she looked pale and drawn but otherwise less badly injured than they had feared.
‘We gave her a sedative to calm her,’ the nurse told them. ‘Don’t worry, she’s fine now. The doctor will be along soon to speak to you.’
Eleni looked at her daughter and tried to fight back her tears. She reached for Calli’s hand and sat by her side. Gently she brushed her hair off her forehead and bend down to kiss it. She had woken that morning with one of her strange premonitions, but Calli was in such a buoyant mood that she had tried not to dwell on it. A few hours ago the two of them were having coffee in the kitchen, waiting for John to come and drive Calli to the photo shoot.
‘She was so cheerful this morning.’ She turned to Keith, who appeared as miserable as she felt. ‘Poor baby, look at her now.’
‘She was lucky to have escaped with minor injuries, no broken bones,’ the doctor told them when he finally arrived, ‘and she was quite conscious when she was brought in.’ He picked up the clipboard from the front of the bed. ‘She will be fine,’ he paused while reading her notes, ‘but unfortunately,’ he continued, looking up at them both, ‘we couldn’t save the baby.’ Eleni felt her knees buckle beneath her and put an arm on the bed to steady herself. The impact of the collision, he informed them, had been enough of a shock to cause the placenta to become detached, thus causing a severe haemorrhage which sent Calli into premature labour; the baby was stillborn. Eleni looked from the doctor to Keith, unable to speak, the colour drained from her face. All she could think of was how matter-of-factly the young doctor had delivered those devastating words.
She was already five months pregnant and the baby had been due in November. Calli was inconsolable. The ordeal of what happened to her physically and emotionally left her bereft and traumatized. The shock and loss of her relationship had now faded into unimportance in comparison with the loss of her baby. The grief she was plunged into had no measure and its intensity overwhelmed her. She reached the depths of despair on the date baby Eleni was due. Her mother worried for her safety; she had never seen her daughter so broken.
‘You have been through a lot,’ her friend Josie told her. ‘I think it would be good to talk to someone other than just us . . . someone who knows how to help.’
‘Maybe if she accepted some work,’ Eleni said to Keith, at a loss as to what else to suggest. ‘It might do her good, take her mind off things . . . You know how she loves her job.’
‘She will go back to work when she is ready. She needs time, what she needs now is help,’ Keith replied.
Her world was dark, it took several months of therapy and the best part of a year with all her family and dear friends rallying around her before Calli started to find herself again. By then, spring was well on its way. The long sad nights were at last behind them and the smell of freshly cut grass scented the air. Calli took a deep breath, literally and metaphorically, and with her exhalation she blew away some of the sadness she had held inside herself for so many months. It was time now to pick herself up and rejoin the world.
The next time her phone rang with a work assignment, instead of declining the call she accepted the offer with pleasure, with a certain relief at the prospect of employing her mind again. During the next few weeks she eased herself into work with a few small commissions, and then started to look for an apartment. It was time to leave the refuge of the family home and launch herself into an independent life, as she had promised herself she would do. James was out of her thoughts now for good and it was time to move on.
‘He’s got a bloody nerve!’ Josie had said when Calli told her that after she lost the baby he had tried to see her. ‘I hope you told him where to go!’
‘Don’t you worry, my friend,’ she replied. ‘It was fine, James is history, I can handle it.’
She was now well on her way to recovery and once again ready to embrace life with something approaching her usual zest. Calli knew