Rohan looked nervous hauling himself out of the car. Emma left him to negotiate his crutches and slammed the door after him, waiting until he was stable enough to begin the trek up the road and through the school gates. A bitter wind howled around their legs, whipping Emma’s new coat around her shins and repeatedly legging her up. Rohan plodded steadily along next to her, smirking from the corner of his mouth. “You’re more unsteady on your feet than me,” he chuckled.
“It’s this gorgeous new coat you bought me.” Emma stopped and fixed the bottom button closed. Her cheeks were already a healthy pink from the biting cold and her eyes sparkled. The sumptuous cashmere coat matched her tan boots and Rohan stopped, transfixed. “But I do love it.” Emma smiled and her brow knitted at the sultry look on her husband’s face. She moved across the footpath and wrapped her arms around his waist, careful not to overbalance him. “I love you,” she whispered. “I know how hard this is for you, going public about your leg, but...your son will appreciate your bravery.”
Rohan’s blue eyes glittered like diamonds in the cold, a tear collecting in objection to the freezing onslaught. But his full lips smiled and his freshly shaven face put his affection on show. “I do it for him.” Rohan’s eyes roved to Emma’s stomach and the smile broadened. “For them.”
Emma kissed him slowly on the lips, oblivious to the parents and grandparents navigating around them in the winter blast. “We’ll be ok, won’t we?” Emma begged, pushing away the dread in her heart.
“Of course!” Rohan looked surprised, kissing away a delicate snowflake which dared to land in Emma’s curls. “Let’s go in or he’ll think I didn’t come.”
Emma’s heart beat a tattoo as they joined the long queue to enter the school hall, displaying tickets and receiving hot coffee and a mince pie from a stand next to the ticket table. Her nerves were partly for Rohan, enduring the stares and curiosity of the school community. She listened to the awkward questions tittering from the mouths of tiny children around them and the well-meant silencing from embarrassed parents.
“Why’s that man got one leg?”
“Ssh, I don’t know,” came the whispered answer.
Emma’s back felt rigid and her whole body tense with the force of emotions, wanting so badly to protect the tall Russian from other thoughtless people. It made her feel powerless, wishing with a stab of guilt that she had made excuses for him instead, persuading Nicky not to beg his father to do this public thing.