Thanks to those still reading! We're about at the midpoint.
Edith throws down her magazine and rolls scornful eyes around the waiting room. "This is ridiculous! Every magazine here is at least three years old."
Sybil shifts in her seat, trying to work a kink out of her shoulder. "Think of it as a history lesson." In the hour they've been here she's only grown more annoyed, and it doesn't help to have Edith turning up her nose at their surroundings and Mary sighing every time another patient gets called in ahead of them.
"We should have gone to the private clinic," Mary says for the second time, after a boy with what appears to be acute appendicitis is whisked into the back straightaway. As he bloody well should be, Sybil thinks.
"Maybe." She manages to keep her voice even. "But we're here now, aren't we?"
"We are... and probably will be for the rest of our lives." Mary rolls her eyes. She's reclined down the row of chairs with her bad foot propped in Sybil's lap.
Sybil presses her lips together. The world doesn't revolve around you! She'd like to snap. It boggles her mind, how Mary can be so generous with those she cares for, yet so callous toward strangers.
Mary sighs. "I don't mean to be such a baby. Only I hate feeling so helpless."
Sybil pats Mary's leg comfortingly. "I know. I promise it'll be over before you're old and grey."
Edith picks up another antique magazine and starts flipping through it. "I wish you'd try to walk on it again, Mary. You could go to the doctor on Monday and we wouldn't have to sit here half the night. It's not as if it's broken."
"It may be a fracture," Sybil says. "We don't want to make it worse. And even if it is just a sprain—"
"I wouldn't bother. We both know Edith will never be made to feel sorry for me." Mary cocks her head and smirks as though she expects Sybil to join in on the joke. The corners of Sybil's mouth stay resolutely downturned: she likes to think she's a patient person, but she's almost lost hers.
"I think if your ankle were broken you'd be making a good deal more noise. I do know something about broken bones, no thanks to you." Edith's mouth twists and almost unconsciously she encircles her left wrist with her right hand.
"I wondered when you'd bring that up." Mary's eyes roll toward the ceiling again. "Twenty years on and I still haven't lived it down." She purses her lips to suppress an echo of the guilt that still rises when she thinks of that one small lapse in responsibility and its rather serious consequences. See you at the stables, slowcoach! As if Edith hadn't paid her back times ten. We were children, for goodness' sake. And it's not as if she'd meant for Edith to fall off the horse.
"As I was saying," Sybil says, her voice even and precise in the way it only gets when she's extremely irritated, "Even if it is only a sprain, it still needs immediate treatment. So let's make the best of the situation."
"Like Edith's ever made the best of any situation," scoffs Mary.
Well, if you hadn't been so bloody clumsy—"
"Stop it! Just stop it, both of you." Sybil pinches her forehead. "You're giving me a headache."
The elder Crawley women fall silent instantly, a penitential stillness coming over both their faces. After a moment Edith asks, "Is it very tiring, having a new baby?"
"Sometimes. It's more tiring watching the two of you act like great babies."
Mary and Edith exchange glances; Sybil's hardly ever this snappish. Mary opens her mouth. "Darling—"
"Sometimes I wish I could just lock the two of you in a room and not open the door until you've made it up or one or both of you is dead."
"Goodness." Edith chuckles.
"I don't think it's funny!" Sybil opens her eyes and glares at each sister in turn. "I know you've never gotten on, but for fuck's sake, you're family." A woman sitting a row over with a listless toddler held in her lap looks daggers at Sybil, but she ignores it. "The least you could do is act like it every once in a while instead of constantly trying to peck each other's eyes out."
Another awkward silence falls. Sybil takes an audible breath, trying to calm herself. Mary and Edith have always been this way, even before that rumor-spreading business when they were teenagers. But their bickering is especially upsetting tonight: exhaustion brings every emotion that much closer to the surface.
"We only wanted to give you a nice night out," Edith says quietly.
"And a play would've been enough of a distraction." Mary throws a glance around the emphatically distraction-free waiting room.
Sybil sighs. "I know. And I do appreciate it."
Edith draws herself up and starts to put on her scarf and gloves. "I should go. Someone needs to let the men know what's going on." Sybil's tried calling home again and Mary rang Matthew's mobile, but there was no answer from either one.
"No, stay." Mary flaps a hand toward Edith, so surprising her that her mouth actually sags open a little. "I'd like it if you did." Mary does not sound as if she'd like it, exactly, but her tone is more conciliatory than any Edith's heard out of her since sixth form.
Edith swivels her head toward Sybil. "It's still your night. What do you want me to do?"
Sybil shrugs. "I'd like it if you stayed too." She gives Edith a hard look. "That is, if you think you can behave yourself."
"Well, it takes two to tango." Edith purses her lips and casts an appraising eye at Mary.
Mary raises a delicate brow at the challenge. "I can certainly keep a rein on my mouth if you can."
"All right, then. I'm going to try and ring Tom again." Sybil lifts Mary's leg off her lap so she can get up and gingerly lowers it back to the chair.
"Maybe you should leave a message this time," Edith says. "They must check them at some point."
"Will do." Sybil moves off to the public telephone in the corner and her sisters sit in tense silence, both wishing they were somewhere else.
-ooo-
Anthony chuckles down at the freshly changed baby, who's scissoring her plump little legs and flirting with him from the table. "Was that a smile? I think she just smiled at me." He watches her eyes drift to the mobile hanging above her and gives it a spin with his hand.
Tom leans against the doorframe. "They aren't quite smiling yet at this age, I don't think. At least not on purpose."
"But she must be happy to be rid of that load." Over Anthony's shoulder, Matthew makes a warding gesture. "It can't be very nice, wearing a dirty nappy."
Tom gives a snort. "It's one of the few things that doesn't seem to make her cry." As if on cue, Siobhan's face crumples and she begins fussing. "I'll bet she's hungry. It's been a couple of hours since she ate last." He turns a bit too quickly to go back down the hall and stumbles.
"Well, at least we don't need to worry that you're feeling any pain," Matthew quips.
"Shut it." Actually, the ache is starting to assert itself again, deep within where the bones snapped apart. No good dwelling on it, though; he can't take another dose for a few hours yet.
Anthony wraps Siobhan in her blanket and gathers her up, following Tom and Matthew back to the kitchen. He picks up the bottle left on the worktop and sits down with the baby; this time she opens her mouth and suckles eagerly. "There. She was hungry." Anthony smiles with a satisfied air, as though he was the one who called it.
"So I know Sybil's still on leave from the hospital, but how does it work for you?" Matthew asks Tom. "Being up with the baby all night and then having to go to the office in the morning?"
"Well, Siobhan does sleep sometimes. And my hours aren't exactly regular." Tom's as likely to be out reporting as in the newsroom during the day, and even before Siobhan was born he occasionally went in late after an especially long night, or stayed home to write where it was quiet. Being able to get work done in the flat seems like a distant memory now.
"But you've never thought about having someone in to help?"
"What, like a nurse?" Tom half-smiles. "Sybil didn't want it. And besides, I don't know where we'd put one." They still live in their one-bedroom flat, Siobhan's cot wedged between their bed and the wall.
"I daresay Edith would have a nanny, if we had children." Anthony looks meditatively down at Siobhan, contentedly eating in his arms. "It's just the way we're used to doing things, I suppose."
According to Sybil, Edith and Anthony have hired professionals for everything from decorating and cleaning their house to walking their matched set of English bulldogs three times a day. To Tom it seems an odd way to live, being so dependent on others. But then, until recently it was never an option for him to pay people to see to the mundanities of life.
Speaking of which: "Why don't I take her off your hands for a bit?" Tom scoots his chair closer to Anthony's and holds out his good arm toward his daughter. "I can manage pretty well as long as I'm sitting down."
"But she seems happy enough," Anthony protests. "You can take her in a little while."
Tom nods, but he can feel the scowl threatening. Since he went back to work a few weeks ago it seems he's been scrambling to get as much time as he wants with his daughter. He even relishes the nighttime wake-ups, though they steal the sleep that's in almost as short supply as time. And now, with his arm broken, he can barely even hold her.
He remembers the sense of despondency he felt while he and Sybil were separated for all those months, as fresh as if it were five days ago instead of five years. The dross of last night's whisky on the back of his tongue, the bleak inevitability of his downward spiral and his utter indifference to it. It's a powerful, almost physical memory, and he gets a whiff of it every time he's apart from Sybil for any length of time. His need to have Siobhan's small warm weight in his arms is different, but it's just as primal. He gets to feeling wrong after a few hours without her.
"Let the man feed his daughter, for God's sake," Matthew says. He leans over to take Siobhan off Anthony's lap, cupping his hand behind her head before Tom can remind him. "I'll bet Sybil keeps her all to herself when she's home."
"She does. Selfish, that's Sybil all over." Tom manages to get Siobhan situated against his chest without taking the bottle from her lips, holding it in his left hand while he braces the baby with his cast, facing her outward.
Anthony glances at the stovetop clock. "I wonder how they're getting on."
Matthew chuckles. "Sybil's probably wishing she'd stayed at home with the crying baby, if it's anything like the last time Mary and Edith got together."
-ooo-
It's the crying baby that does it.
They're finally in an examination bay, having been shown there twenty minutes ago by a nurse whose bored expression made Sybil's blood boil, and who vanished without a word about when they might expect to be seen by the doctor, let alone any effort at making the patient comfortable. Edith perches on the molded plastic chair at the bedside; Sybil hovers, watching for anyone in a white coat or scrubs who doesn't look completely swamped. Finally she sinks down on the bed at Mary's side, muttering, "Saturday night in A&E. We're at the bottom of the bleeding priority list." She plumps the pillow under Mary's ankle again. "Are you in pain?"
"I'm fine, darling, I was just in a bit of a pet before. I think I can give place to the traffic crash victims."
In the next bay, separated from them by a curtain, are a young mother and her flu-stricken infant. Sybil's breasts are already full and aching; it's the last straw when the baby begins to fuss and then to wail, coughing heartbreakingly between its cries. "Oh, fucking hell," Sybil mutters as a tingling sensation heralds letdown, with nowhere for the milk to go except through one of her few flattering bras that still fits, soaking into the front of her favorite blouse. Just what I need.
Mary's sharp eyes pick out the problem even before Sybil can wrap her coat around herself. "Sybil." She sits up and lays a hand on her sister's knee. "I want you to go home."
"Really, Mary, I'm fine—"
"You've gotten me here." Mary's voice is the same one that urged Sybil out the door of her flat earlier. "Edith can be my walking stick if I need one. Right, Edith?"
Edith frowns, clearly oblivious to Sybil's problem. "But the doctor's about to come, isn't he?"
"Heaven only knows." Mary rolls her eyes. "But I think we've put Sybil through enough tonight."
"We?" Edith gives a short laugh and draws herself up stiffly. "I hope you're not including me in that statement."
"Oh, for God's sake. Sybil?" Mary flaps a hand at Sybil's coat.
Sybil sighs and pulls it open on one side, and Edith's eyes widen. "Oh! Sorry!" Her cheeks go pink. "Well, of course you should go home. God."
"I don't feel right leaving you here," Sybil says, even as she fastens her coat. "I'm not sure I trust this place to provide proper care without someone to light a fire under their arses. I've not been impressed so far."
Mary tosses her head. "This is me we're talking about. Have you ever known me to settle?"
Sybil concedes the point with a rueful grin. "I suppose you're right." She stands and gives each of her sisters a sharp look. "Be nice, now. I mean it."
Mary chuckles. "You act as though we're going to jump at each other's throats the moment you're out of sight."
"Not that you could do any jumping," Edith says, and Mary actually smiles. "Go, Sybil. we'll be fine." Edith takes over Sybil's spot on the bed, and the two elder sisters watch until the younger one disappears around the corner.
"Well," Mary says with finality: a dismissal, not an invitation.
Edith rockets to her feet and plops down in the chair again, looking down at her hands. "I'm sure we won't have too long to wait."
"One can only hope." Mary settles back onto the thin bleach-smelling pillow and closes her eyes.
-ooo-
They've resumed their earlier configuration: Matthew and Anthony on the sofa and Tom in the rocking chair with his daughter, who until twenty minutes ago was restless and fussy. Now, with the lights low and the television burbling almost inaudibly while Massive Attack plays at slightly higher volume, Siobhan's drowsy head nods and her eyelids droop.
They flutter open when Anthony stage-whispers: "Is she still awake?"
Matthew makes a cutting-off motion. "She will be as long as we keep watching her go to sleep."
Tom's half drifted off himself, his left arm curled around the baby in unconscious protectiveness. The slight motion of his legs rocking the chair is mostly automatic. At length the sharpening ache in his bad arm prods him to wakefulness, and he looks down at Siobhan. She's asleep.
And now she should be put down, but how to manage it one-armed without waking her? Poor planning, Da. "Er…" Anthony's and Matthew's heads whip around at the sound of his voice. "Could one of you…"
Both jump to their feet, but Matthew's the one who ends up taking her. Amazingly, Siobhan remains asleep through the transfer and being laid down. The three men cluster at the foot of the cot, observing her gravely in the light spilling from the doorway. She sighs and smacks her lips, eyes tightly closed.
"So peaceful," Anthony murmurs.
"I suppose that's where they get sleeps like a baby." Matthew sounds amused, and rather wistful.
"She won't be sleeping for long if we keep standing over her bed jabbering." Tom chuckles and turns toward the door. "We'd best get out of here."