Page 53

‘Her sister was here earlier with Frankie’s son, they come every day. Would you like to go in? She is tired but awake.’

The doctor was already moving towards the door, taking her silence as acquiescence. She swallowed in trepidation, but her feet seemed to be doing the thinking for her and she followed him into the room.

Frankie lay propped on pillows, a small, almost childlike, figure. Beside the bed was a drip stand, the line leading into a cannula in her thin arm. Her bedside was decorated with a child’s drawings. Propped up by the bed was a toy llama, which lent the scene a little joy and normality.

Frankie’s eyes were closed and in one of her hands she loosely held a rosary.

‘She’s on morphine for the pain most of the time, but she asked us to hold back on it when we told her you were here.’ He spoke in a low voice. ‘If you need a nurse, there’s a call button above the bed. We’re trying to make her as comfortable as possible.’

‘I can hear you, David.’ Frankie’s voice, though rasping, had power, and Shauna saw the woman open her eyes. Despite her frailty, she was alert.

‘I don’t doubt that for a minute, Frankie.’ He turned to Shauna. ‘Don’t stay too long.’

A small smile flitted across Frankie’s face, and the doctor touched Frankie’s hand before he left the room. Shauna could see that the doctor liked Frankie a great deal. Had Dan cared about this woman, too? She knew very little about their affair, hadn’t wanted to know, but now she was filled with curiosity. Had Dan loved her? Had he seen his son? She’d asked her lawyers to make a fair monthly settlement to be paid until the boy was eighteen, but once that was done, she’d tried to put him out of her mind.

The woman’s eyes darted towards her with a suddenness that made Shauna start. As they stared at each other, the woman twisted and tried to sit up.

‘No, stay there,’ said Shauna, realizing that she needed to conserve what little energy she had left.

‘I’m glad you came.’

‘Isaac told me about …’ Shauna didn’t know how to continue the sentence.

‘I’ll save you the trouble, I’m dying.’

I know,’ Shauna said softly.

‘I don’t care for me. It’s Alex.’ Frankie turned her dark expressive eyes on Shauna; fierce and intelligent, they seemed to burn from her face, gaunt, but still beautiful. ‘He’s with my sister—’ Frankie shut her eyes, gripped by a spasm of pain.

‘Do you want me to call a nurse?’ asked Shauna, her finger reaching for the call button.

‘No, don’t. They’ll just give me more morphine and then I can’t talk … and I need to talk to you about Alex’s future.’ Shauna opened her mouth to speak, but Frankie cut her off: ‘It’s not about money. It’s about what will happen to him when I’m gone.’

For the first time, Shauna saw fear in Frankie’s eyes; fear for herself, but also for her boy. ‘I’m sure your sister will—’

‘Isabelle is in remission. The same cancer as I have, but hers was caught earlier. The only reason she’s alive is because I blackmailed your old man to pay for the treatment.’

Shauna was stunned at this revelation but tried not to show it. ‘Dan would have given you the money if he’d known what it was for.’

‘I know that now …’ Beads of sweat formed on her forehead and her jaw clenched as another wave of pain hit her. Once it had passed, she was seized by a new urgency, as if she had to get the words out while she still could: ‘Look, Shauna, my sister loves Alex, but this cancer, it’s a bitch. It killed my mother, it’s gonna kill me. If anything happens to Isabelle, Alex has no one. He doesn’t deserve that. He’s a good boy, despite having me for a mother, and you saw how cute he is – just like his father, no?’

Shauna recalled the day of the funeral, how unnerved she’d been by the child’s resemblance to Dan.

‘I want you to take him. You can give him a better life, opportunities, connections.’

Shauna shook her head, panic rising in her. ‘I can’t.’

‘Please … you have to.’ Frankie reached out and clutched Shauna’s hand with surprising strength. ‘I want Alex to be safe. I don’t want him to wind up in a street gang like my brothers.’ Frankie grimaced again. ‘Dan … he said you were kind. Good.’

Shauna knew that if Dan were here, he would have said yes in a heartbeat. Dan hadn’t left a will, dying before his time, but she knew that he would want her to take the boy and love him as her own. Yet still she hesitated. Her heart went out to the child; losing his mother at such a young age would be a terrible blow and, however conflicted her feelings about Frankie, she couldn’t stand the thought of him suffering. But would it really ease that suffering if he came to live with her rather than staying with his aunt? Yes, Shauna could give him all the material things, the opportunities and connections Frankie wanted him to have, but she was a stranger to him. If his aunt loved him and he loved her, surely it would be in the boy’s best interest to stay where he was?

Frankie sucked in a laboured breath, her eyes losing focus. ‘I know what you think of me, but I can tell you that Dan loved you. And I really wanted some of that. It was why I tried to ruin him. I’m sorry for that now. I can see a lot of Dan in Alex – he’s got his dad’s genes, thank God.’

Shauna could see that, despite the pain and exhaustion, Frankie would go on pleading with her until she agreed, but she didn’t want to make empty promises just to placate her. Choosing her words carefully, she took Frankie’s hand and said, ‘OK, I will look after him. But first he needs to get to know me, to learn to trust me. I’ll leave my phone number with you so you can get Isabelle to call me and we can talk about things.’

‘Promise me.’ Frankie didn’t let go of Shauna.

‘I’ll work with Isabelle and together we will do what’s best for him. Alex is going to need her in his life. Does he have any other family?’