Heat

Numb

Author's note: And I'm sorry but this is where it all changes (in the words of River Song). This chapter contains triggers read with caution - you know my fun romantic comedy - um bit dark this chapter.

 I stare out the window.

Tom is driving. I can't stop shaking.

"He'll be okay, he'll be okay," I repeat over and over.

Tom says something, I'm sure it's reassuring and I'd like to listen but nothing is getting in.

Numb.

I turned on my phone and there were messages from my mum, brothers and sister all urging me to ring them, each a little more urgent than the last. In the end I rang Di.

An accident – the tractor on the sloping back paddock.

 The neighbours found dad, it's taken a while to release him, to stabilise him enough to transport him. I don't know if my dad is alive or dead whether he will live or die. All I know is he probably will never be the same. He's been rushed to hospital and is headed in to surgery.

I don't know much more than that. We're heading into Tweed Hospital. Tom's driving. Oh wait I said that. He has the sat nav on,

 I'm no good to him.

I'm currently no good to anyone.

I can't stop shaking.

 I know the Tweed Hospital and I doubt there will be any parking available in the carpark at A&E so instead I have enough wits about me to direct Tom into the nearby bowls club.

It's not a bowls day and there isn't anything on at the local uni, which backs on to the club, thanks to the time of year so we find a park quickly and sprint down the path to the A&E (it's probably good to have a bowls club next to a hospital – in case anyone gets too excited on the bowling green).

 We're dirty and a little sweaty and probably smell of sex and shrubbery but we don't care – dad is all we care about.

 We arrive and find Mark and Trish waiting for us and they escort us up to the waiting room upstairs outside the doors of the surgery.

 We're the last members of the family to arrive. Scott and Stuart came here, unwashed, straight from the music festival camp ground and probably beat us by 10 minutes or so. The medical staff must think we're a bunch of hobos – or sexed up vagrants looking for a hot meal and a place to rest. Except we don't want to eat or rest – we just want news. We just want dad.

The whole family is here – well close enough. My brothers and sister and their partners, my two oldest nephews and of course my mum. She looks older than I've ever seen her. She is always so up and vibrant so full of life, so larger than life. But for the first time she seems small, small and lost – I know she's short. I remember measuring myself against her for years until I finally passed her at the grand old age 12. But even though I've been taller than her for almost two decades, I've never seen her as small. Her large personality has always made up for her lack of stature.

 Until today.

Tom and I walk into the room and into a sea of hugs. Both my brothers envelop me and I try to stay upright. I'm still numb and looking at my sister with her arm around my mother who is staring blankly at the door. It all starts to become real, hyper real.

"How, how is he?" I stammer as both Scott and Dave try to talk at once. I extricate myself from them looking to see where Tom has gone. He has moved across the waiting room to Stuart, who is with the group and yet slightly apart from us like he is trying decide where he needs to be. Tom puts his arm around him and I see them talk – the noise doesn't carry well particularly through the wall of Thompson boys that seems to have formed around me but I hear the word press. Are the press here? Is he talking about a press statement? I don't know but the looks on their faces worries me and I feel even more unease in my already butter-churned stomach. My world was perfect a few hours ago and now.............