Page 1 of Mending Hearts at the Cornish Country Hospital (The Cornish Country Hospital #6)
Eden could have recited the episode of Paddington Bear her son was watching word for word.
She could have done the same thing with every episode of the series on Netflix, because she’d listened to each of them at least two hundred times since the show had become Teddie’s obsession, his comfort blanket in a world that felt unpredictable and scary.
It was funny when she thought back to all the plans she’d had for motherhood when she’d been pregnant.
She was going to be one of those craft-loving mothers, who sat side by side with their child doing finger painting and colouring in, or making elaborate Picasso-esque portraits from artfully arranged pasta shapes.
Screen time would be strictly limited and she absolutely would not, no way ever, allow a child to become so obsessed by a TV show that she sometimes suspected he loved it more than he loved her.
But then she’d never expected to have a beautiful little boy, with a smile that could light up any room, who also happened to be autistic.
Teddie didn’t play the way other children did; he wasn’t interested in any of the mountain of toys he got for his birthday or Christmas.
His favourite thing in the world was standing by the widescreen TV in his grandparents’ lounge, just as he was doing right now, his arms shooting up in excitement and a wordless shout of delight bouncing off the walls, as Paddington embarked on another adventure.
Teddie’s stimming was his way of expressing himself, because he didn’t have the words.
Eden’s mother called it ‘Teddie’s dancing’, and most of the time the action was joyful enough for a casual observer to believe that’s what it was.
He might be non-verbal at four years old, but he’d learned his own way of communicating and getting the adults who knew him best to understand what he wanted.
Before Teddie was born, it had been Eden’s mother and Teddie’s father who had caused her the most worry.
Now she was back living with her parents, her worries about her mother weren’t so pronounced.
Karen was trying really hard to be a different person to the one Eden had grown up with.
It wasn’t easy to undo the impact of her mother’s past behaviour, and she wasn’t sure she’d ever fully trust in Karen the way most people trusted their parents, but they’d made a lot of progress, especially since she’d come home.
As for Teddie’s father, she had no idea where he was and she didn’t want to know, but he continued to haunt her thoughts and every time the phone rang she was still terrified it might be him, or about him.
Jesse’s behaviour had ended up controlling almost every aspect of her life, but the level of manipulation he’d applied had meant she’d barely even realised it was happening at first. He’d played the victim so expertly and made her believe she was doing something awful every time she tried to exert her independence or even have an opinion of her own.
It had affected her ability to trust in anyone or anything in the end, even her own judgement, and she might never have made the break away if it hadn’t been for Teddie.
Her son had given her the strength to walk out and not look back.
She couldn’t allow Jesse to take up space in her head any more, and the concerns she might once have had about him paled into insignificance against the worries she now had about their son.
Although currently her biggest concern was how she was going to drag Teddie’s attention away from the TV before they both ended up being very late.
‘Come on then bubs, it’s time to go.’ Eden knew the only chance she had of getting his attention was to switch off the TV.
Within seconds of pressing the standby button on the remote and setting it down on the table, Teddie picked it up again and handed it to her, his bright blue eyes so expectant she almost gave in.
They couldn’t be late, though, not today.
St Piran’s hospital, where Eden worked in the A the rest of the time she was looking up her latest obsession on the internet and getting involved in whatever groups or activities that threw up.
Still, if she was going to be addicted to anything, there were worse things than the internet, the whole family could attest to that.
Dashing across the road, Eden was thankful she could see the building where Little Sunbeams was situated.
It was close enough for her to believe she could get there, despite the rucksacks that insisted on slipping off both her shoulders, and Teddie doing his very best impression of a human paving slab.
He might not be willing to cling on right now, koala-bear-style, in the way she wanted him to, but there was no doubting he’d give her a hug if she asked for one.
In all the challenges of his diagnosis and the uncertainty of what that meant, one thing Eden had always been grateful for was the fact that he was so affectionate.
Teddie could give the tightest, most passionate hugs, which had the power to make the whole world right, if you were on the very short list of people he deemed deserving of one.