‘I don’t know why you’re looking so stressed.’ Brian indicates left and exits the roundabout. ‘It’s good news.’
I glance at him. ‘Is it?’
‘Of course. You heard what the consultant Mr Arnold said. Charlotte’s tube is out and she’s able to breathe unassisted. The damage to her cerebral cortex has healed.’
‘How unassisted is her breathing if they’re insisting she wears an oxygen mark? And the exact words he used were “the scans show the damage has substantially reduced.”’
‘Yes. It’s healed.’
‘Reduced, not healed.’
Brian exhales slowly and deliberately. ‘Sue, we both heard him say there’s no medical reason why she shouldn’t wake up.’
‘But she hasn’t, has she? I’m delighted that she can breathe on her own now but it doesn’t mean anything if she still hasn’t actually opened her eyes and—’
‘Oh, for God’s sake!’
‘Brian! Can I just finish my sentence? Please.’
He shoots me a sideways look and raises his eyebrows.
‘I’m worried because of the other thing Mr Arnold said – the part about the longer Charlotte stays in a coma the more likely it is that she could develop a secondary complication. She could still die, Brian.’
‘Could being the operative word, Sue. You need to stay positive.’
I rest my head against the headrest and stare up at the dull, grey interior of the car. I’m snapping at Brian and it’s not fair but I can’t shake the feeling that this is all my fault. I’ve failed as a mother. If I’d been closer to Charlotte, if I’d encouraged her to talk to me, if I’d run up the stairs after her instead of returning to my book maybe she never would have walked in front of a bus and maybe she wouldn’t be at risk of pneumonia or a pulmonary embolism now.
‘I should have protected her, Brian,’ I say quietly.
‘Don’t, Sue. It’s not your fault.’
I look at him. ‘I didn’t protect her but I can now.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘If I find out why she did what she did and tell her that I understand, that I’m here for her, maybe she’ll wake up.’
‘Not this again.’ Brian sighs heavily. ‘For the hundredth time, Sue, it was an accident.’
‘It wasn’t. Charlotte tried to kill herself, Brian. She talked about it in her diary.’
There’s a squeal of tires on tarmac and my seatbelt cuts into my throat as the car swerves sharply towards the oncoming traffic. I want to scream at Brian to stop but I can’t speak. I can’t scream. All I can do is grip the seatbelt with both hands as we hurtle towards a 4X4. A cacophony of beeping horns fill my ears and then Brian yanks the steering wheel and we lurch left, speeding towards the grass verge then lurch back to the right so we’re back in the centre of the road.
My husband’s top lip is beaded with sweat, his face pale, his eyes staring ahead, fixed and glassy.
‘You nearly killed us,’ I breathe.
Brian says nothing.
He says nothing all the way home then he turns off the engine, opens the car door and crosses the driveway without looking back. I stay in the car, too stunned to move as he lets himself into the house, crosses the kitchen and disappears into the hallway. I don’t know what scared me more – the fact we nearly drove head first into another car or the look in Brian’s eyes as it happened.
My hands shake as I reach for the handle and open the car door and I pause to collect myself. I’m being ridiculous. Brian would never have risked both our lives like that when Charlotte still needs us. He was angry, I reason as I cross the gravel driveway and approach the house. He asked the other day if there was anything in Charlotte’s diary he needed to know about and I said no. I lied to his face and he knows it.
‘Brian?’ I open the front door gingerly, expecting Milly to come bowling over but she’s not in the porch. She must have followed Brian into the living room. I’m about to step into the kitchen when something red and chewed in Milly’s bed catches my eye. It’s a ‘Could not Deliver’ slip from the Royal Mail. How did that end up in her bed? I turn and see the mail ‘cage’ we erected around the letterbox on the floor. It’s the third one that Milly has managed to wrench off the door. The older she gets the wilier she becomes. I crouch down and pick up the remains of the card, smiling when I see what the postman has written – ‘in the recycling bin’. Brian thinks the postie is probably breaking Royal Mail rules by putting our undelivered parcels in the recycling bin but I think it’s a fabulous idea. It saves him from hauling them back to the depot and it saves me a trip to town. I duck back outside and lift the lid on the recycling bin.
I reach down and pick up a green plastic parcel with Marks and Spencer splashed down the side. It’s hard, like a shoebox, not floppy like clothes. It can’t be shoes. They’re the one thing I still insist on buying from the shops. When you’ve got feet as wide as mine ordering shoes off the internet can be a bit of a gamble.
‘Brian?’ I carry the parcel into the house and search for my husband. ‘Oh, hi Milly.’
She looks up from her prone position in front of the cold hearth then lowers her head and sighs when she realizes I’m not Brian. He must be in his study. Milly knows she isn’t allowed upstairs.
‘What have we got here then?’ I tear into the plastic packaging and discover a cardboard shoebox. ‘Very brave of Daddy to choose shoes for Mum—’
The opened box tumbles from my hands and a pair of beige suedette slippers tumbles onto the rug.
They’re meant for me. But they’re not from my husband.
‘Brian?’ I push open the door to the study. ‘Brian, we need to talk.’
My husband is sitting in his chair, his head in his hands, his elbows on the desk. He doesn’t look up at the sound of my voice.