Page 52 of The Mistake

‘Dad?’ Emily turns as he enters the kitchen. The family liaison officer is at the kitchen worktop, making a round of tea, and Jake hovers by the sink, an uncertain look on his face. Emily flies across the kitchen, burying her face in his chest and wrapping her arms around him so hard he feels winded.

‘Hello, love,’ he manages to choke out.

‘How is Erin?’ Emily lifts a tear-stained face up to look at him. ‘Is she OK? Where’s Mum? Are they coming home?’ She looks to the kitchen door as if expecting Natalie to walk in carrying Erin at any moment.

‘They’re … ahh … They’re still at the hospital, love,’ Pete says gently. ‘The doctors are taking care of Erin as we speak.’ His gaze flickers towards Jake, who looks away and begins to wipe over the draining board with a damp cloth, just for something to do. ‘Where’s Zadie?’

‘I managed to get her into bed, but I don’t know how long she’ll stay asleep. She fell asleep on the sofa and Jake carried herup.’

‘What’s he doing here?’ Pete asks Emily in a low voice. ‘I thought—’

‘I called him and asked him to come back,’ Emily says at full volume. ‘Sorry, Dad, I just didn’t want to be here on my own. Sorry,’ she says to the FLO, who just smiles.

‘Well, that was good of you, Jake,’ Pete says graciously. Jake nods and takes a cup of tea from the worktop, handing it to Pete without meeting his eyes. ‘Thanks.’ Pete takes the tea, a flicker of suspicion sparking to life in his veins.Why won’t Jake meet my eye? Is it purely because he is embarrassed over the way he behaved in front of me earlier?Pete feels a wave of shame when he thinks about the way things played out. Or is it something more sinister? He thinks again of the scrape of Emily’s window at night, when both she and Jake think he and Natalie are asleep. Jake couldn’t have done that this evening, as Emily’s window backs on to the garden and everyone would have seen him, but … Pete takes a sip of the tea, his eyes never leaving Jake’s face, as Jake looks at Emily, at the floor, anywhere except Pete’s face. Could he have sneaked in through the front door? Pete has no doubt that Emily will have given Jake the code to the key safe at some point before now, so what would stop him from letting himself back into the house after Pete threw him out? The thought raises conflicting emotions for Pete – relief that perhaps Vanessa didn’t do this, thereby relieving Pete of some of the burden of guilt, mixed with disgust that this boy could be responsible for hurting two of his daughters this evening. Pete’s chaotic thoughts are derailed by a muffled cry, and he turns to see Zadie in the doorway.

‘Daddy?’ Her eyes are full, her thumb wedged into her mouth, and as Pete turns towards her he catches the acrid scent of urine rising from her direction. Her pale pink pyjama bottoms are darkened with it, and Pete wants to cry.

‘Come on, Zade, let’s get you upstairs for a bath, and I’ll sort your bed out,’ Emily says, moving towards an exhausted but upsetZadie.

With a glance towards Jake – Pete still thinks he could be responsible; after all, didn’t he say he’d make Pete regret things? – Pete steps forward, reaching out and wrapping his hand around Zadie’s wrist. ‘I’ll do it, Em.’

‘You’re sure?’ She looks at him uncertainly and it’s as if she’s stuck a knife in his chest. How absent, how disconnected, must he have been that Emily feels it automatically falls to her to sort Zadie out after an accident? It’s his job, Zadie is his responsibility.

‘Of course, Em. I’m her dad. I’ll get her all cleaned up and then I’ll head back to the hospital to see Mum and Erin.’ He gives her a quick kiss on the cheek. ‘Drink that tea and then try and get some sleep, OK?’

Upstairs, Pete runs Zadie a quick bubble bath and strips the wet bedding from her bed, replacing it with fresh sheets from the airing cupboard. The door to Erin’s bedroom stands open, and as he pulls the sheets from the cupboard he finds he is unable to look in that direction. He is unable to look at the empty cot, the cushions on the nursing chair still crumpled and squashed from where Natalie leant against them for Erin’s last feed, and as he moves to the bathroom he reaches out and pulls the door closed.

In the bath, Zadie is subdued. Usually – or at least, the times that Pete can remember; it’s been a while since he did bathtime – Zadie is exuberant, at her happiest in the water. She clowns around, making beards and Mohicans out of the bubbles, telling stories about dolphins and mermaids. Not now, though. Maybe it’s just that she’s tired, but Pete’s heart hurts at the thought that Zadie is upset over Erin.

‘All clean, pickle,’ he says, reaching in to pull out the plug. He wraps her in a towel, scruffing her hair in the way that usually makes her shriek with laughter, and then helps her with her pyjamas. As Pete lifts her into bed, she smells of strawberry shampoo, the way she always has since she was a tiny baby. ‘You go back to sleep, OK? I’ll be home in the morning when you wake up.’ He hopes so, anyway.

‘Daddy?’ Zadie’s voice is muffled, the duvet pulled right up past her chin.

‘What is it, Zade?’

‘Is Erin going to die?’

Pete’s ears ring at the words, his stomach turning over. ‘No, darling, of course she’s not. She’s going to be just fine.’

Pete feels the sharp sting of tears behind his eyes and blinks rapidly before he leans over and kisses her, praying that it’s true, and as he pulls the door gently closed, his phone begins to ring.

Natalie

‘Enough.’ Natalie swipes her hands over her face, her fingers sticky with tears, and shoves her chair back. ‘I’ve done what you asked. I’ve answered your questions, and now I’m going to find out what’s happening to my daughter.’ Ignoring DI Travis as she calls her name, Natalie almost tips her chair over as she rushes from the stifling, cramped office and out into the corridor.

She can’t sit there and listen to them insinuate that she is responsible for Erin’s abduction – or worse, thatEmilycould have something to do with it. She’s going to find a doctor and demand answers – they’ve been here for hours with no word of Erin, and she can’t bear to wait any longer. She’s her mother; she has a right to know what is going on. As Natalie approaches the ICU reception desk, somewhere behind the door an alarm shrieks into life, and all of a sudden people are running everywhere. Nurses drop pens, clipboards, mugs of tea and sprint through the wide double doors into the ICU corridor. Unobserved in the chaos, Natalie slips through the doors, hoping to get close to Erin, when her heart seems to stop in her chest. The alarm is still screaming from a room off the corridor, a team of doctors and nurses surrounding the bed as they frantically try to help their patient. As one moves away, Natalie’s stomach drops.The patient is Erin. The alarm is screaming for Erin.

A nurse exits the room and Natalie pushes her way in, watching in horror as a doctor leans over Erin’s fragile body, his fingers pressing down on her chest. Natalie is frozen, a still tableau in a flurried blur of movement as the hospital staff work on Erin, that incessant alarm scraping down to Natalie’s bones.

‘Please … That’s my baby,’ Natalie chokes the words out, grabbing at a nurse’s sleeve. ‘What’s happening? Is she going to be OK?’

‘You can’t be in here.’ The doctor barely raises his head, his eyes on Erin. ‘Get her out of here!’

‘That’s my daughter.’ Natalie can hear the wail in her voice, the words suffocating her as she struggles to breathe. ‘Erin … What’s happening? Please, tell me.’

The nurse – Natalie realises she’s young, a student, maybe – takes Natalie’s arm firmly. ‘You really can’t be here. Let the doctor help Erin, I’ll come myself to the waiting room when they—’

‘No,’ Natalie half shrieks. ‘I know all about your waiting room, I’ve been in there half the night waiting to hear if my daughter is going to be OK. Please, please can someone just tell me what’s going on?’ She peers over the nurse’s shoulder as she is dragged towards the door, trying desperately to see into the room, to catch a glimpse of Erin. All she can see is doctors, bent over Erin’s tiny frame as they work frantically, the alarm blissfully quiet at last.

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