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“London? No, when she’s released, she’ll come home.” Jake was adamant. “She’ll stay with me.”
Derek tried to be delicate. “We don’t know if she considers Canada home anymore, do we? And even if she does, home would be Silver Lake, not Toronto. Remember, she’s been away for a long time now. Almost her entire adult life.” It saddened him, and could tell this wasn’t something Jake hadn’t thought of yet. “If I hear anything else, I’ll text you. But I wouldn’t be surprised if Linney calls you tomorrow.”
Derek spent much of the evening pretending to catch up on work but thinking back to the adventures he and Linney had as young children. Linney had arrived in Silver Lake a grieving child not much older than his Leo was now.
She never had been one to shy away from adventure, and once she got over the loss of her parents, she dragged him along with her. She’d always been the more impulsive of them, and it had landed her in trouble more than once. Derek smiled, remembering she’d fallen out of a tree and broken her arm just in time for her tenth birthday. Derek had run for her grandmother. He dried her tears when her high school boyfriend dumped her. When they were in university, he took her to the hospital when she’d somehow put a skate blade through the skin of her calf at a city skating rink. And then there was that time, he remembered, when she stood up in a canoe quoting poetry during one of their evening paddles and toppled over the edge, coming up from the water sputtering. It hadn’t surprised him at all when Linney had taken an overseas journalism position and then parlayed it into a job as a correspondent in a war zone. But this was something Derek didn’t know how to rescue her from.
* * *
As Freida had promised, the IV came out the next day. Linney was still in a lot of pain, but it was time to wean her off the strong drugs. When she struggled to her feet with a great deal of assistance, she turned green and the room started to spin.
“I’m going to be sick.” Linney’s hand flew to her mouth.
Freida sat her down quickly. “Breathe,” she ordered and Linney took a few shallow breaths and then some deeper ones. It took three attempts but finally, she was upright, clutching to a walker like an old lady. Mac watched her, like an anxious father.
She sent him away. “You’re making me nervous,” she snapped.
Reluctantly, he set off to give her some space. He could use the time to pick up her new glasses and get a much-needed cup of coffee from the cafeteria. Despite what she told him to do yesterday, not only had he not gone home, he hadn’t left the hospital. Caffeine was the only thing keeping him going.
Freida helped Linney navigate through the wide hospital doorway. “He must love you a lot,” she said. “He hasn’t left your side since he got here.”
Linney grimaced as she began to shuffle slowly down the out-of-focus hospital hall. She hated being so entirely reliant on Freida, or on anyone, truth be told. Her head was feeling marginally better but her ribs hurt almost as much as her hip.
“We’re not a couple. He’s my boss.” She saw Freida’s eyebrows raise, and she continued more softly, “But we were together once.” Linney stopped to catch her breath. This was harder than she thought it would be. Finally, she made it around the little loop and Freida helped her back into bed.
“The doctor will be pleased,” she said. “We’ll do it again later, and I can teach your boss how to help you stand up. For now, you rest.”
Linney nodded and yawned. Another frustrating wave of fatigue was already threatening to overtake her and her eyelids fluttered closed.
* * *
Derek was at the kitchen counter pouring cereal into bowls for Leo and Ivy's breakfast before summer camp when Linney’s TCN theme played on his phone. “Shhhhh,” he said to them, as he tried to listen to Linney.
“You sound better this morning,” he said after she greeted him.
“Maybe it’s because I was up walking,” she said. Derek was surprised, but she explained it helped prevent blood clots and other complications. “It’s a lot harder than I remember,” she joked. “The walker makes me feel like I’m ancient. Even Gran never had one of those!”
“How long will they keep you there?” he asked.
“A few weeks at least, I think. It’s complicated by the fact that to get back to London, I have to get on a train or a plane, and then I have four flights of stairs to deal with.”
“I’ve been passing news on to Jake,” Derek told her as he poured a cup of coffee. “But I think he’d like a call if you’re up to it.”
Linney sighed. “It’s so much easier to talk to you, but I know you’re right. I’ll call him later today. Kiss the kids for me. I have to go now. Someone’s at my door.” She heard the muffled sounds of Derek passing on the message and the little ones shouting their thanks before she hung up the call.
“You have children?” asked Doctor Fischer as he read her chart.
“They’re my best friend’s kids,” she rushed to assure him. “But I love them like they’re my own.”
He checked her over again, had a look at the swelling on her head that was starting to go down, and checked her eyes again with a frown. Just then, Mac joined them, fuzzy in the distance, but becoming sharper as he got closer.
“Look what I have,” he teased.
“Thank goodness.” Linney couldn’t wait to be able to see properly. She opened the case, perched the new glasses on her nose, and the world finally came into focus. “That’s so much better.” She frowned and blinked several times.
“What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know. Something’s just different. Not quite right.” She turned to the doctor. “You were looking at my eyes. Is there a problem?”
