Page 40 of The Light Within

“Want me to talk?” asked Julien.

Cinn shook his head. He was perfectly capable of this basic task.

The man in front of him walked away from the desk, muttering obscenities under his breath.

“Next,” a burly woman called, her eyebrows so thick and bushy they were like two fat grey slugs. “Next! How can I help?”

Cinn jolted himself forward, Julien sliding in alongside him.

He opened his mouth. “I was wondering if you could help me with something. I’m looking for the address of one of your employees. At least, I think she works here…”

“We can’t give out personal information.”

“I know, but she’s my… my… mother?” The word felt dry and sticky on Cinn’s tongue. “Her name is Esme Saunders.”

The receptionist gave no flicker of recognition, only pierced him with beady eyes.

Damn it, why hadn’t he thought to bring his passport along? He could have used it to prove they shared a surname.

“Are you listed as an emergency contact?”

Very unlikely. He shook his head.

The receptionist raised a large, sceptical eyebrow, which Cinn couldn’t help but fixate on. “Is there some sort of emergency?”

“Umm, no,” said Cinn.

“Yes, there is,” said Julien.

Cinn stepped on his foot.

Another lady, who’d been busy filing paperwork in cabinets, suddenly stepped forward to join the receptionist. She narrowed her eyes at Cinn and Julien, her withered face further wrinkling in distaste. “Esme Saunders? What are you two playing at? She doesn’t have a son.”

The entire hospital seemed to hold its breath. The distant beeping of monitors and murmurs of staff faded into a weighted silence as a thousand pinpricks stabbed into Cinn’s heart.

Obviously, she wouldn’t be going around shouting about the son taken away from her. Even so, the words still stung.‘Yes, she fucking does!’he wanted to shout. Instead, he strained his facial muscles to lift his heavy cheeks into a neutral expression.

Julien pressed a firm hand into the small of his back, using his thumb to rub small circles into it.

The receptionist glanced behind them at the growing queue. “I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to ask you to move along.”

An ear-splitting shriek ripped through the hospital lobby.

Spinning on his heels, Cinn quickly found the source of the commotion. An elderly man was shaking his leg, which was soaked with coffee, if the empty paper cup and brown splatter on the tiled floor was anythingto go by. The man shook a furious fist at a female nurse in turquoise scrubs standing next to him.

Cinn gawked at the woman.

The woman with her hands over her mouth.

The woman with the chestnut-brown curls twirled into a tight bun.

The woman who he’d recognise anywhere, even after a decade apart.

Bringing her hands down, she mouthed more than said his name—‘Cinnamon’—rolling it around on her tongue, tasting its flavour for the first time in aeons.

Then, his mother stood frozen, disbelief etched into her features as she stared at him, as if seeing a ghost. She wrung trembling hands together, a slight quiver in her lips. Was she going to cry?Oh God, please don’t let her cry.

Without another word, she dropped to her knees, hastily trying to mop up the puddle of coffee with napkins from her purse, her movements frantic and uncoordinated. “So clumsy of me!” she gasped.

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