All the primitive instincts of a mother impelled Karen to stoop and pick David up as Owen Chissolm opened Hal's door. She clutched him to her possessively, and her eyes defied Owen Chissolm and the whole damned world. Kirsty's dying words had brought them here, but Karen was not going to let Hal or his father dictate anything. Owen Chissolm made no comment. He pushed the door wide open, stepped inside and waved her to enter.. Karen propped David on to her hip and holding him there very firmly, walked into the room.
Hal's eyes were shut, his face was still and drawn and pale. Karen swallowed hard to ease a sudden constriction in her throat. It flashed through her mind that she did not want him to die. Death was so useless, so final. Doubts stabbed into her heart. What if the shock of seeing her ... seeing the living mirror-image of Kirsty...
'Is he asleep?' whispered David.
The eyes opened. Silvery grey eyes--David's eyes.
But full of a pain and knowledge that no little boy's eyes could ever project. It was too late for Karen to retreat now. Those eyes held her pinned. They clung to her for a long, spine-chilling moment before moving to David. They drank in every detail of the child in her arms, but there was no joy in the slow, thorough appraisal. It was a torture to both him and Karen.
'Hello.'
He flinched at David's impulsive greeting, as if it hurt him, then the grey eyes sharpened into a more concentrated focus.
'What are those things in your arm?' asked David, his curiosity getting the better of the instructions from his mother.
'They're called drips, David,' Owen Chissolm explained quietly and calmly. 'Hal is too sick to eat and those tubes drip liquid food into his body so he'll get stronger.'
'Can I see?' David struggled to get down.
Karen let him go. The man in the bed was no threat to her. Owen Chissolm caught David's hand and led him around to the other side of the bed, while Hal's eyes followed them. Owen lifted David up to show him the drips.
'Do they hurt?' he asked Hal.
'No.' It was barely a whisper. A spasm of pain crossed his face. 'David.' The name was pushed out, an explosion of breath which held a note of despair.
David's curiosity was piqued. 'What's in them?
'It's not milk or orange juice.' Owen Chissolm answered him.
Hal slowly rolled his head back towards Karen and the grey eyes were dark pools of torment. 'Karen .. .' It was not a question but an affirmation of her identity. Not Kirsty ... Karen. 'You had him? All the time?'
'Yes,' she answered huskily, too choked up to project a firm voice. She had not anticipated this reaction from him. Somehow he wasn't the Hal Chissolm she had envisaged. His pain and despair were too real for her to ignore... too immediate to brush aside. This was not a man whose ego had demanded the presence of a son, but a man who seemed tortured by what he had missed.
'Why didn't she tell me?'
The harsh croak carried a note of accusation that hardened Karen's heart against him. Loyalty to her sister demanded it. 'Kirsty did tell you--that's why we're here. And the question you ask should be asked of yourself,' she stated coldly.
Pain answered her. 'Do you think I haven't?' He dragged in a laboured breath. 'She knew me. She knew I wanted...'
'You got what you wanted!' Karen burst out fiercely. On a wave of bitter hostility she stalked around the bed and snatched David up into her arms. Her eyes were blind to the pain of the man in the bed; she could only think of her sister. 'Kirsty lived and died for you. She gave you herself. She didn't owe you anything. Nor does she owe you anything now.'
David began whimpering, bewildered and upset by his mother's angry words and actions. Karen pressed his head down on her shoulder and laid her cheek on his hair in automatic reassurance, but her eyes never left Hal's. She lowered her voice, but it shook with emotion as she delivered her last judgement.
'You've met my son. If Kirsty thought she owed you that much then I've now paid the debt. You have your life--be grateful for that. It's more than my sister has. And if you ever want to father children, Hal Chissolm, marry the woman first. Then she'll know that you want them.'
She turned her back on him and marched out of the room, fighting to contain the torrent of emotion churning through her. It was impossible. The accumulated grief and strain of the last two days burst into body-racking sobs as she closed the door behind her. She tottered a few steps down the corridor, tears pouring down her cheeks.
'Mummy .. .' David piped anxiously, winding his little arms tightly around her neck.
Karen couldn't answer, couldn't form words. She shook her head helplessly and hugged him to her heaving chest. Her knees buckled and she would have collapsed but for the strong support of an arm around her waist. Owen Chissolm pulled her against him for more solid bolstering. He made no attempt to take David from her, but held them both in his embrace, murmuring soothing words to David until Karen had wept all her tears.
'I'm sorry,' she choked out, guilt and shame weighing heavily on her heart. She hadn't meant to attack Hal like that, not when he was so weak and defenceless. If he died ...
'My dear, I feel I'm the one who should be apologising. It was too much to ask of you. I'll take you to the hotel now and see that you and David are comfortably settled.'
But she could not accept that. 'Hal? What about .. .'
'Hal's like me, a fighter. I think you may have just given him the will to fight for his life.'
The assurance was strangely bittersweet, but Karen was too drained to question her feelings or the situation any further. She accepted the calm satisfaction in Owen Chissolm's voice and went with him, grateful to be able to lean on his strength. He was right; it was too much for her. Altogether too much.
CHAPTER THREE
THERE was something about walking along a beach that soothed the most despondent spirits. The wash of water upon sand held a timeless constancy that dwarfed everything else. Karen could almost forget she was in this foreign city which had taken her sister's life. But it was not Bondi or Manly Beach under her feet. The Mediterranean Sea did not have the rolling surf of the Pacific Ocean. And the water was warm.
The suite that Owen Chissolm had provided for her and David in the Hilton Hotel was spacious and luxurious, but Karen did not feel comfortable in it. The breeze in her face and the sun on her back felt more like home. The beach was only a short walk from the hotel, and David had been pressing to play on it ever since he had spotted it from his bedroom window. Karen had promised the outing as a reward for his good behaviour during the long morning's ordeal of seeing to the official details of Kirsty's death.
Owen Chissolm had been as good as his word, helping her with the necessary forms, answering questions when she had been too distressed to speak and arranging a funeral service for Kirsty. Karen had felt compelled to see the scene of her sister's death and they had driven along the fatal street, past the hotel where Hal and Kirsty had been staying. But there had been nothing to see, no sense of tragedy left behind. If windows had been broken, they had been replaced. Any damage to the street surrounds had been repaired. The marks of death and destruction had been erased as quickly as footsteps in the sand.