‘I’m Dr Raina, a neurosurgeon, and this is Dr Kennedy, an anaesthetist.’ She indicated the man on her right, a gangly redhead, who smiled at her. ‘We’ve been looking after your son since he came into hospital earlier today. Daniel suffered a head injury when he was white-water rafting this morning, which, after investigation, we found had led to a subdural haematoma, which is a bleed on his brain. We took him into theatre immediately and successfully removed the buildup of fluid.’
Laura was trying very hard to concentrate, but her mind kept lurching at the mention of certain words – ‘bleed’, ‘immediately’, ‘successfully’ – grasping for meaning, an understanding of the seriousness of what they were telling her so she could arrive at a point where she could stop thinking the worst.
‘He’s now recovering in intensive care—’
‘So he’s OK?’ blurted out Laura.
Dr Raina smiled kindly. ‘The operation was a success. He’s stable and now we give him time to recover. In order to help him do this, we are keeping him anaesthetized, so that his brain can have a better chance of healing.’
‘Healing? So it’s . . . damaged?’
‘I was referring to the fact it’s taken a knock and he’s been in surgery. In terms of brain damage, the scans do not indicate that this is the case.’
She almost cried with relief. ‘Can I see him?’
‘Yes, of course. We’ll take you and your husband there now. Remember, he won’t be awake, and he’s going to look a bit different to the last time you saw him. We had to shave some of his hair so we could complete the surgical procedure, and he’s going to be attached to a lot of machines, which are helping monitor him while he recovers. He’s also on a ventilator.’
‘So he’s not breathing?’
‘Not independently. We’ll keep him like this for a couple of days and then work to get him off ventilation.’
Suddenly what to Laura had seemed horrific but manageable was a whole lot worse. The gangly redhead shifted forward in his seat. ‘He can’t breathe independently because he’s so heavily sedated – the sedation has to be at a level that the brain can rest.’
‘Do you have any questions before we take you up to the unit?’
Laura looked bleak and Howard took her hand. ‘Not at the moment. We’d just like to see our son.’
Dr Raina smiled. ‘I’ll take you to him now.’
They followed her to a ward with busy nurses full of low-key banter and practicality, too upbeat, too normal for the seriousness of the situation. Then they were introduced to Daniel’s nurse, a woman who received them with a quiet, unfazed confidence, as if she dealt with loved ones’ serious head injuries every day, which of course she did.
Laura braced herself before the nurse pulled back the white divider curtain that separated Daniel from the other beds on the unit. She could hear the beeps that foretold her son’s presence and knew it was going to be bad, but the sight of him still hit her like a concrete brick against her chest. Machines held on to him, the wires and tubes entering his body like a plague of alien parasites. It was difficult to see where he ended and they began – they were one mass of flesh and plastic. One side of his head had been shaved completely, the exposed skin deathly white. His face was pale, almost greyish in colour, and swollen as if he’d been in a fight but without the bruising. The ventilator was fixed into his mouth, making his tongue protrude grotesquely; the plastic and bands that held the ventilator in place cut lines across his cheeks. On his forehead was a red welt. He lay still, his eyes shut, and after a moment’s shocked hesitation, she ran to him and tentatively took his limp hand, touching him as if he were a fragile newborn. She tried to speak, to say his name and let him know she was there, to reassure him, but her voice cracked and she had to stop, not wanting him to know she was losing it, and she just let silent tears roll down her face.
‘Can he hear us?’ Howard asked the nurse.
‘We’ve got no reason to believe he can’t,’ said the nurse. ‘In fact, we encourage you to talk to him, offer him comfort, even though he can’t communicate.’
‘I’m OK now. I’m OK,’ said Laura, through deep breaths, as she pulled up a chair without letting go of Daniel’s hand. She sat, not taking her eyes off him.
Howard took a chair on the other side of the bed.
‘I’ll leave you alone for a while,’ said the nurse, and drew the metal rings round the rail until they were enclosed, the three of them in a white, beeping bubble.
After a few seconds, Laura heard a stifled choking sound and looked up to see Howard crying, his hand in a fist and pressed against his mouth, trying to suppress the noise. He shook his head and squeezed his eyes between finger and thumb as he wiped away the tears. The last time she’d seen him cry was the night Daniel had been born. He’d finally come into the world at 6 a.m. after twenty-four hours of excruciating labour, complicated when Daniel’s heart rate had dramatically dropped, which had resulted in an emergency Caesarean.
She’d lain exhausted, dazed, and Howard, sitting in the chair by her bed, held tiny Daniel and tears had suddenly streamed down his face. ‘I’m sorry,’ he’d said, as embarrassed, he hurriedly tried to wipe them away, but they kept on coming. ‘I thought . . . I thought you were going to die or he . . .’
Laura had known what he’d meant. It couldn’t happen again.
‘Hush, we’re fine now,’ she’d said, and it had been a moment of closeness, of the three of them, Howard at his most raw. It was a Howard whom she knew only she would see and whom no one could take away from her.
‘I’m just so happy,’ he’d managed to spill through his tears, and she’d smiled, full of love for him.
‘Are you OK?’ she said softly over the bed now.
He nodded. ‘Sorry.’
She wished she could once again tell him it was all going to be fine.
The nurse came back in and started to check Daniel’s IV fluids and Laura watched silently. They’d been told the nurse stayed with him all the time and she was grateful. After a moment, she turned to Daniel and started telling him about her day. Awkwardly at first, as she was unused to his bleeps, his silent responses. When she faltered, Howard came in, and after a while they got up a good rhythm, each supporting the other. After a couple of hours of keeping up a cheerful run of nonsense, the exhaustion started to set in. It was then that another nurse subtly drew back the curtains and spoke the words Laura had been waiting to hear: ‘Someone’s outside who would like to see Daniel. Cherry?’
Laura stiffened. ‘No,’ she blurted out. ‘I don’t want her here.’
Howard glanced at her, but she refused to budge. ‘I’ll go and see her,’ he said.