They lift me onto a stretcher, place a blanket over my body, and I close my eyes.
“Is this your house?” I hear someone say. “The boiler is really old, when was it last checked, OK, and by the way we need to take you to the hospital as well.”
The stretcher is tilted at an angle on the way down the stairs, then there’s a gust of air as we arrive outside. I open my eyes, see the dark evening sky above me. The stars.
I think I can finally sleep again now.
* * *
A huge, tubular object. Hyperbaric oxygen therapy, the doctor explains to me. “After all, you don’t want any long-term damage, do you?”
I weakly shake my head. No. What I want is to turn back time, to the point when my life was still familiar and I didn’t have to be afraid all the time.
Inside the chamber, tubes protrude out of the walls, running into blue masks. One of them is pulled over my face. “Just breathe,” says the doctor. Then he leaves me alone.
I try to remember what happened. I was searching the house, then I took a shower—and collapsed. Erik must have found me and pulled me out of there, hence his wet shirt.
Did you do that? he had asked me. Whatever he meant by that.
After an hour, they bring me out of the tube again. I’m feeling a lot better, but they still don’t want to let me go home. “First, because the fire department is still there, and second, because we need to keep you under observation.”
At least my insurance gets me a private room in the hospital. The oxygen mask is still my constant companion, and it’s a good excuse for staying silent. I stare at the wall and try to block out the cheerful doctor sticking electrocardiogram contacts onto my upper body. “Gas boilers are so dangerous,” she chatters away to me. “You’re lucky that your husband reacted so quickly. Just a while longer, and…”
She leaves the sentence unfinished, but it’s clear what she means.
My husband.
Without a doubt Erik had pulled me out of the shower, he had rescued me—but what would have happened if I had showered half an hour earlier? Would he have been there? Had he just been waiting for an opportunity to be my knight in shining armor?
Or would I be dead?
I lie there, and watch the zigzagging lines that my heartbeat is projecting onto the observation monitor.
Did you do that, Jo?
The pain in my wrist is no longer as acute as it was this morning, but it has spread. It now goes from my knuckles to the tips of my fingers. I can remember clearly the feeling of euphoria that filled me when I hit my hand against the door of Ela’s car. It had been so painful and yet, at the same time … good.
Something isn’t right with me; maybe I should start to face up to it. If I’d recently felt the need to inflict harm on myself, then it was also plausible I had tampered with the boiler in order to do something much worse.
Except that I have no idea how to go about doing something like that. And I don’t remember having even been near the device. But by now I guess I shouldn’t be that surprised by gaps in my memory.
Or maybe I should. It could be that all of this has been staged to bring me to exactly the conclusions I’m drawing now.
But how could someone stage my newly acquired urge to self-harm?
Maybe it had simply been an accident. A maintenance error. Something that could happen anywhere. The bad thing, though, is that this possibility seems the least likely to me.
I close my eyes. Block out the world. Concentrate only on the oxygen streaming into my body.
* * *
The next morning, even before the pitiful hospital breakfast is brought to me, there’s a knock at the door and Ela comes into the room. She looks pale, shaking her head again and again, and sits down on the edge of my bed.
“What on earth is going on with you guys?” she says as she takes my hand.” Do you realize how close it was, Jo? With carbon monoxide poisoning, two minutes can mean the difference between life and death. Sometimes even less.”
I’m still wearing my oxygen mask. I don’t have to say anything, but I reciprocate the squeeze she gives my hand.
“I’m so glad Erik got there in time,” she murmurs. “He did exactly the right thing.”
She correctly interprets my questioning glance. “Yes, I talked to him, he’s here in the hospital too. He didn’t have a mask, after all, so it got him as well.” Was that a trace of accusation in her voice? “Not as badly as you, though. They’re already discharging him today.” She smiles; I guess she means for it to be encouraging. “Is there anything I can do for you?”
Yes, as a matter of fact there is. I lift my oxygen mask for a moment. “Call the photo studio. Please. Tell them that…”
“That you’ll be away for a while. Of course.”
She strokes my arm, biting her lower lip. It’s clear she wants to get something off her chest, but doesn’t know how to say it.
Eventually she comes out with it. “Have you thought about whether you might want to stay here for a while to get treatment, once you’ve made it through this part, I mean?” She tries to hold my gaze. “Not in this department, of course. In the psychiatric ward. Just to be on the safe side, you know?”
I abruptly pull my hand away from hers and turn my head to the side. Not because I find the idea so unreasonable; on the contrary. I had the same thought during the night. But Ela’s suggestion makes it real, and makes me realize that it’s the last thing I want. To be locked away, be put on medication, confronted with a diagnosis.
Cleared out of the way.
“I’m sorry,” I hear Ela say. “I don’t want to push you into anything. I really don’t. But do you remember what happened in the car yesterday? That’s just not like you.” She sighs, and I close my eyes.
Go away, I think.
Ela stands up, as if she heard my silent plea. “I’m just afraid that you could be a threat to yourself. Or maybe you already are. To yourself and Erik.”
She strokes my head. I let her, lying still like I’ve fallen asleep.
“I mean, you’re my friend. You’re important to me. Both of you are important to me. I don’t want anything to happen to either of you.”
* * *
Erik comes by a quarter of an hour after the doctor’s made his rounds. He pulls up a chair and doesn’t say anything for a long time, nor does he touch me. He has his elbows propped on his knees and his hands folded in front of his mouth. A waiting position.
But if he’s hoping that I’ll be unable to bear the silence and start a conversation, then he has a long and frustrating wait ahead of him. My oxygen mask is my protective shield.