Read Online Shattered by Gabrielle Lord - Free Book Online Page A

myself.’
    Was this survivor guilt they were hearing? Or was it something else? Gemma wished there was something she could say or do. Was Natalie punishing herself because her child was lying at death’s door while she was in perfect health, tormenting herself with cruel ‘what ifs’?
    Gemma found her eyes were being drawn to the mute television screen where highly painted and lacquered women mouthed soundlessly to men with fake tans.
    ‘Things happen so quickly,’ said Natalie. ‘We don’t do the things we wish we had, and we end up doing things we wish we hadn’t. And then it’s too late.’ Her fingers pulled at the damp handkerchief in her hands. ‘In a fraction of a second, life suddenly stops being what it was a moment before.’
    She exhaled in broken, staccato breaths, then leaned forward, head almost on her knees. ‘I want it to be yesterday again,’ she wailed. ‘Before all this.’
    Gemma, hesitating, reached over and put a hand on Natalie’s shoulders. Her touch seemed to activate a storm of tears, but she didn’t take her hand away, and in a few moments Natalie raised her head again and smeared the damp handkerchief across her face. Angie pushed a box of tissues closer to Natalie’s reach.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ Natalie said, taking them and using them to wipe her eyes and nose.
    ‘Can I get you a cup of tea?’ Angie asked. ‘Or a glass of water, perhaps?’
    ‘If there’s anything we can do, Natalie, we’d be happy to help,’ said Gemma.
    Natalie didn’t answer, and Gemma, remembering how grief made people disconnected, went to the nearby kitchenette where she made three teas anyway, using teabags from a jar and styrofoam cups that she filled with boiling water from the outlet over the sink. She found milk in the fridge and some sugar, a compressed bamboo tray, and carried everything back to the sitting room.
    Natalie pushed sticky hair from her face as Gemma placed the three cups on the table.
    ‘The nurses have been great,’ Natalie said, staring sightlessly at the steaming white cups, ‘but they’re really busy. I’m scared he’ll wake up and I won’t be there and he’ll be frightened .   .   . but the nurses say he’s not going to do that for some time.’ Her voice faltered on the last few words. ‘I tried to sleep in the chair beside his bed. He looks so little with all that bloody medical gear around him.’
    Gemma picked up a cup of tea and added milk and sugar. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘I can’t imagine what you’ve gone through – what you’re going through.’
    ‘The minute I turned into the driveway I knew something was terribly wrong,’ said Natalie, her eyes fixed somewhere past Gemma. ‘I saw the light from the front door and I wondered why it was open like that on a wet night. When I pulled up, I saw Bryson’s work car and I wondered what he was doing there. I thought he must have dropped by to visit Donny.’
    ‘Visit Donny?’ Gemma asked, puzzled.
    ‘Yes. Bryson and I separated a couple of months ago. Then I thought maybe Bettina had phoned him to fetch Donny – maybe she didn’t feel well. But then when I got out of my car, I was really spooked because everything was so quiet.’
    Gemma noted the slight raising of Angie’s eyebrow in her direction, the tiny nod, and she eased her notebook out. Angie remained sitting back on her heels, trying to tempt Natalie to drink some tea. Natalie Finn was talking from her shocked state. To write her words down now seemed like a sacrilege. But to lose this evidence would be a greater one. This was vital, unguarded eye-witness reporting. Gemma leaned forward, paying great attention to every word, cautiously making brief notes.
    ‘I could feel something terrible swirling around like one of those little devil-devils – like a toxic movement of the air. Something evil. It wasn’t just the wind. I recall I started shivering. Then I ran to the steps at the front of the house and then I saw