Authors: Trisha Ashley
She stuck her thumb back in her mouth and didn’t say anything else, though she nodded a few times and smiled around her thumb. Then she passed the phone back to me and I went outside with it.
‘What did you say?’ I asked him.
‘That she had to
try
to get better; it wouldn’t happen on its own. But if she did, then she’d soon be coming home again and I’d be waiting at the airport to meet her.’
‘Thank you, that might spur her on a bit,’ I said gratefully. ‘She
is
making physical progress, because her heart is working and her colour is better. They took the line out of her arm this morning too, thank goodness. It’s just that she seems to lack any spirit.’
‘Did Jenny come over to see her?’
‘Yes, and she brought Stella a rag doll in a witch’s costume, which she loved. She’s got it tucked in bed with her alongside Bun. But even Jenny couldn’t get her to eat much,’ I told him worriedly. ‘Still, perhaps now she’s talked to you, she’ll try a bit harder.’
The next afternoon Jago suddenly went quiet for hours, after sending me a text saying he’d catch up with me in the morning. I felt as if my lifeline had been cut.
‘The lad’s got to sleep sometime; he must be exhausted,’ Ma said. ‘He can’t have had much rest since Stella came out of theatre, because he’s been on the phone to you every five minutes.’
‘I expect you’re right,’ I said guiltily, ‘and since it must be evening there, he’s probably crashed out, what with no sleep and working such long hours.’
But when there was still no word from him next morning and I only got his messaging service, I started to get seriously worried … until on my way back from a meal I didn’t want in the cafeteria a familiar voice called, ‘Cally!’
‘
Jago?
’ I swung round, my heart thumping wildly, thinking I must be dreaming, or that I’d longed for him so much that I’d conjured him up from my yearnings.
But no – it was the man himself, rumpled, unshaven and tired. In two quick strides he reached me and enfolded me in a rib-cracking embrace. Then he kissed me … and kissed me again.
‘Oh God, I’ve missed you so much!’ he said finally, laying his cheek against my hair.
‘I’ve missed you too,’ I said shakily. ‘But I’m stunned – what on earth are you doing here? I was getting really worried because I hadn’t heard from you for hours and hours.’
‘Well, I hadn’t got a cake order till Saturday and David could manage without me, so I managed to get on a flight. And this literally
is
a flying visit, because I’ve got to go back tomorrow.’
‘You’re quite mad,’ I told him. ‘But – oh, I am glad to see you!’
‘How’s Stella?’
‘Still not perking up as much as we’d like, but she’s going to be so pleased to see you! She keeps asking for you because she can’t seem to grasp how far away we are from home, probably because she slept through most of the flight.’
‘Will they let me see her?’ He flourished a familiar silver box. ‘I’ve brought a trio of gingerbread pigs: mother, father and little piglet. And this bag is full of cards and presents from your friends and well-wishers. You wouldn’t
believe
how long it took me to persuade Customs just to X-ray them and not make me unwrap everything.’
‘Of course you can see her,’ I said, leading the way back to her room, and Stella’s face lit up when she saw him.
‘Daddy-Jago!’
Our favourite candy-striper, Opal, was just on her way out and gave me a strange look, there having so far been no mention of Stella’s father.
‘This is our friend Jago, who’s flown in specially to see Stella,’ I introduced her.
‘I told you you should come,’ Stella told him. ‘I’m
trying
to get better, like you said.’
‘Jesus saved her, because he doesn’t want her yet,’ Opal said. ‘I hope you’re going to get that little girl to eat something, because she’s taken no more lunch than would keep a sparrow alive.’
‘I’ve got some magic gingerbread pigs in this box,’ he promised. ‘She’ll eat every meal after one of those.’
Opal said she hoped so and went out, but Stella giggled. ‘I’ll try. The food is funny here, but I liked the wafflies with maple syrup at the hotel. Can I have a gingerbread piggie?’
‘Of course you can,’ he said, handing over the silver box. ‘You nibble one of those while I get all the presents out that your friends at home have sent you.’
She started gnawing on the smallest pig while together they opened everything and by then all of the biscuit had vanished.
‘Are you staying with me, Daddy-Jago?’ she asked suddenly.
‘No, I’m afraid I’ll have to go back tomorrow, Stella, because I have a wedding cake to make and it’ll spoil the bride’s special day if I don’t get it there for the reception, won’t it?’
Stella nodded, reluctantly, and put her thumb back in her mouth.
‘But all you have to do is eat lots so you get well quickly and Mummy can bring you home.’
‘All right,’ she said, removing her thumb and holding her arms out for a hug, which he returned as if she was made of glass.
‘As soon as Mummy says you’re on your way home, I’ll bake all the pieces of gingerbread to make our princess castle and then we can build it together and cover it in icing and Smarties.’
‘They have peanut butter Smarties here,’ she said. ‘But they’re a funny shape.’
‘Reese’s Pieces,’ I explained.
‘I’ll have to take some of those back with me for the gingerbread castle, then.’
‘I’m going to save a bit of gingerbread pig for Opal,’ announced Stella.
‘Everyone’s been so kind here,’ I told Jago. ‘And Opal, the hospital volunteer you just met, prayed for Stella every day, so what with Raffy doing the same in Sticklepond, God was clearly on our side.’
‘And the angel. I saw it when I was going to sleep,’ Stella said. ‘It wasn’t in my head, because Grandma saw it too.’
‘That figures,’ I said, though this was the first I’d heard of any heavenly visitation. ‘It wasn’t one of those angel fish from the aquarium she keeps drawing, was it?’
Stella giggled. ‘No, it was a
real
angel. Opal said it was my guardian angel, telling me everything would be fine.’
‘I think she was probably right.’
‘Grandma does too – look, we’ve been drawing angels.’ There was a scattering of paper on the bed, under all the get-well cards they’d just opened.
‘Where
is
Grandma?’ I asked, realising I hadn’t seen her for ages.
‘She popped out for five minutes when Opal came in. I bet she’s smoking outside,’ Stella said disapprovingly.
‘That’s quite likely,’ I admitted, because the stress seemed to have upped Ma’s Sobranie consumption, just as it had upped my cake one to whole new levels of gluttony, but I hoped her habit would soon revert back to two a day.
Jago had booked himself into our hotel, and later in the afternoon we left Ma in charge at the hospital, while I went back with him to change and then have dinner, the first time in a week I hadn’t just dashed to the hospital cafeteria for something.
Then we walked back to the hospital to relieve Ma, holding hands just as we used to, and I felt warmed, comforted and heartened.
I’d slept in Stella’s hospital room since the operation, in a chair that folded down into a bed, so Jago went back to the hotel later when Stella had gone to sleep, though not before she’d made a valiant attempt to eat all her dinner for him and then extracted a promise that he’d come back early next morning to say goodbye, before jetting off home again.
I hesitated to think what state he would be in by early Saturday, when he had that croquembouche to make!
When Jago popped in to say goodbye, he said he’d had an idea for the Christmas/Welcome Home party. ‘What if I baked lots and lots of gingerbread stars and hung them on ribbons, one for each of the people who helped you to get better, Stella’s Hundred Stars?’
She nodded. ‘I’d like that.’
‘That’s a lot of work,’ I said.
‘Not really, and you can both help me thread the ribbons through them when you’re home, can’t you?’
‘Of course,’ I agreed.
‘I’d better make lots of smaller ones to hang on the tree, too, so everyone who comes can have one.’
‘And one for Father Christmas,’ Stella said seriously.
‘Definitely – a special one,’ he agreed solemnly. ‘It’s going to be a great party.’
‘This year we’ll have the
best
Christmas ever,’ I agreed, because now I was sure that Stella had turned a corner and suddenly there was a future for her, beckoning star bright.
‘Are those happy tears, Mummy?’ Stella asked worriedly.
‘Yes,
very
happy,’ I assured her.
She was sad after Jago had gone, but she already seemed brighter and more alert.
When Dr Beems came in to see her, she told him, ‘I have to get better quickly, because I can’t go home until I do. But I’ve eaten a magic gingerbread pig now, so it should be
soon.
’
‘Those magic pigs, they always do the trick,’ Dr Beems agreed gravely.
Jago hadn’t been gone an hour before I was missing his comforting presence. I said as much to Ma later when Stella was having a little doze.
‘It’s as if I’ve always known him and he’s been part of my life, like the brother I never had. I’m sure he feels the same way.’
‘You daft ha’porth!’ Ma said. ‘There’s nothing brotherly about the way he looks at you – or you at him. I wasn’t born yesterday.’
I looked at her doubtfully. ‘But … I mean he never ever makes any kind of move to show he wants anything other than friendship.’
‘I don’t know, there seems to have been a lot of kissing and cuddling going on.’
‘That was mostly me,’ I confessed.
‘From what I heard about the pair of you at the fête, he didn’t exactly fight you off.’
‘Well, he is very kind, he probably wouldn’t want to hurt my feelings,’ I told her, though it had to be said that he put a lot of enthusiasm into his kisses …
‘He’s in love with you,’ she said. ‘I expect he thinks you’ve been too taken up with Stella to say anything.’
I wasn’t sure she was right … but yet, I began to hope she was. And if Jago didn’t realise that I’d fallen in love with him … well, he was probably assuming I’d be heading straight back for London as soon as Stella was well enough, so he wouldn’t say anything even after we got home … unless I gave him a bit of encouragement!
‘So, that was your daddy?’ asked Opal when she came in later with a vase for the flowers that had just been delivered, along with a teddy bear from Adam’s parents.
‘No, Jago’s just a friend,’ I explained quickly. ‘Stella calls him Daddy-Jago and he doesn’t mind.’
‘He likes it,’ Stella said.
‘It’s clear he thinks a lot of Stella – of both of you.’
I grinned. ‘He makes a mean croquembouche wedding cake, too.’
‘What’s that?’ she asked. ‘Never heard of one of those.’
I described the huge pyramids of airy patisserie cream-filled choux buns, held together by caramel and decorated with gossamer fine sugar strands and she said she was going to look them up on the internet.
‘So you both love cake – that’s something you have in common.’
‘Mummy has a special cake she makes for birthdays,’ Stella said, ‘a princess cake.’
So then I had to describe that too, and once she found out about my books on cakes Opal said she was going to order them. But I told her no, she should just write down her address and we’d send her copies in return for all that praying.
‘I like to pray,’ she said. ‘I like to talk to God; I do it a lot.’
‘I talked to an angel in my dream,’ Stella put in.
‘I know, darlin’, you told me,’ Opal said.
‘That was her guardian angel,’ Ma said, arriving in time to overhear the last bit of conversation.
‘Angels seem to be a recurring theme in our lives,’ I said.
‘And angel fish,’ Stella suggested. ‘I wonder why there isn’t an angel fish family?’
‘They’d be fish out of water,’ I said, but when I looked at her she’d fallen suddenly asleep, a half-chewed relic of gingerbread pig in one hand.
‘I think she’s saved the bum end for you again, Ma,’ I said.
Jago had had about two hours’ sleep before he started making that croquembouche and he told me he did it on automatic pilot.
‘Actually, if anything, it’s better than my usual ones,’ he said, when he rang me from Honey’s once he’d got back from delivering it. ‘I’m going to crash out in a minute, but when I wake up I’ll call Raffy and Hal and Stella’s grandparents again.’
‘You’re an angel.’
‘It’s because I love you both,’ he said.
‘We love you too,’ I assured him (little did he know how
much
I loved him!), ‘and Stella’s a changed child since you left: she really
has
turned a corner.’
Jenny visited again. Her family wanted us to stay with them in their guest suite for a few days once Stella was well enough, which was very kind, though I felt for the first few days I’d like to move back to the hotel, to be near the hospital even though Jenny’s daughter-in-law was a nurse, too.
But Dr Beems didn’t anticipate any emergencies and was very pleased with Stella now. He told me her long-term outlook was good, and though she’d continue to need regular check-ups, they should be less frequent as she got older.
‘So … she can start school in spring and live a normal life?’
‘Yes, that shouldn’t be a problem, and she should also start with moderate exercise and build up her strength.’
‘When do you think we might be able to go home?’
‘If all progresses well, I’d suggest the beginning of December,’ he said.
So we moved back into the Great Western, and though at first Stella was still a bit clingy and whiny, unlike her old self, I knew from the literature they’d given me that that was only to be expected. I introduced her old routine as much as possible and let her act out what had happened with her doctor rabbit and a whole string of other unfortunate little creatures. That poor polar bear family were the sickest animals on the planet, until she made them all better.
Her physical recovery, though, went in leaps and bounds so that Ma, who’d always intended if all went well to come home earlier than us, decided to fly back with Jenny the following week.