By Lisa
Ain't no sunshine when she's gone
It's not warm when she's away
Ain't no sunshine when she's gone
And she's always gone too long
Anytime she goes away
Ain't no sunshine when she's gone
Only darkness everyday
Ain't no sunshine when she's gone
And this house just ain't a home
Every time she goes away
The dull lifeless sky hung down heavy on Tom as he strode along the trodden paths of Cardale’s only cemetery. The moon’s eerie silvery shine cast shadows over tombstones as dusk settled and the light faded. An evening chill descended and Tom could feel a light drizzle against his skin. He shivered.
Meandering through the well-kept garden graves, he searched desperately for her name. In fact he knew only too well where it was – he’d been to visit so many times before and even in this strange twilight he could make out the corner of her head stone in the far corner by the low brick wall.
Clutching the bunch of freshly cut blooms to his chest he stumbled towards her.
A stray tear rushed down his cheek as Tom bent to lay the flowers on her grave and as he stood and stared at the inscribed epitaph he had to strain to see through the blurred haziness of his emotions. “In loving memory of Dr Joanna Graham…” he spoke quietly to himself and he hung his head, closing his eyes for a second in an attempt to keep his unshed tears at bay. “Oh Joanna!” he whispered into the night, longing to have his former love there to hold him, soothe him and make everything alright.
“I’m losing her,” he spoke, his voice wavering slightly. “I can’t – not after the way I lost you! I can’t go through that again!”
“Is this some sort of punishment?” he asked, gazing at the flowers he’d just laid on the ground. “Why? What have I done?” His voice carried away into the night as his lonely figure stooped down in communication. “You wouldn’t hate me would you Jo? You wouldn’t punish me for falling in love with someone else?” His heart almost broke as he continued on, “You would have wanted me to find a mum for Joe…and you would have liked Alex. You would!”
Tom paused…waited. It was almost as if he was expecting some sort of answer, but the night was silent.
“I don’t want to lose her!” he cried, sinking to his knees in the mud. He looked up into the sky and pleaded with the stars. “Don’t take her away from me!” His voice resounded around the graveyard in an echoing appeal of hope and need. “Please,” he choked as his hands met his eyes and the tears that he’d bottled away since the ‘accident’ flowed freely down his cheeks.
~
Blinking back the artificial light of the hospital, Tom walked the distance to Alex’s room at the end of the corridor. He could see Will and Kate sitting outside on the uncomfortable hard-backed chairs and they rose as he approached them. Both had very worried expressions on their faces. “Where were you? We looked everywhere for you!” Will asked, his voice full of concern.
“Is she ok? What’s happened?” Tom asked, fearful of the answer. He chided himself for leaving her bedside. Trust him to leave her when she really needed him. He’d only gone for some fresh air, for a walk like Will had suggested and had somehow made it all the way to the graveyard before he’d even realised. He’d stopped to speak with Joanna – something that he’d done occasionally since her death. Just for a one-sided chat about what was happening with him and Alex, to tell her how Joe was developing or to ask for some guidance when he faced a problem. For some time alone to review what really mattered in life after a hard day at work or to question what it was that he really wanted. Right now he wanted Alex, but something in the way Will was looking at him made him think that he’d just lost her.
Kate rested a comforting hand on his arm. “She had trouble breathing,” she explained. “And they had to ventilate her for a while but she’s doing better now.” Kate saw the colour drain out of Tom’s face and moved forwards to hug him, afraid that he may be about to keel over. “She’s a fighter Tom,” she reassured him as her arms enveloped his back.
“She’ll be ok!” Will added. “She’ll pull through this Tom, I know she will!”
~
The lamp at the side of Alex’s bed lighted the familiar little room. Tom sat down in the chair, sighing to himself as he prepared for another night of watching and waiting. This had been the pattern of events since Alex had been admitted following the fall at the quarry. A fall that had killed nurse Claire Brightwell outright and left Alex fighting for her life.
Tom remembered that feeling of dread that had possessed him as he watched Claire pull Alex over the edge. Frozen to the spot in complete shock he’d been unable to react and when it finally hit him, it did so with such force that he’d collapsed to the ground in a heap. Will had had to drag him back to the car to call for help.
All the time he had muttered under his breath, “She’s dead! There’s no point. She’s dead!” But Will had kept him going and even now he and Kate remained the rock that was holding him together. He’d not slept much and had hardly eaten since. He knew he looked a mess - unshaven, clothes unchanged and now mud-stained from the cemetery - but he didn’t really care. He’d pull himself together once he knew that Alex was going to be all right, but until then his life existed in these four walls and he vowed never to leave her side again.
~
Tom moved under her touch. He felt her. He knew she was there. His mind full of dreams of her tried to blot out the memories of everything that happened, but her voice wouldn’t let him.
“Tom?”
He shifted his body, his back aching, his head heavy and he mumbled something in his comatose sleep. He loved feeling her. The warm caring hand that caressed the back of his head as he lay there soothed him. It was a gentle touch, a nervous touch that made his neck tingle and forced him to open his eyes.
Then it hit him!
Where he was. Why he was here.
He blinked in the bright sunshine from the small window in the hospital room as he pushed his body lightly up from the bed. Cringing as the numbness in his arms and back transformed into a shooting pain that almost paralysed him, he realised that it must now be morning and that he had actually slept.
Then he felt her touch again and he realised that he had not been dreaming. Her hand against his skin. He followed her body up the bed towards her face and he saw the beautiful blue of her eyes.
“You were sleeping,” she whispered and a small smile framed her face.
Tom filled with relief and he mimicked her smile. The fear he’d held in his heart evaporated and he took hold of her hand in his. “Oh Alex, I’ve missed you!” he said bending down to kiss her. Their lips met briefly and Tom sat back in his chair as Alex began to talk.
“If I tell you something will you promise not to laugh?” she said.
“Of course darling. Anything!”
“I thought I was going to die Tom,” she whispered. I could feel it happening - the lights were fading. Everything was getting dark. But there was this little light and it wouldn’t go out. And then it got brighter and brighter.”
Tom listened as he watched her, noticed the familiar sparkle in her eyes that made him buzz with energy. He understood her lethargic rambling – it was not so uncommon for people who had suffered near death experiences to have seen such things, but there was something in the way she told it that made him believe it.
“That light was you,” she finished and she closed her eyes, suddenly tired.
Tom stroked her hair as she slowly drifted off to sleep and then gazed out of the window. The early morning sunshine had moved but the light was still intense and alive, illuminating the cornflower sky overhead. Big and blue and bright, it held a different look to the way Tom remembered it from the night before.
The daylight smiled at him as he sat by her bed and he knew exactly what Alex had meant – for he had seen it to. The light at the end of the tunnel, the hope in the darkness, the chance of happiness. Silently thanking Joanna, he planned in his head the moment he would say ‘I do’ and he knew in his heart that that day would come.