No Matter What (155 page)

He’d never left her side, and the days when the hope had been bleak had been the toughest days of his life but he’d never lost that hope.
 
Never.
 
If he’d lost hope then what was she supposed to fight for?
 
He’d had to stay strong because he’d known that, when she woke up, she was going to need him.
 
She was really going to need him.

So when she’d finally started to breathe for herself it had felt like a miracle, and that’s exactly what the doctors were calling her.
 
A miracle.

India
was struggling to take in what he’d just told her.
 
Over a week?
 
She’d been here for over a week?

“I don’t understand ...” she whispered.
 
It hurt to speak.
 
Her throat felt like sandpaper.

“Sssh, don’t try to talk too much.
 
Your throat’s going to hurt a bit because of the tube you’ve had down there ... breathing for you.”

“Breathing
for
me?”
 
She looked at him with wide eyes, trying to sit up as panic started to take over.

“Hey, come on, be careful.
 
Just take it easy.”
 
He looked up at the doctors.
 
“Is she going to be ok?”

“We need to take a look at her now, Mr Foster.”

JJ didn’t want to go.
 
He’d been at her side for so long now, it felt wrong leaving her.

“She’s going to be fine.
 
I’m sure she is.”
 
They smiled at him, sensing his reluctance to leave her alone.

JJ looked at her, her eyes slowly closing again and he squeezed her hand, gently kissing her cheek as the doctor’s continued to speak to him.

“We just need to check her over, do a few tests, make sure everything’s as it should be.
 
But she’s going to be fine.
 
She’s a fighter.
 
Your wife is a real fighter, Mr Foster.”

“A beautiful miracle,” JJ said quietly, looking at
India
as she lay in that huge, white bed, her eyes closed again.
 
“She’s my beautiful miracle.”

***

“She’s awake,” JJ said, walking into the private room that had been handed over to them all during
India
’s hospital stay.
 
The press and media were camped outside the hospital so any privacy they could get at this time was more than welcome.
 
“She’s awake and she’s talking and they think she’s going to be fine.”

“Oh, Jesus,” Reece sighed, putting his head in his hands as JJ told him the news that his daughter was going to ok.

“She’s going to be fine,” JJ repeated, suddenly breaking down as all the weeks of worry finally caught up with him, and it was his brother who ran over to him, catching him in his arms, holding him as he cried everything out.

Kenny just looked on.
 
He felt almost numb because he really he’d thought he’d lost her.
 
He’d tried to be as positive and as upbeat as JJ had been but he hadn’t been as good an actor.
 
He hadn’t been able to cope with the pressure of knowing she might die quite as well as everyone else.
 
But then, as he looked at JJ, a man almost crushed by the agonising worry he’d gone through, he began to wonder whether
he’d
really coped as well as he’d wanted everyone else to think he had.
 
He’d been the one there day after day, night after night, talking to her, holding her hand.
 
Kenny knew he would never have been able to do that, not for that long, not without falling apart.
 
He’d been there with her until JJ had arrived from The States, but once her husband had got there Kenny had been almost glad to get out of the stark, sterile environment that
India
had lain in.
 
It had scared him.
 
He hadn’t liked it; he hadn’t wanted to stay there any longer than he’d had to.
 
He hadn’t wanted to listen to the machines and that awful, almost disturbing sound of them breathing for the woman he’d loved for so long.
 
His best friend.
 
His life.
 
If he’d lost her he would have lost a part of himself and that would have been more than he could have coped with.
 
But he was always going to carry with him the image of what had happened that day, an image that had played out in his head in terrifying slow motion every day since the accident.

He’d thought she was dead before he’d got to her.
 
She’d lain in the road like a broken rag doll, lifeless and cold and he’d honestly thought she was dead.
 
He’d been the one who’d had to deal with the commotion that had gone on at the time until the police had arrived to deal with it all.
 
He’d been the one who’d sat with her in the ambulance.
 
He’d been the one that had had to make the ‘phone calls to people, the one that had had to deal with the press and the publicity and the memories of that day were so painful to remember.
 
But he’d never forget.

“She’s going to be ok,” JJ said, pulling away from his brother slightly as Ray passed him a handkerchief.
 

Ray had never seen his baby brother so broken and tired.
 
He’d been extremely brave, that’s the only word he could think of to describe him.
 
He’d been brave.
 
Because nobody else could have done what he’d done, nobody else had had the strength to believe
India
would come through this, least of all him.
 
He’d prepared himself for the worst so how JJ had got through it like he had was still a mystery to them all.

Reece watched as JJ and Ray stood together.
 
In the days since this nightmare had begun this was the first time he’d seen them so close, united even.
 
But then, this was the first time since it had happened that JJ had wanted to be close to anyone other than
India
.

“Joe ...” Ray began.
 
“I’m sorry.
 
I’m so sorry.”

JJ looked at his brother, shaking his head.
 
“There’s nothing to be sorry for, Ray.
 
What happened ... I handled it like an idiot.
 
I never gave either of you a chance to explain and, that was wrong.”
 
He sat down, twisting the handkerchief in his hands as he spoke.
 
“You both must have gone through a lot back then.
 
I didn’t think ... I never stopped to think of the memories that must have brought up for you and her.”

Ray sat down next to JJ, clasping his hands between his open knees.
 
“It’s over, Joe.
 
It’s all in the past and it’s over.
 
All of it.”

“He’s right,” Kenny said, and JJ looked up at him.
 
“It’s time to move forward now.
 
Time to forget the past and move on into the future.
 
India
needs that now more than any of us.”

JJ pushed a hand through his hair, sitting back against the cushions of the sofa, closing his eyes.
 
He just wanted to be with her.
 
He’d almost lost her, literally lost her, and now he just wanted to be with her.
 
He just wanted to tell her he loved her because India Walsh was his life.
 
She was his whole life.
 
And he was just grateful that they were both still here to live it.

***

“Michael, honey, Reece has called from the hospital.”

Michael had just arrived home after picking up Ethan from soccer practise, but as he looked at Layla he felt a cold shiver run up his spine.
 
He tried to read her face, tried to gauge what the news was because, for almost two weeks now, he’d expected the worst.
 
Every time the ‘phone had rang he’d expected to hear that she’d gone, that they’d lost her.

“Where’s Ethan?” Layla asked, noticing that he wasn’t with Michael.

Over the past couple of weeks, as his mother had fought for her life thousands of miles away, Layla had grown quite close to Michael and
India
’s son.
 
He’d come to stay with them when Reece and Martha had flown over to the U.K. to be with India and he’d arrived at their home a very frightened and very scared little boy, terrified that his mom was going to die.
 
And it had been Layla that had had to take charge and be the strong one because Michael had just fallen apart in the beginning.

So Layla had been the one that had cuddled him when he’d cried, sat with him when he couldn’t sleep and played with him when he’d needed his mind taken off things.
 
They hadn’t kept anything from him; they’d never pretended everything was going to be okay.
 
The news they’d kept getting hadn’t always been encouraging so they hadn’t wanted to give him any false hope.
 
But watching someone so young crying for his mom every day had broken Layla’s heart.
 
Especially as his dad had been in no fit state to comfort him at first.

She’d seen the pain Michael had gone through at the prospect of his ex-wife dying and that had torn her apart too.
 
Not only had it been painful to watch him so confused and distraught, but it had also made it quite clear to her just how much he still loved
India
.
 
It had been obvious that all he’d really wanted to do was get on a ‘plane and be with her but for Ethan’s sake he’d stayed in L.A. and tried to pull himself together.
 
He’d tried to be as strong as he could for his little boy, and Layla had loved him all the more for doing that.
 
Even though she knew he would never, ever love her the way he loved
India
.
 
But she was learning to accept that.
 
She was learning fast.

“Ethan’s out in the back yard,” Michael said.
 
“He’s just having a bit of a kick-about.
 
He didn’t want to come indoors just yet.”

He didn’t really want to ask what Reece had said.
 
He was scared to ask because he was scared of the answer.

“Don’t you want to know what he said, Michael?”
 
She watched him as he threw Ethan’s kit-bag onto the floor before walking over to the huge floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the garden.

He dug his hands in his pockets and watched as Ethan ran about the garden with Layla’s little Jack Russell, Snoopy, both of them chasing the football.
 
Ethan was laughing.
 
For the first time in days he was laughing and that was making Michael cry because he hadn’t seen his son so much as smile lately.

“He misses her so much,” Michael said quietly, as Layla came up behind him, circling her arms around his waist, leaning against him.

“She’s awake, Michael.
 
She’s woken up, and she’s gonna be ok.
 
She’s gonna be ok.”

Michael closed his eyes as the relief crashed over him, tears streaming down his face.
 
“Thank God,” he whispered.
 
“I thought she’d gone, Layla.
 
I really thought I was going to lose her.”

The way he talked about her, like they were still together, didn’t escape Layla’s notice, but she let it go.
 

He turned round and Layla held him in her arms as he let the tears fall, all those pent-up emotions flooding out of him.
 
It was almost too much to take, the utter relief was completely overwhelming him because he really had thought she was going to die.
 
Reece had never sugar-coated anything whenever he’d called with news on her progress.
 
The despair and worry in his voice couldn’t have been more obvious and that had frightened Michael.
 
He’d spent almost two weeks wondering how he was going to tell a six year old little boy that his mommy was never coming back and the strain had been incredible.

But it seemed like it was over now.
 
It seemed as if someone had come into this horrific situation with a magic wand and now every dark and sinister cloud that had been hanging over them had just disappeared.

“Daddy?”

Michael pulled away from Layla, wiping his eyes as he looked at Ethan, standing in the doorway in his soccer kit, Snoopy by his side.

“Is it mommy?”

Big tears started to fall down his little face and Michael crouched down, smiling at him.

“Hey, come on little guy.
 
No crying, ok?
 
Mommy’s gonna be ok.
 
She’s gonna be alright.”

Ethan looked at him.
 
“Why are you crying then?”