[Featured by PsychologicalNovel]
A youthful couple struggle with the emotions of newfound love, try to push back their life changing diseases and rediscover the zeal to live positively amidst the fear of loss and death.
*******
What would you do i...
A man nervously paced up and down the corridors, glancing time and again at the clock. Its hands seemed to be moving too slow in comparison to the excitement and the anticipation growing in his chest.
He fiddled with the button of his shirt, scratched his chin, and rubbed his temples.
"Sir, please sit down," said a nurse passing by.
He slouched onto one of the empty steel chairs outside the room.
After a few moments, he would get up, go to the glass windows and try to peer through the green curtains. Nothing was visible except for a sliver of light through the heavy blinds blocking the view.
Sighing, he would come back to the large window in the corridor and look out at the new leaves growing on the trees.
It was April and the snow had melted, but the atmosphere was still and cold. It was early morning and his warm breath fogged the glass.
He had been up the whole night and desperately needed a coffee to keep going. But he was too tense to leave the place even for a minute.
A butterfly came flying and sat on the window, the first signs of approaching spring. It had a unique splash of warm orange and red on its fragile wings.
A thousand thoughts were flooding into the mind of the man. He was still contemplating the joys of becoming a father and was trying to think out a name. He didn't know if it would be a girl or a boy, but either way, he expected that it would be beautiful. His wife Hannah was very pretty.
A sudden gust of wind caught the fragile butterfly, flattening it tight against the glass. Desperately it struggled, its delicate wings fluttering uselessly. Another gust tore it away.
A loud insistent beeping caught the man off guard. The insect forgotten, he spun around. The lights on the door of the labour ward were flashing a vivid pink.
From inside came the wail of a newborn.
But his joy was swallowed by the screams of pain and agony.
"Hannah!" he shouted and pushed into the room. In his chest his heart pounded, his lips moving in an inaudible prayer.
But he was unprepared for the sight that greeted him.
Hannah was sitting up on the hospital bed, half propped on her elbows, her face contorted with pain. The mackintosh beneath her spread-open legs was soiled with blood and amniotic fluid.
The doctor was holding up a wriggling thing in his hand, but his eyes above his face-mask showed only a mixture of shock and worry.
The little thing squirmed in his hand, whimpering in pain, as a nurse attempted to clean off the worst of the blood. Its legs and arms were scarlet — the reddish dermis layer was completely exposed to the air.
Shaking badly, the man put an arm around his sobbing wife.
"Mr Allen," said the doctor, as if realizing his presence for the first time. "I am extremely sorry to inform you that your daughter has lost the skin from her limbs at birth and is in a really fragile state. We need to shift her to the neonatal intensive care unit now and keep her under observation..."
"W...will she live?" the mother wailed.
"Each child is different. I can't give you any guarantee, maybe a few days, a few weeks, months, or years. There is no cure," the doctor said plainly. "It's a rare genetic condition and about half a million people are currently at various stages of this disease globally...."
His world was spinning. He didn't hear anything else the doctor said.
There was no cure... the words hammered inside his head. His first child, the love of his life...was a child with special needs.
All his hopes and dreams were shattering.
In the corner of his mind, a thought began to form—
He bent down and whispered something into his wife's ears.
Hannah looked at him with her big eyes and blinked twice.
"Be strong," he rubbed soothing circles on her back. "We need to do it. She has no future."
She simply nodded, burying her face in her hands.
Mr Allen let out a sigh, moving towards the doctor.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
A/N Reviewed and edited by lindajonesAuthor What did you think Mr Allen did?
Hope you'll support me throughout this book for the Wattys!
