Authors: Trisha Ashley
Come to that, I was desperately missing everything about him!
Ma and Stella were both so enchanted with the aquarium that we went back again next morning, which I didn’t mind so long as I got to eat more cake afterwards. I needed it to calm my nerves, along with any variety of Reese’s Peanut Butter goodies I could get my hands on. Stella had developed a liking for Reese’s Pieces, which are candy coated and a little like a peanut butter version of Smarties, though unlike me, she made a bag last her all day.
Ma came out to lunch with us this time, then went off to some art gallery, and Stella and I went back to the hotel so she could rest. Later on, when Ma had returned and she and Stella were in her room drawing very strange angel fish, Jago called and I can’t tell you how wonderful it was to hear his voice.
He seemed to feel the same, because he said, ‘You’re so far away, but you
sound
close. How’s the hotel?’
‘Really comfortable and very handy for the hospital and everything else. We’ve been to the aquarium twice – it’s huge, much bigger than any I’ve ever seen.’
‘And you’ve found the Boston cream pie!’
‘Yes, though like I said, it’s not a pie at all, it’s a big sponge cake with a vanilla patisserie cream filling and a chocolate ganache topping. Apparently you can get mini ones too, and Boston doughnuts, which sound a bit like those Krispy Kreme ones …’
I paused. ‘Tomorrow we go into the hospital to meet Dr Beems and then Stella will be admitted the day after … There was a letter waiting at the reception when we arrived, with a map and some leaflets.’
‘How’s she doing?’
‘She seems pretty well, considering the flight, though she did sleep for most of it. I was the one who got off the plane like a zombie. We’ve been concentrating on having a fun weekend and not thinking about anything else.’
Stella came in from Ma’s room and I said, ‘Hello, darling, do you want to speak to Jago?’
She nodded and I handed her the mobile, though I held her close so I could still hear him. She told him that the cab driver had taken lots of little girls and boys to the hospital and they’d all come out as good as new, because they had the best doctors there in the whole wide world.
‘Of course they do,’ I could hear him saying.
‘And they have the best red socks too,’ Stella added, which she’d seemed to find so impressive that I hadn’t yet had the heart to explain that they were a local baseball team. ‘
And
a huge ’quarium. But I wish I could come home now and not go to hospital.’
‘I wish you could, too. But the special doctor there will make you better while you’re having a little sleep and when you’re well again, you and Mummy can have a holiday.’
‘Jenny says I have to be brave and then she’s going to bring me a Salem witch doll.’
‘You
are
brave, Stella, and when you get home, we’re going to make that gingerbread castle with Mummy and there’s going to be a
huge
Christmas party.’
‘Do you think Father Christmas got my list?’
‘I’m sure he did and he’s got the elves working on it right now,’ he said.
‘I asked him for snow, too. I’ve never seen snow.’
‘Yes, you have,’ I put in.
‘Well, I don’t remember,’ she said crossly. ‘And I
want
snow.’
Then she handed me the phone back and inserting her thumb into her mouth, started sucking furiously.
‘Come on, our Stella,’ Ma said, coming in and summing up the situation. ‘We’ll go and see if we can find a half-decent cup of tea somewhere in this place.’
When the door had closed behind them I confessed, ‘I’m getting terrified, Jago, but I’m trying not to show it, because she’s already nervous. She’s cross and very clingy too, and that’s just not like her.’
‘She’s bound to feel frightened, however reassuring you are. I’ll ring you again tomorrow, to see how the first appointment went.’
‘I should phone you – it’s going to cost a fortune.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said, ‘at a time like this, it really, really doesn’t matter.’
Ma went with us to the appointment with Dr Beems next day and I think we all felt better once we’d met him. He was a small, plump and friendly man. Stella told him that he looked just like a penguin she’d seen the day before at the ’quarium.
‘I’ll take that as a compliment,’ he said, and admired the penguin family she’d taken in her pocket for comfort.
‘I’ve got a doctor rabbit, too,’ she said, warming to him. ‘But there should be a doctor penguin, shouldn’t there?’
Then she informed him that she didn’t like having big needles stuck in her arm and he assured her they weren’t going to do that today. I think he realised how bright she was for her age, because he explained to her in simple terms that while she was having a sleep, they were going to make her heart work just like everyone else’s and then a friendly nurse took her out and he went into a lot more detail about what he was going to do.
I’d been trying not think too much in advance about how machines would take over the work of keeping Stella’s little body going while they performed their miracle of surgery … but suddenly now I knew too much. My head throbbed and my palms went clammy as I signed the forms.
‘It’s a bigger operation than she’s ever had before,’ Ma said. ‘But pray God it all goes well and it’s the last.’
‘Amen to that,’ the doctor echoed. ‘I promise to do my very best.’
Back at the hotel I gave Stella the new polar bear family I’d brought with me especially for this moment, which proved a good distraction. She told them that they would be right at home when they got back to Sticklepond, because it was going to snow, so I started to hope we’d have a hard winter!
But later she was clingy and tearful and I had to lie down on the bed with her before she would fall asleep for her nap. That evening, after an early dinner, it seemed easiest to let her watch cartoons on the huge TV in bed until she fell asleep.
Then I sneaked into Ma’s room and rang Jago to describe the hospital visit.
‘Dr Beems is very nice, though he made sure we realised the dangers of the surgery. But he seemed confident that she had a very good chance of coming through and making a good recovery.’
‘And she goes in tomorrow, ready for the operation the next day?’
‘Yes, and I can stay with her. They showed us the room and there’s a chair that folds down to a bed, and a shower and stuff – it’s not like in the UK.’
‘I’m glad you have Martha with you, but I wish I could be there too, even if they wouldn’t let me stay with you.’
‘Ma will come back to the hotel after the operation, as soon as we know she’s out of danger. Stella will be in intensive care right afterwards, but I’ll be able to stay with her then, too, until they move her back into her ordinary room. Everyone’s very nice and friendly, but the hospital is so big and bustling and … well,
different
from our hospitals.’
‘I suppose they are – I only really know what they’re like from watching series like
House
and
Scrubs
,’ he said.
‘I haven’t seen either of those.’
‘That’s probably just as well,’ he assured me.
It was another surreal moment taking Stella to the hospital next day, as though we were in some film with a life-and-death drama and it wasn’t really happening at all.
Jago said later that he felt exactly the same, that none of it could be happening. Then he passed on messages of love and support from lots of people in the village and David and Sarah.
‘It’s lovely to know they’re all thinking of us, and Celia and Will keep emailing and texting, too. There was already a bouquet of flowers and a message from Adam’s parents at the hotel when we arrived.’
‘How’s Stella coping now?’
‘She’s gone very quiet. Ma’s with her and then I’ll stay the night and she’ll go back to the hotel. Stella’s going down for the operation first thing in the morning and it’ll be a long one, they won’t know how long until they’re doing it.’
‘Can you let me know as soon as you can when it’s over?’
‘I will – if I can’t leave her, then I’ll get Ma to ring you.’ I sighed. ‘You feel like my lifeline; talking to you is the only thing keeping me grounded. Stella mentions you all the time, too – and no, before you ask, not just about the gingerbread pigs.’
He laughed. ‘I’d better make her a princess pig to go into the gingerbread castle we’re going to make when she comes home.’
‘I only hope we get a little bit of snow before Christmas too, because she’s convinced there’s going to be some.’
‘That’s out of our hands, unless we can hire a snow blower? Do they actually make snow, or just blow it about?’
‘I don’t know, but I forbid you to hire one if they do make snow, because it would be way too expensive,’ I told him firmly. ‘By the way how was that Goth croquembouche order you were making?’
‘Well, the wedding reception was in a marquee, though it was a bit late in the year. Still, often they’re too humid in summer for the croquembouche, so I suppose that’s better. I decorated the cake with red and black hearts and sugar strands to match the décor in the marquee and I thought it looked weird, but it went down well.’
‘I don’t think I’d fancy a Goth croquembouche, but each to their own,’ I said.
‘We’ll have to try out that Boston cream pie when you get home, and then you can write it up for your “Cake Diaries”.’
‘Yes, I’m hoping to come back with a few new recipes … There’s a lovely nurse – though actually, she said she was some kind of volunteer called a candy-striper – and she’s going to give me her recipe for key lime pie. The receptionist at the hotel’s writing down her grandmother’s Mississippi mud pie recipe too … it all seems to be pies, so far, even when they aren’t actually pies, but cake.’
I stopped, then asked despairingly, ‘How can I be so interested in cake when my child is about to have a major operation?’
‘Because we find comfort where we can,’ he said understandingly. ‘I know the more you talk about cake, the more stressed and worried you are.’
‘Cake’s my comfort food of choice – but
you
seem to be my comfort blanket of choice,’ I confessed. ‘I miss you.’
‘I miss you too and I love you both. In fact, I even love your mother,’ he added, which made me laugh despite everything.
I didn’t want to end the call and I don’t think he did, either, but I had to get back in case Stella woke up.
I hardly slept at all that night because every instinct of a mother was telling me to scoop Stella up and run away with her; yet my brain accepted that this had to be done. It was the only way she would have a future.
Cally rang Jago when Stella went down to theatre and then texted him once or twice after that, but then there ensued long hours of agonising silence during which Jago imagined her pacing up and down the waiting area.
He was fit for nothing except to sit by his phone and wait, but when after what seemed like several lifetimes it rang, it was Martha.
‘Jago? Our Cally asked me to call you to tell you that Stella’s back from the operating theatre and she’s sitting in intensive care with her.’
‘Did it go … well?’ he asked nervously.
‘They said the surgery was a complete success, though of course it’s early days yet and the next twenty-four hours are critical. She’s hooked up to all kinds of machines and still right out of it, poor little thing, though that’s probably all for the best.’
‘Thank God she came through it well!’ Jago said devoutly, and he wasn’t ashamed of the tears that pricked at the backs of his eyes.
‘That Dr Beems came out afterwards and told Cally and me that unless there are any setbacks, he expects her to make a full recovery, though she’ll need monitoring, of course, as she grows.’
‘That’s the best Christmas present anyone could ever give me,’ Jago said, feeling like a chewed rag from an excess of strain and emotion. ‘I’ll pass on the news to Raffy, so he can tell everyone in the village, shall I?’
‘Do, and Cally said she’d given you Adam’s parents’ number so you could let them know, too.’
‘Yes, I’ll ring them, don’t worry.’
‘I’d better go – I want to give Celia and Hal a quick call, but then I need to get back to them. Poor little mite – she does look as if she’s been in the wars.’
‘She’s got through it, that’s the main thing,’ Jago said. ‘Now we just all have to will her on to recover quickly.’
‘I’ll give Cally your love, shall I?’ she asked slightly drily.
‘I hope she knows she’s already got it,’ Jago said. ‘
All
of it.’
The next few days passed in a daze. Stella stabilised and woke up, uncomfortable and disorientated. Then, as she began the process of recovery, the machines sustaining her were removed, one by one.
For some reason it reminded me of that piece of music where all the musicians vanish, one by one, though I couldn’t remember what it was called. Jago said he’d Google it and let me know.
By the end of the week she was weepy and clingy and lacked appetite, though after reading the literature on what I might expect post-op, that didn’t come as a surprise. They
were
pleased with her progress, but seemed worried that she hadn’t yet perked up and started to show more interest in getting better.
I’d been sharing my worries with Jago, of course, but one day Ma suggested it might help Stella if we let her talk to him on the phone – in fact, she picked my mobile up and rang him then and there.
‘Our Stella’s been asking for you, Jago, and wanting to know why you haven’t brought her a gingerbread pig,’ she told him, carrying the phone into Stella’s room when he answered. ‘But I told her, you’re in a different country, you can’t just pop in and visit. Here she is now,’ she added, and gave the phone into Stella’s eager little hands.
‘Daddy-Jago?’
I couldn’t hear his side of the conversation but Stella listened carefully, then took her thumb out of her mouth and said, ‘But I don’t
feel
mended.’
Then she listened again. ‘I thought it would just happen straight away. I want to come home.’