I haven’t talked to him much. He texts me, always, asking how I am, how my mother is. I never answer him back with more than a few sentences. It seems easier that way, even though I care about him. Even though I want to know he’s okay, that he’s getting help. I want to know how his rugby game went. It’s enough that I look it up on the internet instead of asking him. He didn’t play that first game against Glasgow, but they won and that brings the smallest, saddest smile to my face.
After it’s been about a week since she had her stroke, we’re told by the doctors that the swelling has lessened a bit and they’re optimistic about bringing her out of it.
We all gather at the hospital, just my brothers and I, anxiously standing around while it happens behind closed doors. This could be it. We could walk in there and she might be smiling at us, groggy, but she could be our mother again. She can tell us about the dreams she had about our father and we’d laugh and cry and thank her for coming back to us, her children who need her more than we’ve ever been able to say.
But when the doctor comes out, we immediately know it’s bad news.
She exhales heavily and looks us all in the eyes. “We weren’t successful.”
The floor drops out from under me.
“She’s alive but…we can’t take her off the life support. She wasn’t able to come back.”
“So she’s still in the coma?” Paul asks, sounding irate. That’s always been my oldest brother’s job. To get angry.
The doctor nods. “As I said, putting her in a medically-induced coma is a last resort for anyone, especially someone her age. It is, and always has been, a leap of faith.”
“Well what do we do now?” Toshio says, panicking. “What…what can we do for her?”
“We’ve weaned her off the barbiturates that essentially turn off her brain to begin with. But sometimes the brain doesn’t switch back on. It’s impossible at this stage to know how much damage was done because of the stroke and how much was done because of the coma. If she had a good chance to begin with, she should wake up. But she’s not. We’ll give it a few more days, but, I’m so sorry, I don’t think she’s going to come out of it. The only thing you can do is wait. Pray if you must.”
“Pray?” Paul says with a sneer.
Nikko elbows him to shut up then says to the doctor. “Look, how long can she be in the coma for? She’s in one of her body’s own doing, correct? Well, people wake up from comas all the time. I don’t even think we should be discussing any alternatives until we give her all the time that she needs.”
Toshio is nodding, wiping away a tear. “Yeah. Sometimes people wake up after years and they’re fine.”
Yeah, I think sadly to myself. But those people are young. Our mother is not.
I glance at the doctor and I know she’s thinking the same thing. It’s the truth and one I’ve spent my whole life trying to come to terms with, knowing I’ll have to see my own mother die and probably while I’m still a young woman.
But the doctor doesn’t say that. Instead she says, “We will keep her on life support until you, as a family, tell us not to.”
I close my eyes and feel Nikko’s arm around me.
I want to believe we will never have to make such a horrible decision.
I want to believe that my mother will still come out of it.
I want to believe in a lot of things.
But I’m not sure how much belief I have left anymore.
CHAPTER TWENTYSEVEN
Lachlan
For days after Kayla left, the only people I see are my teammates and Amara. That’s all my world has whittled down to. Without Kayla, everything just shrinks. When she was here, the world was wide and infinite. Now, it’s back to sleepwalking, just as I had been all those years before she came into my life.
So while I’ve been ignoring calls from my family, from even Bram in the States, I’m not too surprised to find Brigs buzzing my door and throwing stones at my window late one afternoon.
I poke my head out the window, glaring down at him. “You know I have a buzzer,” I yell.
“Would you answer your buzzer?” he asks.
“No more than I’d answer some bugger pelting my window with rocks.” I sigh and take the key out of my pocket, dropping it down for him.