Take a Chance (5 page)

She phoned North Shore Hospital to learn that Jess had been taken back into surgery. When she wanted to know why the nurse at the other end had been reluctant to say more as it was hospital policy not to give information to the general public over the phone. 

“I’m not the general public, I’m her sister,” Jem cried. “They called me on her cell ph
one’s ICE number so I could identify her.”

The soft hearted nurse paused then relayed to her that
there had been more internal bleeding found. In addition to that there was swelling in her brain so when she came out of surgery they would keep her in a drug induced coma. Her situation was listed as critical.

Eben
appeared just as she got off the phone and could tell the news wasn’t good. He just hugged her. When she had overcome her shock she went to pull away but Eben held her gently against him until she had finished telling him what the nurse had said.

“Let me try g
etting hold of Jase.”

Just as he picked up the phone it rang in his hand. He answered it to hear a frantic Jason on the other
end. Jason had persuaded a local to paddle an outrigger to somewhere he could get cell phone coverage so he could call Jess to tell her he’d arrived safely. Instead he’d first listened to a message from a police officer and several increasingly distressed messages from Jem.

Eben calmly brought his friend up to date and explained that he and Jem were looking after the children so they were managing. He could tell his friend was torn; he wanted to drop everything to be with his wife but knew that it had taken months to get all
his appointments lined up and he had a deadline. If he didn’t meet it Nouveautech wouldn’t be paid which would cause a serious cash flow problem not to mention cost the company future contracts. Eben wished he could swap places with Jase but knew he wouldn’t be able to do the job with the finesse that his friend had.

He knew Jason well enough to know that he would be a mess without anything immediately in front of him to keep him occupied until he knew Jess would be okay.
It would be kinder to keep him where he was, not just for him and the company but for the children. They would know something was incredibly wrong with their father home early and he couldn’t see any benefit to having them all distressed unnecessarily. With this in mind he pitched his thoughts accordingly.

Jem
listened to his end of the conversation and silently agreed with Eben. She knew from Jess that Jason had heavily mortgaged the house to help finance the company’s expansion and that missing the deadline would cost them further well-paid government contracts. With his return there would be no downplaying the seriousness of the situation to the children and that was without the stress of keeping the company afloat to prevent the house becoming a mortgagee sale.

“Yeah, I’ll put her on,” Eben said.

He handed the phone to Jem and mouthed “convince him”.

“Hi Jase,” Jem said, her eyes immediately watering the moment she heard her brother-in-law’s voice
shakily returning her greeting.

A sharp pain in her forearm made her look down and she saw Eben pinching it. His eyes
, more dark blue than grey shot her a warning look. She immediately straightened and glared at him. He released her arm and she rubbed it absently as she listened to Jason talking about her messages.

“I’m sorry to have worried you more than you need to be
. It’s just that I made them before I was able to find out anything about Jess’s condition.”

I need to give him knowledge.
Knowledge with a positive slant.

“We
phoned the hospital just before you rang. At the time she was in surgery and they’ve decided to keep her asleep when she comes out to help her rest while she heals.”

Asleep sounds better than medically induced coma.

“Yes, I’m sure she’ll be in recovery soon. I’m going to see her tonight and I’ll text you an update when I leave.”

Recovery sounded a lot more positive than ICU.

“No, don’t phone the hospital. Aside from the time needed to go through the exchange they aren’t allowed to give out anything more than basic information. We’ll be able to keep you better informed.”

“Yes, I promise to do that.” Jem gave an unwilling laugh. “No, do not sit on that outrigger in the middle of the Pacific Ocean until you hear back from me.
You’re there to work not to have nocturnal ocean jaunts. Just think, in the morning you’ll have a positive text message to read when you paddle back where you are.”

“Okay, phone us tomorrow when you’re free. Take care, bye.”

“Well done Jemima,” Eben murmured as he took the phone from her and put it in its cradle to recharge.

He held her hand, instinctively knowing she would now reject a hug.
She scowled at him but he knew she didn’t mean it because she didn’t pull away.

“I think the water was choppy and he was getting sea sick,” she said.

Eben thumbed away tears threatening to fall above her watery smile.

She could kiss him for being so
nice
but she wouldn’t. Instead, Jem unlinked her fingers from his hand and reached for her notepad on the breakfast bar.

She reluctantly turned back a page to the list she had almost completed before the oven buzzer went. Only one item remained.
Phone Coco. It was close to 9pm. Coco would be awake and up by now seeing as she was on the other side of the world. She’d much rather get hold of her younger brother Freddie but she had already left a message with his boss knowing it would take days to track him down and then he might be unable to respond because he was busy saving the planet somewhere.  Jem sighed.

Knowing Jem wanted privacy to make the call but knowing what her mother was like on the few occasions he’d met her Eben decided to stick around. He faced the mess in the family room.

“I’ll tidy up in here.”

Jem nodded absently as she keyed in her mother’s phone number which she had jotted down while at her apartment this afternoon. Sometimes being organised wasn’t a good thing, she thought as the phone rang at the other end.

Her mother answered and Jem explained the situation. Unlike her call with Jason she used the terms coma and ICU freely.

“
Oh, that’s dreadful,” Coco responded almost absently. She paused and Jem heard a door shut on the other end of the line.

“Actually, I’m glad you’ve phoned just now as I’m thinking of leaving Phillipe,”
Coco confided with hushed excitement to Jem’s stunned silence. “I’ve met an exciting American called Derek. He’s in oil. But this time I don’t plan to rush things,” she said with a little laugh. “Margeaux and Jilly will be collecting me any moment as we’re going on Margeaux’s cousin’s yacht and will cruise the Mediterranean for the next week as Phillipe has business in Sweden and you know how I hate the cold. I’ve decided not to make a final decision until we return.”

Jem pulled the phone from her ear and looked at it incredulously.
Could mothers be switched at birth?

Reluctantly she replaced the phone
against her ear.

“
Sounds like you have a bit of fun planned,” Jem commented bitingly. “Don’t you at least have anything to ask or say about Jess?”

As expected, her tone of voice went right over Coco’s head. Heaven forbid her mother change her plans because one of her daughters was on life support.

“No. You covered everything well so what more could I possibly add?”

“Maybe say something to show you care,” Jem
muttered under her breath.

“
Of course I care. I already plan to send her flowers,” Coco said indignantly, annoyed that her daughter would consider that she felt otherwise. She didn’t know why she bothered telling her about Derek, Jem clearly didn’t care about what was going on in her life.

Jem winced when she realised that her mother had heard what she had said. Why couldn’t there be a distorted echo or an annoying beep on the phone line when she wanted one?

“You can’t have flowers in intensive care,” she told Coco flatly. As usual her mother was completely absorbed with herself and deep down Jem knew the only reason she kept in touch was familial obligation. Why had she dared to hope for a genuine show of concern after all these years?

“Then I’ll send a card.”

“She’s in a coma and won’t be able to read it.”

“She’ll have visitors and they’ll know my thoughts are with her.”

Only for as long as it takes to write the card and address it.

“The only visitors she’s allowed are family so the only person other than me to read it will be Eben.”

“Eben? You mean that bum that Jason had as best man at their wedding? Is he still around sponging off them? He’s not family.”

“He doesn’t sponge Coco. He does a lot of things with them
; he’s the children’s honorary uncle and probably babysits more than I do,” Jem said in his defence, belatedly realising that it was the truth.

Coco sniffed. “How is it that he is invited to participate in their activities and I’m not?”

Because he’s a good friend, he doesn’t make every encounter all about him like you’re doing right now or engineer everything to suit him. Oh, and he chooses to live nearby, not the other side of the planet. Pick one.

Instead of voicing her thoughts Jem picked up her pen and started making stronger slashes through the crossed off items on the list as she listened to Coco continue her grievances.
Why couldn’t the communication satellite her phone was using fall out of the sky right now?

Eben stopped trying to force a large blue
pilates ball behind the chair in the corner when he saw the way Jem stiffly held herself and the jerky motions of the pen across the paper. Coco was one of the few people he truly didn’t like.

Although she could be a charming and fun person to be around, everything had to revolve around her wants and she would become “difficult” when she didn’t have her own way. Eben found out that wasn’t often because Jem and Jess would go out of their way to keep the peace.

He didn’t think Coco wasn’t a bad person, just someone spoiled with an egocentric view of life and oblivious to the needs of others which probably contributed to her multiple marriages. From what he had heard, Coco’s wealthy, indulgent parents had never said “No” to her but Eben bet her ex-husbands had and she couldn’t deal with it so had moved on.

She was selfish and self-absorbed yet gave the appearance of being anything but to her friends and acquaintances.  Her daughters were forever being told how lucky they were to have such a caring and generous mother.

He almost snorted. In the beginning he had thought similarly about Coco but then he got to know her. His friend Jase had no time for the woman and that was long after she had boycotted his wedding because Jess wouldn’t let her take it over.

Eben
would never confess to understanding women but even he could see why Jess would want to pick her own wedding dress and get married amongst friends instead of a huge society wedding with the majority of guests made up of Coco’s friends and acquaintances.

Then w
hen Jeremy was born Coco insisted upon moving in with them to “help out”. Instead of helping, Jess ran around after her, acting as her social secretary while Coco caught up with her friends. She’d even taken their one car out for the afternoon and couldn’t be reached when Jess went into labour.

Luckily Jem had been able to cross town in time to take her to the hospital and have Eben collect Jase from work to meet them there. Then Coco had the audacity to complain about arriving back to a dark house and about them not trying harder to get hold of her.

Coco’s stay for Daisy’s birth had been the breaking point for any tolerance as far as Jase went. Coco had arrived on Jess’s due date and had planned to stay for two weeks. By that stage Jase was working from home so was aware that Jess was picking up after her mother as well as Jeremy who Coco wouldn’t take with her on her many outings because she had decided he was too young to be away from his mother. More likely keeping track of a busy toddler was too much like work.

She didn’t help out with the housework either and had decided to go on a wheat and gluten free vegetarian diet which made meal planning challenging when Jess had enough to deal with. If he’d been in Jess’s position he’d have been scouting the best site for an unmarked grave.

Six days after her due date Jess had been collecting glasses and plates Coco had left around the place and had skidded on one of Coco’s scarves that had been left on the stairs. The resulting fall broke her ankle and sent her into labour. Jess couldn’t walk so he and Jase had carried her to the car. All her mother had been concerned about was being left with Jeremy when she had plans for the evening.

Poor Jess. At the hospital they didn’t want to x-ray her foot while she was pregnant so she had the extra agony during labour and was whisked out for x-rays afterwards. Then she had her leg in a cast and was on crutches for the following six weeks with a new baby and a toddler to care for.

When it became clear that Coco would have to help out she conveniently recalled promising to stay with friends on Waiheke Island before she returned to London. She had left before Jess and Daisy had been discharged from the hospital but somehow made out it was Jess’s fault that her time with them was cut short because Daisy arrived past her due date. Coco’s contribution had been to pay for a cleaner for a couple of months because that was how long Jess was supposed to stay off her ankle.