A Proposal Worth Waiting For

Can we do this?

Behind him Josh sat on a bland vinyl chair. Still wheezing. Not noticeably better, but not worse. Could they do this, with time squeezing them as tight as Josh’s lungs?

Miranda felt steely determination set in.

Could they? Just try showing her any other option!

‘Time for a second dose,’ she said. ‘Let’s not have you two miss the flight. There isn’t another connecting hop out to the island until tomorrow afternoon.’

‘We’ve just done a second lot,’ Nick muttered, blocking the conversation from Josh’s ears with the bulk of his body in the half-open doorway. His open-necked shirt showed a fine mist of perspiration across his collar-bone. He was literally sweating this—the tight timing, Josh’s breathing, the potential disappointment. ‘What do you think? Is there any point hanging on here for a third, or should I give up now and cancel our flight? Give up on the whole thing?’

She couldn’t keep back a stricken sound. Cancel Josh’s trip?

‘I’m asking you as a doctor, Miranda,’ he added, as if he knew that she was operating far too much on emotion right now. ‘Not as someone who wants my little boy to have his holiday. Should we really push this? Is it a sign that I’m not the right person to be…? No, hell, I can’t think straight about any of this. You need to be the one to make the decision.’

He met her gaze, jaw tight, expression rigid, fighting himself. She wasn’t imagining the appeal reflecting from deep within his brown eyes. It was there, even though he’d never been the kind of man to show any weakness easily or willingly.

Somehow, his look cut to the heart of her just as the whole of him had cut to the heart of her ten years ago, during their one night together, without him apparently even knowing it. Or if he had known, back then, he hadn’t cared.

At some level he trusted her on this, she decided—trusted Anna’s assessment of her as a professional, or his own more personal memories. The fact warmed her too much and she had to push the feeling away. She should remember that after their night of talking and making love, which she’d believed in so much, he’d never phoned…

‘Has he improved at all?’ she asked quickly.

‘A little. More after the dose I gave him a couple of minutes ago. I—I don’t think he trusts me. Is he psyching himself out because I’m here, not his mother? Maybe at some level this is happening because he doesn’t want to go to camp with me.’

He was being incredibly careful not to let Josh hear. Miranda had to step closer and keep her eyes fixed on that barely moving mouth but still she strained to hear him. At this distance, she could see more clearly the lines on his face that hadn’t been there ten years ago, and she had a totally unacceptable urge to soothe them with her fingers.

‘Let’s not think that way. Let me take a look at him,’ she suggested.

‘He knows you almost better than he knows me, I guess.’ The words, barely more than a mutter, cut Miranda to the heart.

She came fully into the parents’ room and dropped to Josh-level. He was sitting in the room’s one chair. ‘Can you talk, Josh?’

‘A bit.’

‘You said the second dose helped?’ She could feel Nick behind her, a ball of strong and very male tension and distress. He really didn’t want to cancel this trip.

‘Yes.’

‘So we’ll just sit here, shall we, and then we’ll give a third dose and that’ll do the trick.’ She spoke as if there was no other possibility, and Josh smiled at last.

While Nick let out a sigh that she didn’t dare to think came from relief.

Not yet, Nick, please.

Josh wasn’t out of the woods yet.

Ten minutes later, they both helped him with the third dose, then Nick put his asthma equipment back in the colouful backpack and they listened to the wonderful sound of Josh breathing better and talking again. ‘Did we miss the plane?’

‘No, sweetheart. We have time.’

Not much of it, though.

Nick took her aside again, holding her arm, bending his head towards hers so that the dark hair spilling across his forehead almost brushed her face. ‘Can we really do this? What if he crashes again during the flight?’ His touch felt impossibly familiar, even after so long. She couldn’t believe how quickly they’d reconnected in such a personal way.

Maybe because she’d been expecting something like this— half dreading and half wanting it—for two years? It was harder than if he’d simply shown up in her life again, out of the blue.

‘They have oxygen on board,’ Miranda answered, ‘and the fact that he’s responded to these first few doses is a good sign. In the past, when he’s crashed badly, it’s been downhill all the way.’

‘True,’ Nick said. ‘Ambulance ride to the hospital. The full works.’

‘He’s been very excited about this trip.’

‘Don’t I know it!’

‘I so-o-o don’t want to pull the plug on it for him now.’

‘Neither do I,’ Nick said.

‘Is it the excitement, do you think?’ Miranda asked him quietly.

‘That and…’ He stopped, took a breath and readied himself to choose his words carefully. ‘Anna can’t…uh…always hide when she’s stressed. He picks up on it far too much. As far as she’s concerned, the timing of her mother’s accident couldn’t have been worse, and maybe she’s right…’

Anna’s emotions sometimes made Josh sicker. Nick and Miranda were in agreement on that. But then he added, ‘And maybe she’s right to think it’ll be disastrous to have me with him on the trip. He and I haven’t spent as much time together as I’d like.’

He hated saying those outwardly bland words, Miranda could tell. Hated saying them because they were true? Or because they weren’t? Had he genuinely wanted a better relationship with his son all along? Or was Anna right in saying, as she frequently did, that Nick was the one to withdraw?

His smile was forced. ‘We looked at pictures of a Very Greedy Frog.’

‘As much time as you’d like with him?’ she echoed, before she could stop herself. It had sounded a little too much like a challenge— Yeah, really? That’s not what Anna says. Why had she felt the need to plumb the level of his honesty now, when they were in such a rush?

He looked at her and she could almost see him mentally prioritising his battles. Most important, get himself and Josh onto the flight. Way down the list, argue with his son’s respiratory physician about which divorced parent most deserved the prize for honesty and clear thinking and sacrifice.

‘Look, is there still time?’ he asked. ‘That’s what’s important now.’

‘You’re right. I’m sorry. Benita has been waiting with your luggage. Everyone else will have gone through by now. We have to get to that check-in desk now, if you’re going to make the flight.’

He nodded for the third time. Wasn’t going to waste words when he didn’t have that luxury. Once again, he scooped Josh into his arms and slung the backpack over one shoulder. ‘Let’s do it. Josh, can you breathe?’

No answer.

‘Josh, can you? You have to talk to me!’

‘Yes. I’m breathing.’

‘I’ll put you down later, so you can walk onto the plane on your own, OK? For now I’m carrying you, because we need to hurry.’

‘So are we still going?’ came a thin little voice.