Emergency: Wife Lost and Found Read Online Free PDF Page A

that he had adored but she had so hated.
    ‘She was always cold.’ He was talking to Angela but looking at Lorna. ‘She’d come in after a night shift and she’d be frozen.’ Now he was remembering things thathe had chosen not to, those freezing winter mornings when she’d climb into bed beside him as cold as the ice outside, or when he’d crawl into bed beside her at 7 a.m., cold himself to find her for once warm. He wanted to warm her now, wanted to crawl into bed and hold her, feel her again. Only he couldn’t, hadn’t been able to for a decade now.
    What to do, what to do? His head was spinning. She’d left him, would she even want him sitting beside her now?
    Yes.
    Accidents did happen—James Morrell knew that better than anyone, but for her to be here when she was so very ill…His head tightened at the thought that she might die, or be brain damaged, but somehow there must be a reason that she was here. Somehow she had come back to him, even if it was just to say goodbye.
    He was holding her hand to his face now and it was like a dam breaking. Feeling her skin beneath his lips he leant over, buried his face in her hair, inhaled the last wisps of the lavender shampoo she had always used, felt her cheekbone rest beneath his.
    For a second he thought someone must have died in the next bed, because he could hear crying—a deep, pained crying. It was only when he felt a hand on his shoulder that James realised it was him.
    ‘Talk to her, James.’ Angela must have gone and got May, because it was her at his shoulder, urging him to say what he had to while he had this chance. So he did—told Lorna all the things he’d wanted to say, all the things he never had, told her over and over in the pathetic hope that maybe she could hear him.
    ‘Her family just arrived.’ Ages later, but way too soon, May prompted him to move. ‘They’ve asked that you leave.’
    He’d worked in Emergency for years and had never understood it—those flashpoint rows that were so out of place in a hospital, rows that infuriated the staff and prompted review panels to be set up to avoid them. But seeing that smug face come towards him, seeing the beatific smile of Minister McClelland as he approached him, suddenly James understood.
    ‘James.’ Minister McClelland held out his hand. ‘Thank you for sitting with Lorna till we arrived. It is much appreciated.’
    James knew that he should nod, shake his hand, take his exit cue and just leave, except he couldn’t.
    ‘Of course I sat with her.’
    ‘James!’ How did one smile and shoot venom at the same time, but Minister McClelland had it down to a fine art. ‘It was very kind of you to take time out of your schedule—’
    ‘What do you mean “ take time”?’ James interrupted. ‘She was my wife.’
    “Now your ex-wife,’ Minister McClelland neatly pointed out. ‘She left you, remember?’ He wasn’t smiling now, just dripping false compassion. ‘Lorna divorced you more than ten years ago. As I said, Betty and I have drawn a lot of comfort knowing that someone who used to be close to our daughter could sit with her till we arrived. But we’re here now—and we’d like you to leave.’
    ‘Lorna would want—’
    ‘I know what my daughter would want, James.’ Minister McClelland broke in. ‘You haven’t seen her in years. She’s a very different woman to the one you took advantage of then—and, I can assure you, the woman Lorna is now would not want you sitting by her bedside. Now, you’ve caused my family enough pain in the past, you’ll forgive me if I don’t invite it in again.’
    He headed to his daughter’s bedside and James stood there, knowing he had to leave, but loath to.
    ‘Come on, James.’ It was close to midnight, but that wasn’t why May was in a hurry, she just wanted James away from the toxic atmosphere the minister had created. ‘You’ve seen her, you’ve spoken to her.’ And with that he had to be content.
    ‘Thanks for all you