Thirteen

My chest is tight, my breathing laboured, lungs on fire. But I keep running, legs pumping as my work boots pound against the sidewalk.

Slowing to a jog as I round the corner, I scan the street. There's no one out of place, the phone booth empty. I cross towards the park, they have to be here, somewhere. I have to find them,

Leigh is pushing Grace on the swing-set, as she chats to another mom at the next swing. But where's Anthony? He's not with her. Why is he not—

And then I spot him, hidden amongst a gaggle of other small boys his age, dangling from the bars of the ancient climbing frame.

As I stride through the rusty iron gate and past the long-broken fountain, Leigh looks up. She smiles at me, and for a split second all the crap of the few weeks is forgotten and I'm eighteen again, on a sultry spring night and I'm walking Leigh home from some crappy house party, where unexpectedly running into her had been the one and only highlight of the evening. Stopping, right here in this park, in an obvious and unsubtle attempt to spend a little more time with her.

Out on the street a truck rumbles by, jolting me back to the here and now.

'Momma, look!' Anthony yells. 'I'm at the top!'

'Tony, get down from there, now,' I bark.

'He's okay.' Leigh frowns. 'He's done it plenty of times, he won't fall.'

'No.' I glance around, eyes darting left and right. 'He needs to get down. We have to go.'

Movement catches my eye. But it's only a bunch of teenagers passing by, laughing and joking around as they lark about.

'Why? What's happened?' Leigh rests a hand on the chain, slowing the swing and plucking Grace out of the bucket seat as the other mom makes no effort to hide the fact she's listening in.

'Not here. I'll explain when we get home.' I glare at the other woman, then turn back towards the climbing frame. 'Tony! I said get down here! Now!'

But he still doesn't move, his bottom lip trembling as fat tears roll down his pink cheeks and his chubby fingers grip tighter onto the metal bars. 'No, Daddy!'

'Don't make me come over there!' I stride towards him, but Leigh grabs my elbow, thrusts our baby girl into my arms.

'Jesus, Tim, what's got into you? You settle Grace in the stroller and I'll get him.'

As I fumble to fasten the straps around my daughter, Leigh holds out her hand to Anthony and beckons for him to climb down. Eventually, he nods and slowly clambers down.

Leigh kneels to give him a quick hug, wiping away his tears with the pad of her thumb, then taking his hand in hers. 'Come on, baby, don't cry, there's a good boy. Now let's go home.' She smiles, scoops him up into her arms, even though he's getting too big for her to carry very far these days, his face burrowed against her shoulder as he flatly refuses to look at me.

I'm ushering them out the gate, as the same truck rounds the corner again, driving too slow, the driver hidden behind the tinted windows. I brace myself, but it cruises on by. But we don't make it more than ten yards down the sidewalk before Anthony starts up bawling again, his arms stretched back to the park as he struggles against Leigh until she's forced to set him back down on the ground.

'Damn it, what now, Tony?' I snap, snatching a hold of his arm before he bolts away.

Anthony scowls at me. 'But—'

'I already told you, we're going home.'

'No!' He wriggles and squirms, one arm slipping out of his coat as he kicks at my shins, then points back to the park. 'My fire truck! I forgot my new fire truck!'

'Not now—' I start up, at the same time Leigh tries to placate him. 'It's okay. Quick now, you come with me and we'll go fetch it.'

And before I can stop her, she takes his hand and they're darting back across the grass to retrieve it.

I check the street again, watching the traffic, shifting from foot to foot as my anxiety threatens to overtake me.

Leigh bends down, scooping up the toy and handing it to Anthony. She ruffles his hair, pats his back to send him running back towards me as she follows a few steps behind.

The truck circles back round the block again, slowing again, the nearside window rolling down as it approaches. The passenger is Brannigan, eyes hidden behind mirrored sunglasses, his teeth a bright white crescent against his tanned skin as he cracks a grin, raises his hands. Hands gripping a shotgun. A shotgun he's pointing at my son.

'No!' I grab my boy, shoving him down onto the ground, as I position myself between my daughter and the truck.

Brannigan laughs, adjusts him aim a few degrees.

A loud crack rings in my ears.

Tyres squeal against the asphalt. The truck speeds away.

Leigh stops, her expression confused as she looks down. The tiny pink rosebuds winding across the fabric of her dress blossom a deep scarlet.

'Tim?' She touches a hand to her side, as her knees buckle.

'No!' I screech, rushing to her, barely managing to catch her in my arms before she hits the ground. 'Leigh, babe, I'm here.' I scream for someone, anyone, to call an ambulance, get help, find a doctor. Anything.

'My babies?' Leigh struggles to look around. 'Where're—'

'Shh, it's okay, they're safe, they're both fine.' I cradle her against my chest, press my palm to her side, but the bleeding won't stop. 'Just stay with me, stay awake.'

Anthony runs up, 'Mommy!' he wraps his arms around Leigh's, buries his head into her side then tugs at her hand. 'Mommy, get up!'

She winces at the movement, and with every word, but even now she comforts him. 'Tony, sweetie. Mommy's okay... I fell over, that's all. Be a good boy...watch your sister for me...Let me catch my breath a minute?'

'An ambulance is coming.' The woman from the swings squeezes my shoulder then takes Anthony's hand. 'Come on, Tony. Why don't you come over here and show us that cool fire truck of yours?'

He nods, lets her lead him back towards Grace and her own kid.

'Take care of them, Tim, promise me.' Leigh watches him for a second, before her eyes become glazed and unfocused.

'Leigh.' I squeeze her hand, attempting to keep her attention. 'Just stay with me, darling, stay awake. We'll look after them, together. You and me, I promise...'

My desperate pleas are swallowed up as the ambulance and cop cars approach, sirens wailing, quickly followed by shouting, and rough hands pulling me away from her, until I'm left alone, nothing more than an observer on the edges.

Two paramedics lean over Leigh, talking in low quick voices and their hands busy, pressing on her wounds, lifting her onto a trolley.

'Mr Shepard?' A hand grips my arm, shaking me in an attempt to get my attention. 'Mr Shepard, Sir?'

It's a young cop, his serious face pale with concern, only it's all I can do not to laugh at him. A cop, calling me Sir? That has to be the most ridiculous thing I ever fucking heard. I mean, him knowing my name, ain't too much of a stretch. Time was half the cops in Tulsa knew Tim Shepard. But now... 'What? You wanna ask me some questions?'

'No, Sir. Least, not right now. But if you want to go in the ambulance with your wife, well they're leaving any second.'

'Leaving?'

He steers me towards it, talking real slow, like I'm some kind of fucking idiot. 'Yeah. For the hospital?'

I'm about to step into the ambulance, whirl around desperately. 'Wait, my kids.'

'They're with Officer Dooley.' He points across to where another cop is showing Tony the inside of their car while she rocks Grace in her arms. 'She'll follow down to the hospital with them, meet you there, find someone we can call to look after them for you—a friend or a family member, maybe. But right now, you have to go. Quickly.'

Nodding, I climb the rest the way in the ambulance, sit on the cramped fold down seat the paramedic points at, before he yells to his partner we're good to go.

They're talking throughout the journey, back and forth between the guy hunched over Leigh, the driver, the radio dispatcher. Fast and rushed, a shorthand between themselves that I don't understand. Don't want to understand, either, if their sombre tone is anything to go by.

I shrink back on the narrow seat.

This is wrong. She shouldn't be the one suffering. They were my choices, my mistakes.

'Tim?' Someone nudges my arm.

There's a cold cup of coffee, untouched on the table beside me. In the far corner of the busy ER waiting room, Grace and Anthony chatter and play with the lady cop, and somehow Curly is sat here beside me though I don't remember calling him.

How long have I been here? The clock says it's three already, but it can't be, can it? Only feels like seconds ago I was in the park, when Leigh was—I stare at Curly, at the name badge clipped to his blue shirt. E SHEPARD in thick black letters Orderly in slightly smaller script beneath.

'Shouldn't you be working?' I ask. 'Don't need you getting the sack or nothing.'

'Told you already,' he says softly. 'My boss says I can wait with with you, given the circumstances. Ain't like I'd be much use to them today anyway, not gonna be able to concentrate, not until we get some news.'

'News? Nobody's told me a thing since we got here, other than to sit and wait, or someone'll be with me soon as they can. No news is good news, isn't it? Has to be, doesn't it?' I lurch up onto my feet as panic threatens to swallow me.

'I know, buddy.' Curly stands too, goes to hug me, but I shrug him away.

'What's taking so goddamned long, Curly? I need to see her. Why won't they let me—' My words break off, swallowed in a strangled sob.

My brother stares down at his feet, at the walls, across at the kids as he does everything he can to avoid meeting my eye. 'Look, no one's keeping you in the dark, I swear. She, well, they couldn't save the baby. But Leigh's still in surgery. She's hurt bad, Tim, but she's a fighter, she'll pull through, won't she?' He chokes on his words, wheels away as he angrily drags a hand across his eyes, and sniffs.

High heels clack against the floor tiles and a glimmer of a smile ghosts across my brother's face. 'Thank God. Here's Sylvia, she's going to take the kids back to hers, just for tonight until—'

Sylvia slaps me hard across the face, sends me reeling into my brother, then pounds her fists into my chest. 'You rat bastard asshole, this is all your fault!'

'Sylv, stop!' Curly tries to drag her away, calm her down. 'You're not being fair. Tim didn't—'

'Tim didn't what? Pull the trigger? He might as well have, we all know this only happened because of him.' Sylvia glowers up at me, jabs me in the chest with her finger. 'It should be you in there, not her. What the hell did you think you were doing, getting mixed up with shit like that again?' She sniffs, her temper subsiding as she glances towards the kids. 'You ring me, Curly Shepard, the minute—no, the second—she's out of theatre or they tell you anything.'

Sylvia stalks away without waiting for an answer from either of us, her expression morphing into a phoney plastered-on smile as she hugs Grace then Anthony, starts helping them into their coats.

Not that I got anything to say to her, anyway. No sharp comebacks or smart-mouthed comments. Because Sylvia's right. This is on me. I never should've tried to be smart, or trusted that kid to keep his end of the deal. Now, because of my own stupidity, my arrogance, I've got Leigh's blood on my hands.

'We need to ask you a few questions, Mr Shepard.'

The sneer in his tone startles me out of my daze. Cheap polyester suit with a sheen on the elbows and a greying shirt with the buttons straining across his pot belly. He might not be wearing a uniform, but he's most definitely a cop. Think he probably arrested me one or two times, back in the day.

'Seriously? Can't it wait?' Curly asks, putting himself between me and the detective.

'No.' He leans forward, folds his thick arms across his chest. 'It can't fucking wait. Now sit down and shut up before I do you for obstruction.'

My brother's anger deflates. 'Sorry. But you ought to be out there, looking for them, instead of wasting your time hassling my brother.'

'And my colleagues are doing all they can. There's just a couple of things I need to clarify.' The cop turns away from Curly, drags a chair away from the wall and settles himself down right in front of me. 'We have witnesses who said you were agitated when you arrived at the park, and you were demanding your wife leave right away.'

'Just keen for them to come home, Officer, so we could get on with our weekend.'

'So you weren't shouting at her? Or your boy?'

'Guess I might've been a bit loud. I'd had a shit morning at work, and I just wanted us all to go home.' I peer down at my hands, at the dried blood—her blood—staining my shirt. Nausea hits me like a punch in the gut. I hope Leigh heard me telling her I love her and she remembers that, not the five minutes before when I was acting the prize jerk and snapping at her.

'Sure, of course you did. What is it you do for work these days?'

'Construction.'

'Right.' He scribbles in the small notepad resting on his fat knee, before going back and forth, asking me question after pointless question, until finally he's had enough. 'So let me get this straight, for the record. You're telling me you don't have the first idea who might've done this?'

I rub at the back of my neck as he stares at me. Part of me wants to say to hell with it, spill everything about Brannigan, the whole sorry mess. I open my mouth, shut it again. There's no point telling him, because they'll never find any real proof. It'll have been a stolen car, unregistered gun. No fingerprints, nothing to link it back to Brannigan. Least that's how I would've done it, and Brannigan's way more calculating than me. 'Sorry, no.'

'Really? None at all? You're wife gets hit in a drive-by shooting, and you want us to believe it's some kind of fluke accident? We both know that ain't how these things work, Mr Shepard. So who d'you piss off enough that they'd want to do something like that, in a park full of little kids?'

I shake my head. 'I told you, I don't know.' All I know is, one way or another, I'm going to make Brannigan suffer.

'Mr Shepard?' The doctor coughs a little to clear his throat, pushes his hands into the pockets of his starched white coat.

'How is she, doc?' Curly asks.

I bounce up on my feet. Finally, someone who wants to tell me something. A tiny fragment of hope glimmers in my mind. Maybe Leigh's okay, and she's awake... 'Can I see her now?'

'Soon. Could you come with me, first?' The doctor doesn't wait for an answer. Head down, he strides across the corridor into a small empty room behind the nurses station, while the nurse gestures for us to follow him.

My brother's face is grey, guess he already knows from working here what I'm suspecting, as pain crushes me once more. Nobody ever get's taken in here to be given good news.

A nurse guides me into the hospital room and sits me in the chair beside Leigh. 'Talk to her, if you want to.'

My brother trails in behind me, hovers beside me, his hands pushed deep into his pockets.

If it wasn't for all the tubes and wires, then I could believe she's only sleeping, like if I say her name loud enough or squeeze her hand then she'll wake up, eyes bleary with sleep as she smiles at me.

Except of course she doesn't, no matter how many times I say her name. She never will. The doctor made that very clear. Instead the bed is surrounded by machines, bleeping and whirring, breathing for her, giving us the illusion she's still here.

Tears prick at my eyes as I struggle to my feet. 'Can you give me a minute with her, alone?'

'Sure.' Grim faced, my brother pulls me into a bear hug, then steps away, opening the door, a rush of sound pouring in from the corridor. 'Take as long as you need. I'll be right outside.'

I sit back down on the chair, get up again almost instantly and perch myself on the edge of the hospital bed, lace my fingers through hers.

'I'm sorry.' I lean across, kiss her forehead. My shoulders shake as heavy tears roll down my cheeks. 'Please wake up, Tony and Grace, they need you.' I trace small circles on her palm with my thumb, softly, gently. 'I know I fucked up, made mistakes. But I love you, Leigh. I'll do anything, just don't leave me. I don't know how to do this without you.'

I sink into silence and stare at her, desperate for some kind of sign—a twitch of her hand or a flicker of her eyelids—some hint she's heard me. Nothing.

One of the machines gives out a high pitched, monotone wail, summoning a nurse. She buzzes around, leaning between us and I step back, Leigh's fingers slipping through mine.

More staff swarm in. In the chaos, I'm edged further backwards, away from Leigh, powerless to stop my world from ending.

Then, as quick as it started, the commotion comes to an abrupt end.

A painful calm descends on the room.

I'm alone.

A/N: So, the story has finally caught back around to where it started in chapter one. But it doesn't feel quite finished yet and there's still a few loose ends to tie up, on how Tim copes (or not) without Leigh, so there's still afew more chapters to come.

In the meantime, a huge thank you to everybody who's read this far, and also to anyone who's followed/favourited, and especially reviewed - it's been great getting your feedback on this :)