Waiting in the Shadows by Trish Moran

Author:Trish Moran
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781783755295
Publisher: Accent Press
Published: 2013-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

Vincent Craig watched the photographs playing on his computer screen. He focussed on one.

There she was, smiling up at the camera. Teeth white against shiny black skin; little pigtails sticking out at angles from her head. He remembered the outfit she was wearing, red shorts and a matching T-shirt with a picture of a puppy on the front! How she’d loved that outfit. They had always promised that one day, when she was bigger; she’d have her own real puppy.

He sighed deeply. But that day had never come. Even though they had spent a fortune on ensuring a long and happy life for her, the car crash that had left him in a wheelchair had ended her short life. All the money they had spent on stem cell research at the Centre in England had been no use. She had died instantly on impact. She wouldn’t have felt any pain; the doctors had told him and her mother. But they had lived with the pain every day. He had never been able to move on. Vanessa, Marissa’s mother, had recovered from her injuries over the years. She had tried to make him think of the future; had even suggested that they try for another baby, as they had planned when Marissa was alive. Her words had fallen on deaf ears. Finally, she had left him and was now married for the second time with two boys. She kept in touch with him, occasionally phoning, and there was always a Christmas card and a birthday card from her.

He watched as several other pictures played on the screen, then paused another one. This one was of Vanessa and Marissa on her fourth birthday; her last one. He looked carefully at Vanessa. She was a good-looking woman, smooth black skin, large oval brown eyes. Her hair was braided into narrow plaits, with beads threaded into the end of each one. He had always laughed when she groaned about the time it took to have it done at the hairdresser’s.

‘So, why do you put yourself through it?’ he had asked her.

‘Men!’ she had shook her head. ‘You just don’t understand, do you?’

He hadn’t been surprised to hear her voice on the phone a few weeks ago, when the news about the Centre in England had been made public.

‘Just wondered if you were OK, Vince,’ she had said. ‘With the Centre in the news so much at the moment.’

‘Do you think there’s a possibility that Marissa’s … cells … were not destroyed?’ he had asked her.

‘We did request that they were. And cancelled our subscription, when … when we lost Marissa,’ she had replied. ‘Why would they keep them?’

‘I don’t know. They seem to have done lots of things you wouldn’t expect them to,’ he said.

‘I doubt it, Vince. I keep telling you, you must let yourself move on! Anyway, how are you keeping these days? What are your summer plans? You know you’re always welcome to drop by here anytime you want to, if you’re over visiting your sister,’ she continued.

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