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Poppy? Cold fear and nausea constricting her stomach, Kay moved backwards and forwards, frantically palming her way along the walls of the landing. Where was the door? By the thin light of the street lamp outside the window, she could see that the walls were bare. There was no nursery door. No nursery. But there had to be. Her baby was inside, and she was crying. Poppy! She pushed hard against the wall where the door should be, but the wall pushed back, heaving and grinding; closing ominously in on her, threatening to crush the air from her body. No!
Fury spiralling inside her, she summoned every ounce of strength she possessed. She wouldn’t let this happen. She wouldn’t let them take her baby. Placing her hands flat against the wall, she braced her arms, shoving and pushing with all of her might, only to find the walls of the home she’d built to keep her baby safe crumbling. The room beyond was dark, the air thick and cloying. The cot in the middle of the room was bathed in an ethereal white glow, her baby swaddled in blankets, buried in the depths of it. Paying no heed to the jagged debris digging painfully into the soles of her feet, Kay ran, half stumbling, towards her, desperate to feel her warm flesh against her skin, to comfort her.
Seeing a shadow flit across her peripheral vision, she snapped her head up, squinting hard against the dust and the dark. There was someone else in the room. Someone hovering. Waiting. With trembling hands, she lifted her sweet child from the cot, shushing her gently as she stepped away from the glow, harsh now, bright and white, like that of an overhead surgical light.
Carefully she took another step, but the shadow moved swiftly, stealthily, a human form appearing at her side in the blink of an eye. Matt? Kay’s breath stalled in her chest. It wasn’t Matt, in whose presence she’d always felt safe. She could feel the threat emanating from this person. This wasn’t her husband, the man she loved, who loved her, who loved this child and would give his life for her in an instant. This wasn’t him!
No! Squeezing her little girl to her, she fought him, clawing at him frenziedly with her free hand as he reached for her. He wanted to take her baby!
She wouldn’t let him. She wouldn’t …
‘No!’ Sweat saturating her face, pooling in the hollow of her neck, Kay woke with a jolt. Jerking herself upright, she reached instinctively for her husband, only to find his side of the bed empty. Thinking that Poppy might have been ill in the night, panic ripped through her and she scrambled out of bed. She was flying to the door when she heard Matt behind her.
‘Hey, hey, slow down,’ he urged her, hurrying from the en suite to take hold of her hand. ‘She’s fine. I’ve already checked on her.’
Kay felt herself grow weak with relief. With the cobwebs of her nightmare still clinging cloyingly to her mind, she thought her little girl might have needed her. That she might not have heard her calling.
‘It’s okay. I’ve got you,’ Matt murmured, drawing her to him and kissing the top of her head lightly, as if she were the child in need of comfort. In that moment, Kay felt that she was. She was so lost and bewildered sometimes she couldn’t breathe. She wished she could stay safe in his warm embrace for ever, but that wouldn’t make the nightmare go away. It wouldn’t help her precious baby girl.
‘Another bad dream, I take it?’ he asked her, and then squeezed her closer as she nodded into his shoulder. ‘Poppy’s all right, I promise. Playing with her Barbie dolls when I checked. You’ll only alarm her if you go charging in there looking worried to death.’
He was right. Of course he was. They’d made up their minds to try to keep everything as normal as it could be for Poppy, to smile when they felt like weeping. It was so, so hard sometimes, though, looking into her wide blue eyes, which were crystal clear with the innocence of childhood and heart-crushingly trusting. She was only five years old; she believed her mummy would keep her safe, and Kay couldn’t. She couldn’t tell her little girl that everything would be okay, that her illness would go away, because it wouldn’t. Outwardly she smiled for Poppy’s sake, but inwardly her heart felt as if it might burst with the weight of her pain and her anger. It was all so unjust. So unfair. Why had this illness afflicted their blameless child? Why, if it had to strike anyone, couldn’t it have been her?
‘Better?’ Matt asked after a second.
Swallowing the excruciating lump clogging her throat, Kay lifted her head to look up at him. His hair was wet, tiny droplets of water dotting his impossibly long eyelashes like raindrops on a frond. He’d obviously been worried when she’d shot out of bed, and had dashed from the shower. He was a good man, caring to his very core, a fixer and a healer by nature, but he couldn’t save Poppy. For all his medical knowledge, he couldn’t rescue his little girl from all she would have to endure, and though he tried not to show it, it was killing him. If ever Kay caught him in an unguarded moment, she would see the quiet torture in his eyes. The exhaustion, too. He hadn’t slept easily since Poppy’s initial diagnosis.
At first they’d thought it was primary childhood nephrotic syndrome, arising in the kidneys and affecting only the kidneys, the cause of which, frustratingly, was unknown, although the consultant had said there were ongoing studies for genetic links. Now, with Poppy’s symptoms worsening, they thought it was secondary childhood nephrotic syndrome, resulting from an infection. Strep throat, for God’s sake. Whoever would imagine that something so common could cause this? They were looking for something called glomerular disease, acute post-streptococcal glomerulonephritis – Kay had memorised the mouthful – which was most common in children aged between three and seven. The words that stuck in her mind from their last consultation, that played over and over, were ‘chronic kidney disease’, and ‘in many cases, CKD leads to kidney failure’.
Was it any wonder Matt didn’t sleep well either, imagining he should have seen the signs before Poppy became so suddenly ill? Glomerular disease apparently developed gradually, often causing no symptoms. Matt performed miracles, Kay truly believed that, but he couldn’t do the impossible: spot something that was so insidious.
With her nightmares interrupting what sleep he did manage, she had no idea how he coped, working such impossibly long hours, performing intricate surgery on the tiny children in his charge.
‘The same dream?’ Easing back, he scanned her face, his own creased with concern.
Again Kay nodded. It was always the same dream that relentlessly haunted her. Usually it was some indefinable thing that lurked in the shadows. This time, though, it had taken on a new, dreadful connotation. There was no way to explain to Matt the deep-rooted terror that had bloomed like some prophetic warning inside her when she’d realised the presence that threatened to take away their child was tangibly human.
‘She’ll be okay.’ He grazed a thumb softly across her cheek. ‘I promise you, she’s in the best possible hands.’
‘I know,’ Kay whispered, grateful for the solidity of him when her world seemed to be shifting beneath her. His calm steadfastness, which kept her grounded when her heart and mind raced, filled with fear for Poppy. She did know she was in good hands, that her daughter’s consultant was a renowned specialist in his field. Nephrology wasn’t Matt’s area of expertise, but he would be on top of things, liaising with the renal department. The reality was, though, that they had no way of knowing yet what the future might hold. Poppy’s symptoms were under control for the moment. Her recent dipstick tests had shown no signs of excess protein in her urine. There was no swelling around her eyes or lower legs. She’d had no increase in appetite and her moods seemed stable, meaning she was tolerating the latest course of steroids well, but still things were uncertain.
‘How can we know, though, Matt?’ she asked him, her throat tightening as she imagined how she would bear it if Poppy’s kidneys failed and she was powerless to help her.
‘We can’t,’ he admitted, taking a breath. ‘At least not for the moment. The tissue they take during her biopsy will tell us more.’
‘How?’ she asked him, struggling still to take in all that the renal department had told them. ‘I mean, what are they looking for exactly?’
‘Changes in the kidney, predominantly,’ Matt explained. ‘They’ll take small pieces of tissue for examination with different types of microscopes, each of which shows a different aspect of the tissue. That will help confirm what we’re looking for and identify the cause.’
And what then? Kay searched his eyes in alarm. The tests might help identify the disease, but they couldn’t cure it. Ultimately, the prospect of end-stage renal failure loomed, meaning only a kidney transplant could save her. They’d already had preliminary blood tests to establish whether either of them was a suitable match. The next step would be tissue typing. Matt was going ahead with his, despite not being a blood match. He’d explained that to widen the field of possible donors there was something called a paired exchange, where an incompatible donor/recipient pair, such as a parent and child who didn’t have compatible blood types, were matched with another incompatible donor/recipient pair for a ‘swap’, each donor giving a kidney to the other person’s intended recipient, but Kay wasn’t entirely sure she understood all the details. She needed to talk more to Poppy’s consultant, to be clear in her mind exactly what options they might have should her tissue typing exclude her as a suitable donor. She hoped to God that she was.
Matt squeezed her tighter as a shudder ran through her. ‘I’ll chase the biopsy up when I get in,’ he promised. ‘I’ll text you as soon as I have any information. Meanwhile, since going into work naked might cause a few raised eyebrows, I suppose I really ought to put some clothes on.’
Kay smiled, amazingly. She did love this man, who tried so hard to cajole her from her deepest dark thoughts. He was right to. Dwelling on what the future might bring wouldn’t help Poppy. It wouldn’t help him. She needed to put on a brave face for their sakes, which she certainly wouldn’t have been doing if she’d charged into Poppy’s room looking terrified. ‘Only in appreciation,’ she assured him, sliding a hand down his back to give his rather enticingly firm buttocks a cheeky pat.
‘If that’s a proposition, I may just have to take you up on it,’ he whispered close to her ear.
Kay snuggled further into him. That suggestion sounded most definitely enticing. She longed to lie safe in his arms, where the worries and cares of the day would once have drifted away. They’d found intimacy impossible lately, though, each carrying their own guilt, imagining that they were responsible for Poppy’s illness.
‘In case I haven’t mentioned it lately, I love you, Mrs Young,’ he murmured. Lifting her chin, he pressed a soft kiss to her lips, and then rolled his eyes in wry amusement at Poppy’s timely intervention from the landing.
‘Mummy,’ she called worriedly. ‘It’s time to get ready.’
‘Damn. Foiled again.’ Matt sighed in mock despair and disappeared discreetly back to the bathroom a second before Poppy charged through the door.
‘We have to get our skates on, Mummy,’ she informed Kay, her little face serious as she mimicked what Kay so often said to her on a school morning, school not always being Poppy’s favourite place. ‘I have to take the things for my project in today.’
‘Oh my God!’ Kay’s eyes sprang wide. ‘I forgot all about your project!’
‘Uh oh. All hands to the pump then?’ Matt asked from the bathroom.
‘Please,’ Kay called, skidding after Poppy back to the landing. ‘It’s a sensory project. They’re doing the sense of touch this week.’
Pouring cereal out for Poppy with one hand – Shredded Wheat, which happily she loved and which was healthily low in potassium – Kay made coffee with the other. She was taking a quick glug and debating the wisdom of sending her daughter into school with an egg for her project – it was definitely smooth, but possibly impractical unless she hard-boiled it –when Matt came into the kitchen. ‘Okay, Mission School Project, what do we need?’ he asked, rubbing his hands together in a show of enthusiasm.
Poppy downed her spoon, almost falling off her chair as she scrambled to run and greet him. ‘Something smooth,’ she said as he bent to sweep her up. ‘And something else that feels different, like, um …?’
‘Fur?’ Matt suggested, hoisting her high in his arms and then pretending to buckle under her weight.
‘Yes!’ Poppy laughed delightedly and clung to his neck.
‘Ta-dah,’ Matt said, producing her penguin plush soft toy from under his shirt.
Poppy leaned back, making wide eyes at it. ‘But I can’t take all of him in.’ She knitted her brow dubiously. ‘I have to put it in my workbook. He’ll get squashed.’
‘Ah.’ Matt knitted his brow in turn. ‘How about if I surgically remove just a tiny piece of fur from under his wing where no one will see it?’
The frown in Poppy’s forehead deepened. ‘Will it hurt him?’
‘Not at all,’ Matt assured her. ‘He won’t even notice. I’ll tuck him up in your bed afterwards until you get home to check on him. Okay?’
‘Okay.’ Poppy nodded, satisfied.
‘So what else do you need?’
‘Something …’ Poppy had a think, and then reached to place the palm of her hand against his cheek. ‘Prickly.’
Kay laughed. ‘I think Daddy’s face might get a bit squashed if you put that in your workbook,’ she pointed out, going across to the under-sink cupboard and fetching a scouring pad. ‘How about this?’
‘That will work.’ Poppy nodded maturely.
‘Good thinking, Batman,’ Matt said, winking at Kay as he lowered Poppy to the floor. ‘So, what else?’
‘We have to find lots of different textures,’ Kay supplied, checking the wall clock as she hurriedly finished packing Poppy’s lunch box.
‘Something spongy maybe?’ Matt suggested.
He was obviously thinking of the bathroom sponge. ‘Top of the class, Dr Young,’ she said, smiling over her shoulder.
‘I’ll go and snip a bit off,’ Matt said with another wink, and about-faced back to the hall.
‘Brilliant. Thanks,’ Kay called after him, and then, to Poppy, ‘Right, young lady. You have five minutes to brush your teeth and get your shoes on, or we’ll be late.’
She was grabbing coats and pushing her feet into her boots when Poppy came back down the stairs, closely followed by Matt. Helping Poppy into her coat, she cursed as her phone rang from the kitchen. She was so distracted lately, she thought, she would forget her head if it was loose.
A second later, Matt appeared from the kitchen with the phone – and the lunch box, which she’d also almost gone without. ‘I didn’t get to it in time,’ he said, handing her the lunch box but hanging onto the phone as she reached for it. ‘I checked who it was, though,’ he added, scanning her eyes, confusion in his own. ‘Jason.’
‘Oh.’ Kay glanced down, taking hold of Poppy’s hand. ‘Right. I’ll, um, call him back later.’
Matt didn’t say anything for a second. Then, ‘Why’s he calling you?’ he asked.
She looked back at him, unsurprised by the suspicion in his eyes. She’d gone out with Jason briefly before Matt, and had detected an undercurrent of tension between the two brothers ever since. After a violent altercation between them almost six years ago, they were as estranged as it was possible for two brothers to be. Matt couldn’t even bear to hear Jason’s name spoken, and had rudely cut his father off when he’d tried to update him on his brother’s life out in the States.
‘Because he wants to meet Poppy,’ she answered truthfully, a nervous knot tightening her stomach. He’d actually called her more than once, wondering how she was. She hadn’t called him back, texting him instead to say that they were fine, and suggesting it wasn’t a good idea for him to be contacting her.
Matt continued to study her, a telltale tic playing at his cheek, indicating he wasn’t impressed. ‘Why?’ he asked shortly.
Opening the front door, Kay urged Poppy out before her, then glanced back at him. ‘Because he hasn’t seen her,’ she whispered, feeling uncomfortable under his unwavering gaze. ‘He is her uncle, Matt, and he’s back from the States now.’
‘Why ring you, though?’ Matt pressed, his eyes filled with doubt. ‘Specifically, I mean? He’s only been back two weeks, according to Dad.’
‘I don’t know, Matt.’ Feeling under attack, and not sure why, Kay turned away. ‘Possibly because you wouldn’t have taken his call?’
Once Poppy was safely in school, Kay drove home on autopilot, her mind on the whispered provocation that had incited the normally placid Matt to such uncharacteristic violence towards his brother, which had resulted in the estrangement between them. It had taken all her willpower to quash the tears that had threatened as she left him this morning with the same thunderous look in his eyes she’d seen all those years ago. The situation between Matt and his brother had been relegated to history, but she was bound to feel emotional. She couldn’t give in to the tears that seemed to be perpetually threatening, though, especially in front of Poppy. How much would that rock her daughter’s little world? How much would Jason reappearing in their lives rock Kay and Matt’s world? Matt was right to be suspicious. After so long, why was Jason insisting on seeing Poppy, on calling her, which he must know would only reignite hostilities?
Arriving home, she pulled out her phone, debating whether to ring him back. Her heart sank as she realised he’d left a voicemail. Having recognised his brother’s number, Matt would doubtless have played the message back. Tentatively Kay listened to it.
‘Hi, Kay,’ Jason said cheerily. ‘I just wondered if you’d given any more thought to what we discussed? It would be nice to meet Poppy, get to know her.’ There was a pause as he seemed to ponder, then, ‘Call me when you can. It would be nice to see you too, obviously.’
God, no wonder Matt had been agitated, realising she’d been talking to Jason behind his back while he flatly refused to have anything to do with him. But how was she to avoid speaking to him when he called her?
A confusion of guilt and apprehension rising inside her, she tried to think what to do. As she debated whether to send Jason a curt text or completely ignore him, she heard Matt’s phone ringing.
He must have left without it, she realised, distracted by his brother’s untimely call. She would have to call the hospital, offer to drop it off. Aside from the fact that he’d said he would text her, he needed to be contactable at all times in case of emergencies. Pushing aside the niggling worry about Jason and what his agenda was, she climbed the stairs and headed for the bedroom, guessing that was where Matt had left his phone. It rang again as she neared where it lay on the dressing table.
She picked it up and answered. ‘Matt’s phone. Kay speaking.’
‘Oh, hi, Kay. It’s Emma here, from the renal department,’ the voice on the other end said. ‘Matt called earlier about scheduling the tissue testing. I’ll probably see him later, but just in case I miss him, can you tell him I’ll get it organised for as soon as possible?’
Kay frowned, a new worry worming its way into her head. He was organising the tests without talking to her first? ‘Yes, no problem,’ she said, working to keep her tone even. ‘Actually, as you’ve rung, do you mind if I ask you something?’
‘Shoot,’ said Emma. ‘I’m happy to help with anything I can.’
Kay inhaled deeply. ‘What do the tests involve exactly? Matt will no doubt fill me in later, but just to put my mind at rest meanwhile …’
‘It’s not as worrying as it sounds, honestly,’ Emma assured her. ‘It just involves a simple blood test. They’ll be looking at certain principal proteins involved in the process of getting rid of viruses. It sounds a bit complicated, but I can get the consultant to call you if … Hold on. Talk of the devil, Matt’s just come through the door. Do you want to speak to him?’
Kay hesitated, not sure what she would say to him, which was ridiculous – she’d never been nervous around Matt. ‘Yes please,’ she said. ‘I need to bring him his phone.’
‘It’s Kay,’ she heard Emma say. ‘She’s asking about the tissue tests and what they involve. I’m probably not best qualified to answer.’
Matt came on after a second. ‘Hi,’ he said. ‘I’ll email you a leaflet. It should explain everything. There’s something in there that might give you cause for concern. If we need to talk about it, it would probably be a good idea at this juncture.’
‘Oh, right. Thanks,’ Kay answered uncertainly. What did he mean? Wasn’t the whole thing cause for concern? She’d been about to ask why he’d gone ahead with organising the tests without consulting her, but sensing he was in a rush, she thought better of it. ‘I could collect the leaflet,’ she suggested. ‘I was going to bring your phone in on the way to uni. I thought you might need it.’
‘No need,’ he assured her. ‘I’ll swing by later. I should go. I have early surgery to prep for, a newborn with congenital heart disease. I need to be focused. Talk later.’
Kay stared at his phone in bemusement as she realised he’d ended the call. He hadn’t mentioned whether he’d had a chance to speak to the consultant about Poppy’s biopsy yet. Confused, she made her way slowly back down to the hall to get her own phone. Was he being off with her? No, she was imagining it. He was obviously busy. And with a newborn baby to operate on, he would absolutely need to be focused.
A thousand nervous butterflies thrashed around in her stomach as she waited for the leaflet to arrive. Taking a fortifying breath, she quickly scanned it, and then dropped to the stairs to study it more thoroughly.
