Another Way to Fall. Amanda Brooke
the top of her head, his lips making a satisfied smacking sound. ‘I knew I could count on you. We make a good team, you and me.’
‘Yes, we do,’ agreed Emma as she tried to match his smile. ‘Give me a few days and then I’ll come in. I promise.’
‘And if there’s anything you need, you know where I am,’ Alex said as he peeled himself from Emma’s arms.
There was only a brief kiss on the lips and then Alex was gone. Within moments, Emma felt the walls closing in around her so she busied herself in the kitchen. She was filling the kettle when Meg reappeared. She had been in Emma’s bedroom on the pretext of sorting out boxes, keeping a safe distance and, by all appearances, giving Emma some privacy.
‘How about a nice cup of coffee?’ Emma asked.
‘There’s decaf in the cupboard, or if you fancy something else then I’ve got pomegranate juice or there’s green tea. I tried to get that smoothie drink you used to have but they’re going to have to order it in for me.’ Meg had clearly resurrected her knowledge of cancer-fighting nutrients. Foods high in antioxidants or containing phytochemicals would be high on the list of essential groceries from now on.
‘I’m OK with normal coffee for now,’ Emma told her with a mixture of irritation and sadness as another door in her past life reopened. ‘You don’t have to nursemaid me.’
‘I know,’ Meg agreed and the familiar crackle of emotion accompanied her words. ‘I’m sorry.’
Emma’s heart bloomed with a new emotion. She had been so intent on controlling her own emotions from the moment she had stepped over the threshold that she only now appreciated how difficult this was for her mum too. The sense of loss and fear Emma had been battling with was nothing compared to what she felt now. Guilt.
‘I’m sorry too,’ Emma told her and, for the second time that day, she let herself be wrapped in someone’s arms. It was even more difficult to extract herself from her mum’s fierce embrace.
Tears were sniffed away and eyes averted as Emma continued making drinks and Meg started unpacking the bags of medication from the hospital.
‘Do you think it’s a good idea going back to the office so soon?’ Meg asked.
The pause lasted only a heartbeat. Emma extinguished the anger that flared before it was allowed to catch. Now was not the time for arguments and accusations of eavesdropping. ‘I only said I’d call in. I know I’m not ready to go back yet.’
‘Good,’ Meg said as she continued with her task. In no time at all, row upon row of medicine bottles were lined up in tight formation on the kitchen counter. A regiment of soldiers, ready for combat. Emma took her coffee and turned her back on them.
‘Do you mind if I take this to my room?’ Emma asked, surprised and saddened by how quickly she had adapted to a new life where she felt it necessary to ask permission to leave the room. ‘I could do with a bit of a rest.’
Alone in her bedroom, she cleared a space on her bed and lay down fully clothed, leaving her coffee to go cold, untouched. She felt completely drained but as she let herself drift off to sleep she was already constructing the world she planned to build with the power that Mr Spelling said she held at her fingertips.
I hated flying. If there was an alternative form of transport, I would take it and if there wasn’t, I had more often than not changed my destination. It made going on holiday complicated but my latest adventure was business, not pleasure and there really wasn’t any other way of getting across the Atlantic Ocean, not if I wanted to make the nine o’clock meeting on Monday at Alsop and Clover’s New York office.
I looked out of the tiny window and peered across the broad wing of the plane. It shone with the full force of a sun that was no longer obstructed by the dense cloud cover that had looked so dark and impenetrable from the ground. The only clouds I could see now floated gently below us, white and fluffy and, with any luck, bouncy if the plane should suddenly drop altitude.
My stomach was being twisted into tight knots and I tried to convince myself that it was with excitement and not fear. I had been thrilled that Kate Barton had made such efforts to track me down and offer me a job if not a little suspicious as to why she would be so eager to take me back. I had begun my working life as her apprentice, one of half a dozen graduates who were to be nurtured and groomed for corporate life, but only some would achieve the success that the company demanded. I had been one of them, for a time at least.
I had been twenty-two when I joined the company and within six months I was trusted with my own projects and in two years I wasn’t just a team player, I was a team leader. I enjoyed working for Kate and I think she saw me more as a protégé than an apprentice. We had similar tastes, the same sense of humour and one day I hoped to have the same quiet fortitude that could speak louder than the most vociferous tirade in the board room. My career had been all mapped out but it wasn’t long before my tumour began to cut off the avenues to my success.
The disease had been cruel and insipid. It hadn’t arrived overnight and severed my options in one neat, clinical blow; it had crept slowly into my life. My symptoms had caused chaos and what I had assumed was irreparable damage to my career and reputation. The blurred vision affected my ability to research properly or produce reports on time. The headaches prevented me from getting out of bed, let alone getting into the office and worse still, I had bouts of memory loss. How was I supposed to convince a client that I had come up with an unforgettable tag line if I couldn’t remember it myself?
Kate had been understanding at first and we both assumed that my lapses would be short-term, a mystery illness that would clear up of its own accord. But it didn’t, it only got worse. I tried to build in contingencies to my projects wherever I could but when it became apparent that I was relying on the team more and more, when I became a liability rather than the asset Kate had groomed me to be, it was almost a relief when she severed the umbilical cord. Almost, but not quite. I was too busy dealing with the trauma of my diagnosis to feel anything close to relief.
And here I was, facing my past as I prepared for my future. I had to remember the person I had once been, the woman who had climbed the corporate ladder two steps at a time. That was who I was, not the victim of a brain tumour, not the bit player in someone else’s success. But I was fooling myself if I thought it was excitement I was feeling. It was pure terror.
The plane suddenly dipped and the seatbelt warning lights flashed on as my stomach lurched and a wave of nausea washed over me. I gripped the armrests tightly where another hand gently covered mine and gave it a squeeze.
‘You’re going to be OK,’ Alex told me. ‘I’m here.’
When Emma awoke she thought she was at home, in the house she shared with Ally and Gina, tucked up safely in her own bed. It was only as she prised open her eyes and saw the jaundiced yellow of the walls, warming in the weak morning light, that her memory returned with a sickening stomach punch. The room hadn’t changed since the last time she had been held captive within its walls and the paint had clung on in much the same way as her cancer cells. Emma stretched and untangled herself from the bed sheets. Despite the deep sleep that always seemed to arrive before dawn, she had spent most of the night tossing and turning thanks to her restless thoughts that were kept in perpetual train by the steroids.
With an unerring sense of timing that she had acquired in the last few days, Meg popped her head around the door. ‘Are you awake?’ she whispered. ‘Would you like anything?’
Emma had to remind herself that she was a grown woman and not a schoolgirl as she pulled herself up to face her mum. ‘No, I’ll get up now,’ she said as her eyes adjusted to the light. ‘You look nice.’
Meg had