‘You’re welcome, Mr Ward.’ He looks to the door when it opens and a nurse exits. ‘Shall we?’
I take a deep breath, suddenly a bit apprehensive. I haven’t looked into my wife’s eyes for nearly two days, and the thought of doing it now is making me a pathetic, nervous fool. What’s wrong with me?
The nurse looks to Elizabeth as she passes us and smiles. ‘She’s asking for her mum.’
Elizabeth’s hand goes to her chest on a mild whimper as she takes the lead, rushing to her daughter’s bedside. A small part of me is happy for her. For the most part, I’m hurt that she hasn’t asked for me, her husband, but I quickly put the silly slight aside and follow Elizabeth in with the children. I find my mother-in-law hunched over Ava on the bed, trying to hug her as best she can around the wires and tubes. I can hear the quiet sobs, and when I hear Ava’s voice, I smile, not just because she sounds like my wife, if a little rough in the throat, but because she sounds totally with it.
‘My head hurts,’ she complains.
‘Oh, darling. Of course it hurts.’ Elizabeth’s light laugh as she speaks is loaded with joy. ‘Look who’s here.’ She moves away from Ava, opening up a direct path to me and the twins.
I move forward, desperate to look into those eyes, to touch her and feel her respond, even if it’s just a light squeeze of my hand. I’ve missed her so much. But when our eyes connect, Ava frowns, flicking her gaze to the children and then back to me. I stop, watching carefully as she seems to assess us. Where’s the sparkle in those eyes I love so much? Where’s the love? My heart slows to a faint thud in my chest, my joy fading with it. Something isn’t right.
‘Ava, do you know who this is?’ the doctor asks warily.
My head swings towards him in horror. ‘Of course she does,’ I blurt. What is he suggesting?
The doctor ignores me and moves closer to Ava, whose eyes are still passing continuously between me and the kids. Still no sparkle. Still no love. ‘Ava, tell me your full name.’
She doesn’t hesitate. ‘Ava O’Shea.’
I recoil, not quite sure what to make of this.
The doctor flicks a glance towards me. I don’t know what to make of his look, either. ‘Ava, do you know who this man is?’
‘What?’ I blurt, my horror growing.
That horror reaches unspeakable heights when my wife slowly starts to shake her head. ‘No.’
I gasp, suddenly struggling for breath. No?
‘Oh my goodness,’ Elizabeth breathes, coming straight to me and claiming the children. ‘Come on, darlings. Let’s go and find your pap.’ She steers them out of the room, both of them looking back at me with confusion all over their faces.
And I just stand there, useless, staring into the eyes of the woman who rules my heart, trying to comprehend what’s unfolding. ‘Ava.’ I barely get her name out, my mind frantically searching for words.
‘Can you tell me how you crashed your car?’ the doctor pushes on.
She shakes her head on a frown, reaching up to rub her forehead. But her eyes never leave mine. They’re holding me frozen where I stand, taking me in.
‘And this man isn’t familiar to you?’ Dr Peters asks, making notes while he talks.
I hold my breath, begging she puts this right, praying that I didn’t hear her correctly, that she’s just confused. Of course she remembers me. I’m her husband. I’m the man who would lay down his life for her. She has to remember me!
She studies me for a few moments, looking me up and down, as if trying hard to place me. My heart cracks. ‘I don’t recognise him.’ She looks down at the sheets, and the inevitable tears start to pinch the back of my stunned eyes.
‘Do you have any children, Ava?’
‘No.’ She almost laughs, quickly looking up at me again.
My world shatters into a million shards of devastation, and I stagger towards a nearby chair, sitting down before I fall. Her gaze follows me the entire way.
‘You don’t remember me?’ I whisper the words.
‘Should I?’ she asks, her laughter gone and clear worry in her tone.
Her reply slays me. It turns my stomach and rips my broken heart from my chest. I want to scream at her, tell her that yes, yes, she should remember me. Everything we’ve been through. Everything we’ve done together. How much we love each other.
‘Ava, this is your husband.’ The doctor points towards me where I’m slumped in the chair. ‘Jesse.’
‘But I’m not married,’ she argues, seeming to be getting frustrated. Frustrated? She’s frustrated? I hate myself with a vengeance for concluding that she has no fucking idea. I positively hate myself. She doesn’t remember me? Her husband. Her Lord.
I can’t take this. I’m going to throw up. I dash out of the room and sprint down the corridor, thrusting the door to the men’s open with force and falling into a cubicle. I haven’t eaten for days, but that doesn’t seem to be a problem for my stomach. I retch and cough over the toilet.
She’s forgotten me. Forgotten our kids. What is this madness?
My body starts to ache with the force of my retching, and when I finally accept that there’s nothing to bring up, I push myself up with too much effort and move to the sink to splash my face. I stare at myself in the mirror. I don’t even recognise myself right now. I’m pasty, my eyes are sunken, and I look drained. I am drained. I was before Ava came around, and the small, momentary sliver of life I found when she opened her eyes has been cruelly snatched away.
What am I going to do? How do I fix this? The only thing in this world that keeps my heart beating doesn’t know who I am.
A tap on the door prompts me to look past my frightful reflection. ‘Mr Ward?’ The doctor’s voice has lost all the hope that filled it when Ava woke from her coma. Now it’s back to sympathetic. ‘Mr Ward, are you in there?’ The door opens and Dr Peters appears, his lips pressed tightly together when he finds me holding myself up by the basin.
‘She doesn’t remember me, her own husband, and not even our babies?’ I swallow down the lump making me choke on every word, wondering why I’m posing it as a question. It’s not like I heard her wrong. It’s not like I didn’t see the total blankness in her eyes when she looked at me and the twins.
The doctor enters, shutting the door quietly and slowly behind him. Clearing his throat and plunging his hands into his pockets, he finds my eyes in the mirror. I can’t turn to face him. My hands wedged against the edge of the basin are the only thing holding me up.
‘Mr Ward, it would seem your wife is suffering from amnestic syndrome.’
‘What?’ I snap.
‘Memory loss.’
‘No fucking shit, brainiac,’ I mutter. Is he just going to state the fucking obvious?
Ignoring my rudeness, he goes on. ‘Having chatted briefly with Ava, there appears to be a clear divide in her memory.’
‘What do you mean?’ I ask, my forehead bunching.
‘I mean, from what I have established thus far, there is an obvious cut-off point in her memory.’ He points to the side of his head. ‘The part of her brain that stores certain memories has been traumatised. Our ability to recall memories is a very complex process, without the added handicap of a brain trauma.’
I close my eyes, trying to allow all the information to sink in. ‘What are you saying, doctor?’ I ask outright.
‘I’m saying your wife has lost the last sixteen years of her life.’
‘What?’ I swing around to face him. ‘That’s me. All of me, all of our time together. Are you telling me she won’t remember any of it? Nothing?’
‘The majority of patients who suffer from amnesia as a result of trauma will recover fully. How long that recovery takes depends on so much – the severity of the injury, the patient’s frame of mind, their short-term and long-term memory.’
‘The majority of patients?’ I ask, homing in on that part and that part alone.
‘Ava is a young, healthy woman, Mr Ward. The odds are in her favour.’
‘And if she doesn’t fully recover?’
‘The memories remain lost,’ he says bluntly, making me wince.