someone. But who? It was all so tame in Forest Grove. The worst that had happened recently was a break-in and, before that, the fire incident with Jacob Simms, but that was over a year ago!
For the kids to be covering for someone, it had to be someone they knew. She should have just told the bloody police about the knife because surely it was better to tell the truth? Surely that was the best way to find the person who did this to Patrick?
Oh, her darling Patrick! She started sobbing.
Bill pulled her into a hug. They rarely hugged nowadays. There used to be hugs like this when Melissa had first come into the Byatts’ lives in her teenage years. Hugs that were all-encompassing, reassuring, secure in the storm of tragedy. Patrick once described his parents as like the warmth of a hollow tree protecting you from the rain.
‘He’ll be fine,’ Bill said. ‘He’s strong, he’s a Byatt. He’ll get through this.’
‘But what if he doesn’t?’ Melissa mumbled into Bill’s shirt. ‘What will I do without him?’
Melissa had been with Patrick since she was fifteen. That was over twenty-five years of her life. She didn’t really know a life without him.
‘He will, you hear me?’ Bill said.
Melissa nodded, closing her eyes for a moment. There was a distant familiarity to being in this waiting room for her, so many hours spent in this very same hospital with her first son, Joel, waiting for tests, watching as he was prodded and poked. When you’re the parent of a child with a degenerative disease, hospitals become your second home.
‘Doctor’s coming,’ Bill said. He stood in the middle of the room and faced the door, looking like he was ready for battle. He was a tall, robust man with a bald head and bushy eyebrows. He too was always so strong in the face of any challenge but Melissa could see the cracks in his tough exterior already, his usually immaculately buttoned-up shirt higgledy-piggledy, a smear of blood on his face from when he’d grabbed his son’s hand as he was loaded into the ambulance.
The door opened and a doctor appeared. She was younger than Melissa, maybe late twenties, with perfectly straight red hair and a slim frame. Melissa could feel Bill bristle beside her and she imagined what he was thinking. That girl has been working on my son? But Melissa was reassured by the doctor’s age. All that learning she’d done would be fresh in her mind, like it had been for Melissa just after she qualified to be a physiotherapist four years ago.
The doctor put her hand out. ‘I’m Dr Hudson. Shall we sit?’
Melissa started shaking. Shall we sit was usually followed by bad news – she’d learnt that with Joel.
Rosemary and Bill both sat down but Melissa remained standing. ‘I’d prefer to stand, if that’s okay?’
The doctor nodded. ‘Of course. Though I hope you don’t mind if I sit, it’s been a long day.’ The doctor sat on the sofa, her blue eyes serious. ‘Patrick is currently in a stable condition.’
They all let out a sigh of relief.
‘It was touch and go for a while,’ the doctor admitted. ‘The knife just missed a major artery. A few millimetres to the right, and he would have bled to death.’
Rosemary put her hand to her mouth as Melissa’s head spun.
‘But he’s all patched up, right?’ Bill said, trying to keep his voice steady. ‘No more bleeding?’
The doctor nodded. ‘Absolutely.’ She paused. ‘It’s actually Patrick’s head injury that’s worrying us the most. The scan we just did shows Patrick has sustained a traumatic brain injury.’
Bill closed his eyes as Rosemary stifled a sob. Melissa put her hand to her heart, gulping in deep breaths.
‘Okay,’ Bill said, adopting his no-nonsense voice. ‘What does that mean for our boy?’
‘There are many possible scenarios,’ the doctor said. ‘If he—’
‘What I mean is, will he be brain-damaged?’ Bill cut in.
Melissa could hear the fear in Bill’s voice. Patrick was a man who could complete the most complex sudoku puzzle in under an hour. A man who every pub quiz team wanted as a member. A man who flew through school, then university, landing a first-class degree in business studies. A man who was now on the verge of becoming the village’s parish councillor. For Bill and Rosemary, Patrick was a living, breathing example of the exemplary Byatt genes at work. The thought of their son being brain-damaged would be too unbearable for them to contemplate.
I’d deal