Page 138 of (Not) The One
‘Yeah, I helped deliver my favour patient last week at the side of a MacDonald’s drive through. A preemie baby.’
‘Oh!’ And phew. ‘How lovely.’
‘Yeah, he’s a sweet little thing.’ She hangs the chart back. ‘So, how’s he doing? Are you seeing any change?’
‘Well, your conversation skills sucks, I’m sorry to say.’ I rub his forearm, including him in the discussion.
I might not have picked up many of the baby books James ordered, but I’ve read a literal tonne of literature on traumatic brain injuries. It seems lots of coma patients have reported that, while unconscious and uncommunicative, they could actually hear things going on around them. So Thomas and I make it a point of including him in our often one-sided conversations. Even when we’re watching TV in this room, which is more often than not a tea-time game show, we compete, totting up our scores as we go, which means James always loses.
I keep hoping he’ll call us out one day in a fit of annoyance.
Please.
‘But you’re also getting prettier to look at, so there is that.’ I try to inject a little levity in my tone, as I try for everyone. But it’s true that some of the swelling has reduced and he’s looking a little more human.
‘He’s got a lot of colour, for sure.’
She’s right, but she’s not commenting on his skin like you would after a friend has been on holiday but the full colour palette of bruising.
‘But other than that, nothing. But we’ve got lots of time. Haven’t we?’
The latter comes out as a tiny question, a question that’s already been answered by the doctors several times. James is no longer in a medically induced coma. That only lasted for a few days, enough to give the medical staff time to assess his injuries, as well as help reduce the swelling and inflammation around his brain.
And this is where we are now. He’s breathing on his own and we’re just waiting for him to wake. Three days in a forced coma and now four more on his own.
According to the neuro-specialists, James can get better, becoming more alert, or else the coma will evolve, which sounds much less positive that it is. An evolved coma is otherwise known as a vegetative state. This is an outcome I refuse to acknowledge.
Lisa hangs out with us for while more before heading home after a gruelling twelve hour shift. Before she leave she give me the kind of hug you can’t help but feel fortified by. Some people are just good, and Lisa definitely falls into this category.
* * *
Please, if you’re listening, let him wake.
Another day, another evening.
I rest my head on the mattress as send a prayer to a God I’m only just coming to know. These past days have been a whirlwind of knowledge building through medical texts and the internet, as well as the kind of knowledge seeking that includes the quest for divine intervention. And in the quiet hours, it’s hard to avoid reaching inside myself to feel my shame. I know I’m not at fault for the current state of body, but I wonder if it would’ve made a difference if I’d shared the knowledge of my love with him.
I spent weeks avoiding my feelings, and in this avoidance I also kept my love from him. I can’t help but feel that, if I hadn’t denied it, maybe he wouldn’t have been in that car at all. He would’ve left with me earlier, and we’d have held hands in the back seat while his driver pretended not to look. James would be whole and his Vanquish stowed away in his garage, not lying somewhere in bits.
‘We haven’t had enough time,’ I whisper, my words strangled with tears I’m finding hard to restrain, when a hand comes to rest between my shoulder blades.
‘A lifetime isn’t long enough for love.’
‘Thomas, I thought you were done for the day.’ Like me, Thomas spends most of his day here, chatting to me, reminiscing one-sidedly with his son. Earlier, we’d watchedThe Chasetogether and eaten a dinner of sandwiches I’d grabbed from the cafeteria before he left for home.
‘Marjory, my next door neighbour, popped in with a casserole. I thought, well I thought I’d bring you some. You’re not eating enough for a girl in your condition.’
‘I’m eating fine.’ I rub the soft rise of my belly, though in truth, I don’t have much of an appetite.
‘Anyway, here you go.’ He passes me a thermos flask, taking a seat in the other chair next to the bed.
‘How are Pawdry Hepburn and David Meowie?’
‘Who?’ His thick grey brows lower and he leans closer as though worried he’s misheard.
‘The cats next door?’ Of course, they might not be Marjorie’s. Too many houses have passed since them.
‘Ah!’ Those ugly chicken-y looking things. Well, that makes sense now.’
