side of his head. ‘There was internal bleeding and they had to operate to relieve the pressure. When my mother arrived—a week later—she was very concerned about the scars that might spoil my looks. Luckily the hair they’d shaved grew back. You are a good mother.’

      A week...there were obviously scars that his hair did not hide. A good mother...who knew? But at least I’m not a monster, Lily thought soberly.

      ‘So go be a good mum and I’ll be around when you need me.’ Earning his right to call himself a father.

      ‘It’s not that... Mum will be there on the ward, you see, and you... The explanations on top of everything else... I’m not trying to...exclude you.’

      There was a long pause before he nodded. ‘I have some calls to make. I’ll have Martin...’ he nodded towards the driver behind the glass screen ‘...drive around the block until you’re finished.’

      ‘But I might be a long time,’ she protested.

      He shrugged and handed her a mobile phone. ‘Then you’re a long time, but in case you need...anything.’

      She looked at the phone.

      ‘It has my number in it.’

      * * *

      Lily watched the man’s lips move. Words came out, she could hear them, recognise them, but the words seemed disjointed, nothing he was saying made sense because this wasn’t happening. She put down the full teacup, the contents cold, and turned her head to look through the glass partition where Emmy was sitting up in bed. She was wearing her favourite pyjamas and giggling as her grandmother pretended to search for the toy she clutched in her chubby little hands—it was one of her favourite games.

      The emotion swelled in Lily’s chest, the ache so intense that it drew a rasping sigh from her pale lips. This couldn’t be happening. Emmy was too little, too... It was not fair!

      Life isn’t fair, said the unsympathetic voice in her head.

      ‘Are there any questions you would like to ask me?’

      Lily slowly turned her head; she felt weirdly frozen inside. ‘Are you sure? Could there be a mistake? Results can get mixed up.’ The magazines were always full of such stories. Hope flared and died in her eyes as the doctor, firm but sympathetic, put a hand on her shoulder.

      ‘Your daughter is a very poorly little girl.’

      Lily bit her lip, drawing blood but not noticing the metallic coppery taste on her tongue. ‘But I’d have noticed.’ Should have noticed. The guilt was there; it never went away. Her job as a mother was to protect...and she hadn’t.

      ‘This is not your fault.’

      ‘Then whose fault is it?’ she hissed, anger flaring then fizzling like cold ashes as he responded.

      ‘Nobody’s fault. The onset is notoriously insidious—the symptoms are often missed at this stage by professionals. Your GP did well to pick them up when he did, which puts us in a good position.’

      Lily seized eagerly onto his words. ‘It does?’

      ‘At this stage ninety-five per cent of children go into remission following a bone-marrow transplant.’

      Hope fluttered inside her skull. ‘So bone marrow is a cure?’

      ‘I don’t want to raise your hopes.’

      Too late, she thought, fighting a mixture of frustration and trepidation as he consulted the tablet he held.

      A bunch of figures that spelt out her baby’s future.

      The man laid the tablet aside and removed his glasses. ‘Though the number of bone-marrow donors have increased over recent years...’

      Anticipating the but, Lily rushed into speech. ‘She can have mine, can’t she?’ She laid her arm on the table and began to roll up her sleeve. ‘Take what you like.’

      ‘It doesn’t work like that, I’m afraid,’ the man said gently. ‘I don’t want to be negative, but the fact is that your daughter has an extremely rare blood group.’

      Lily closed her eyes and released a low sigh as she finally realised where he was going. ‘And I don’t.’

      ‘I have already discussed the subject of compatibility with your mother. She was unsure of the situation, Emily’s father...paternal relatives. It is a relatively minor procedure