The Mistletoe Pact by Jo Lovett
Now – March 2022
Dan
‘Happy St Patrick’s.’ Dan adjusted his leprechaun hat, handed a packet of chocolate buttons to Minnie, the little girl in the bed next to the window, and smiled at her. ‘Your special challenge is to not eat all your chocolate at once.’ The paediatric ward had had a big donation of chocolates, and they’d decided to use any excuse to cheer the kids and their families up by dressing up and doling treats out.
‘Thank you, Mr Leprechaun.’ Minnie’s mother smiled a bit tearily at him. ‘It’s so nice that you can visit all the children.’
‘I’ll tell you a secret, Minnie,’ Dan said. ‘Soon my friend the Easter bunny will be visiting too.’ Minnie had a chronic condition, which meant that she’d be in hospital for a while.
‘That’s wonderful,’ Minnie’s mum said.
‘It’s our pleasure,’ Dan told her. It was true. It wasn’t great for anyone at the best of times if a child had to visit A&E or be admitted to the paediatric ward, and it seemed even worse over holiday periods, especially if it meant that a family was separated.
Of course, he was separated from his own family pretty much every holiday season, by choice. He wasn’t six years old, though, and since he was that age he’d learned that his father was a total arse.
‘You make a superb leprechaun,’ Zubin told him fifteen minutes later as he peeled the costume off.
‘Thank you.’ Dan bowed. ‘Couldn’t do it without my magical carrot helper.’
Zubin, who’d squeezed himself into a random carrot costume that he’d found in the store cupboard – and that was meant for someone a lot smaller – and followed Dan round with the bag of chocolates, grinned. ‘I’ll take any excuse to wear a pair of orange tights. Time for a quick pint later?’
‘Definitely.’
* * *
Twenty-four hours later, Dan was in a place far removed from the convivial fish-and-chips and beers evening he and Zubin had ended up having last night with another couple of friends at the pub along the road from the hospital.
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath as he felt bile reach his throat and his palms grow clammy.
He needed to rise above this.
Zachy, the boy on the other side of the door Dan had just closed, needed him. Zachy’s family needed him. Dan needed to shove all memories of Max’s accident back in the compartment they normally rested in and focus on the here and now.
God, though.
Zachy was about five years younger than Max had been when he’d had his accident, but the backstory was hideously similar – he’d been rugby tackling his cousin on a pavement and had fallen into the road. His main injury appeared to be a very badly fractured leg, as Max’s had been. And his mother had mentioned several times that he was a talented footballer – training with a top club – as Max had been at Zachy’s age. And there was every chance that his future in football would now be in doubt. Or possibly ended, as Max’s athletics career had been.
God, the memories. The screeching of brakes. The screaming. The terror that Max might be dead. The terror that Max’s brain might have been injured. The terror that Max would never walk again. The realisation that he would walk again but he’d never go back to the exact way he had been physically.
And the knowledge that it was all Dan’s fault and the realisation that their mother couldn’t deal with the fact that one of her sons had maimed the other, so she was going to pretend for the rest of time that it hadn’t happened the way it did.
He took a glance at the clock on the other side of the paediatric emergency waiting area. It was nearly the end of his shift. He could hand Zachy over to someone else and turn round and walk out. Grab a beer with a friend and re-bury those memories.
He shouldn’t, though. He should stay.
He took another big breath and turned the handle of the door.
He pulled a phenomenal effort out of the bag and smiled over at Zachy, lying on the bed against the opposite wall.
‘Right, mate,’ he told him, ‘we’re going to give you something for the pain and then cart you off for an X-ray and get you sorted once we know the exact damage. It hurts now but you’re going to be fine.’
Three hours later, two and a half hours after he should have ended his shift, Dan left the hospital, not confident that Zachy was going to recover fully, but at least confident that he was in good hands, in surgery for his leg. Lisa, the orthopaedic surgeon doing the operation, was going to message Dan later and let him know how things were.
It could have been worse. Zachy could have been more severely injured. But God. You went into medicine to try to help people and make them better. And it was shit that sometimes you couldn’t work miracles and you couldn’t do everything you wanted to.
He aimed a vicious kick at an empty can littering the pavement. The can flew into the air and clattered against the railings separating the pavement from the road. He walked over and picked it up and shoved it into the top of an overflowing rubbish bin just along the road.
He was pretty sure that there was some kind of metaphor for his life in there but he was too tired to work out what it was.
Anyway, he needed to stop wallowing, go home, eat something vaguely healthy – now he thought about it, he was starving – and get some sleep.
* * *
Late morning the next day, Dan squeezed in a quick visit to the paediatric inpatient ward to check on Zachy. The operation had been a success and he’d definitely walk again, but he probably wouldn’t be back to football at the same standard ever again, and he might need more surgery. Heartbreaking.
And Dan didn’t have as much time as he’d like to spend with Zachy, because over lunchtime he was meeting Hannah and her mother at a fancy private clinic along the road for Hannah’s anomaly scan.
‘Good afternoon, Dan.’ Hannah’s mother, a slim woman with shoulder-length, very sleek, grey-blonde hair and wearing a pale pink jacket over a black jumper and black trousers, put her hand out. ‘I’m Julia. How do you do?’
‘I’m very well, thank you. It’s good to meet you. How are you?’ If he’d ever planned to have a baby, he’d probably have planned to meet its grandmother well in advance of conception rather than halfway through the pregnancy. Better than not meeting her until the birth, though.
‘Very well, thank you. I’m looking forward to becoming a grandmother. Hannah tells me that you’re a doctor.’ Her manner was brisk but pleasant.
After only five minutes of forced small talk – thank God for private appointments running to time – they were ushered in for the scan.
Hannah raised her top and lowered the waistband of her trousers – both black and very sophisticated, very Hannah – and the sonographer rubbed gel onto her tummy.
Dan felt his heart rate pick up slightly. What if something was wrong with the baby?
Hannah, staring with extreme intensity at the sonographer’s screen, clearly felt the same way.
‘And everything’s fine,’ the sonographer concluded fifteen minutes later. ‘Your daughter looks perfect.’
Hannah, Julia and Dan all beamed at each other and inside his head Dan yelled, again, It’s a girl.
‘Do you both have time for a coffee?’ Julia asked as they left the clinic.
‘I do,’ Dan said quickly. This felt like a good opportunity to make it clear in person that he’d like to be involved in the baby’s life.
Hannah checked what looked like a slim Rolex. ‘Yep, I can do a quick one,’ she said. ‘I have a meeting in an hour but the traffic looks good and I can hop in a cab.’
Julia was one of those women who had a way with waiters, and indeed probably with everyone, Dan suspected. They were at a table in a very nice open-all-day wine bar within only a couple of minutes of leaving the clinic and a waiter was taking their order within only about a minute of them sitting down.
‘Decaf latte,’ Hannah said, rubbing her tummy.
‘The same for me,’ Julia said.
Dan looked at them both and at the menu. He could murder a caffeinated coffee right now. But was it rude to the pregnant mother of your child to drink caffeine when she couldn’t? He really didn’t know and he really didn’t know her well enough to ask her.
‘And the same for me too,’ he said.
‘So I’ve been very pleased to meet you, Dan,’ Julia said. ‘I wondered whether you two thought it would be a good idea to discuss before the baby’s born how much time you each want to spend with her.’ Dan wanted to high five her. Of course it would be a good idea, but Hannah had been busy with work and not available to chat since she’d dropped the pregnancy news bombshell. ‘I don’t want to interfere but, for the sake of my granddaughter, I do think that you should have these conversations sooner rather than later.’ Dan didn’t just want to high five, he wanted to kiss her. Of course they should discuss things now.
‘Mum!’ Hannah gave her mother the evil eye. ‘I think we’re probably adult enough to work that out for ourselves.’ Although she hadn’t managed to engage with Dan so far.
‘I’d love to be involved and I’d love to hear your thoughts on how much time you thought she might spend with me?’ he said.
Hannah cleared her throat and said, ‘If I stay in London, I’d be very happy for her to spend close to half her time with you, however you’d like to play it, as long as we both think it will work well for her emotional needs.’
‘Great,’ said Dan. That was a lot better than he’d been expecting. It was fantastic, actually.
‘But there’s a possibility—’ Hannah folded her hands together and looked at Dan’s left ear ‘—there’s a possibility that I – we – will be moving to New York, for work.’
What?
God. God. Not so fantastic.
‘When would that be, darling?’ Julia was frowning.
‘An opportunity’s come up at work recently.’ Hannah was some kind of high-flying investment banker. Corporate finance. Dan wasn’t totally sure what that involved other than apparently insane working hours, almost longer than a junior doctor’s. ‘We’re restructuring our team globally later in the year and I might move to New York with the baby to head up our team there after my maternity leave.’
‘What’s the…’ Dan paused, to give his voice a chance to stop sounding so croaky. What’s the likelihood that you’ll make the move?’
‘I don’t know.’ Hannah was looking at his right ear now. ‘It’s a great opportunity. But of course it might not be the best thing for the baby, and I have to think of her too now.’
Of course it won’t bloody be the best thing for the baby, Dan wanted to yell. How will she spend time with her father if you move to America? ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Well, I would of course very much appreciate an update as soon as you’ve decided.’
‘Of course.’ She took a long sip of her coffee and then looked at her mother rather than back at Dan.
‘I will of course be very sad if you move to New York,’ Julia said. Dan looked between the two of them. Julia was twisting her hands together, looking at her daughter, and Hannah was looking at her coffee cup. ‘But I will of course support you. And I’d love to see my granddaughter as much as possible. I would visit and I presume that Dan would too?’
‘Yes, of course,’ Dan said. ‘And…’ God, he needed to phrase this well. ‘This is a bit of a shock. I wondered if we could perhaps discuss your decision together, a little at least, for the baby’s sake?’
‘Yes, definitely. Absolutely.’ Hannah pulled her sleeve up and checked her watch again. ‘I think I ought to go now. The traffic’s looking worse.’ There were literally no moving cars on the road outside.
‘Of course.’ Dan would have another go at speaking to her another time. He got his wallet out. ‘I’ll get these.’
Julia shook her head. ‘My treat.’
‘Well, thank you,’ Dan said. ‘It’s been great.’ It hadn’t. It had been shit. He was pretty sure that he was going to be absolutely devastated if he had to live on the opposite side of the Atlantic from his daughter.