Free Unknown by Unknown Page B

yourself, and I'm sure I'm not the first person to have said it.'
    'You got that right!'
    'I happen, however, to be the person who'll have to bring you back from the brink long enough to get you to a surgeon or the ICU, like I had to the other day. It was so close, Sam, so close! And if you've left it too late next time, and you go over the brink, I'm the one who'll have to tell your parents, and who'll have your death confronting me over and over again every time I wonder if there was more I could have done. You've done so well with weight loss and fitness since I last saw you. Don't let that count for nothing.'
    'You're not really taking bets...'
    'No. But I'm tempted, mate. Which side do you think I should put my money on?'
    Sam didn't answer at first. He'd closed his eyes and his face looked tight. There was a silence. Then he creaked slowly, 'OK. You made your point. My parents did, too. They yelled last night.'
    'After they'd finished squeezing you so tight you practically burst, I expect,' Malcolm suggested.
    'Yeah,' he admitted. 'After that.'
    'Bye, Sam,' Lucy said. 'Get your parents to chase up a new medical alert bracelet, hey?'
    Malcolm added in the same tone, 'Yes, give them something to do. Parents tend to need that, though I know it's a nuisance.'
    They were both rewarded with a faint, reluctant smile as Lucy stretched forward to give Sam's shoulder a pat. Then somehow it seemed very natural for them to leave the neurological ward together.
    'A bit strong for a moment, there, weren't you?' she commented to Malcolm as soon as they were out of earshot along the corridor, although she'd decided herself that the soft approach would be wrong for this patient. She'd been strong, too, but not nearly as strong as Malcolm.
    'Probably,' he answered her.
    'Didn't you mean to be?'
    'It wasn't rehearsed, if that's what you're asking.'
    'Then you lost control.'
    'No, I simply made a decision on the spot to air my real opinion, couched in a little rough humour and a little dramatic imagery, which I hoped he might appreciate later on, even if he doesn't now.'
    'Risky.'
    'I know. Do you think that's wrong?' he challenged. 'Should we only take physical risks with patients, like thumping them so hard to get their heart restarted that we break a rib? Or drilling their skull open, largely on intuition? Can't we take the occasional emotional risk of that kind, too? Sam's trying to live on his own. That's great, but he just won't make it if he doesn't accept what a responsibility it is. What's better? To yell at him and get him angry, but hopefully thinking? Or tell him he's doing a great job when even he knows, deep down, that he isn't? Do we want him slinking back to his parents in a couple of months, feeling like the word 'failure' is tattooed on his forehead?'
    'Are those the only choices?'
    'Aren't they?'
    'What about time? I'm a huge believer in time.'
    'I'm not,' he answered shortly. 'Bronny's death cured me of that. Sometimes there isn't time.'
    'But hasn't time healed the grief for you at all?' she asked, confused as she connected his words with what Charlotte had reported that morning. Lord help him, did he still ache for Branny that much?
    And if he does, she thought with a pang, what does that mean for me?
    'No, no, you've misunderstood,' he answered. 'I'm talking about before she died. The sense that time was this precious commodity and it was just running out, and we had a lifetime of things still to say to each other, and—' He stopped. 'Why are we talking about this now?'
    'Because...because— I'm sorry.'
    'Don't apologise. I want to talk about it. With you. Because you were there...' He hesitated, and there was a faint questioning intonation on the last word. 'I suppose,' he added. 'I suppose that's the reason. But not now. Some time when we can do it properly, with no sense of being rushed.' He laughed. 'Which is exactly what I was talking about. It would be really nice to feel that it didn't have to be like Sam,