‘Please, Jan, give me a second chance, let me get to know my daughter,’ he says, before I shut the door in his face.
I lean against the small basin, trying to compose myself. I can’t stop Dan from being here. I know, more than anyone, how stubborn he is. Once he’s made up his mind to do something, that’s it. But if he thinks I’m going to let him back into our lives just like that he is truly mistaken. Dan has one marathon of a climb before Isla knows he’s her father.
It’s dark when we land in Missouri, but it doesn’t matter since I’m in no mood to admire the view. Isla is the merriest member of our party, chuffed that the captain spoke to her before we got off the plane. Isla had graciously accepted her present, a pair of airline toy wings, as if it were quite right that she should be singled out and told she was brave. With CP comes attention, both good and bad.
Sitting in a cab, Dan is jittery, tapping his foot against the floor. I catch him gazing at Isla, absorbing her features as if taking her in for the first time. I sense he is trying to make out if he can see a tiny part of himself in her. When he looks at me, hoping maybe for a gesture of reassurance, I turn away. Granny has turned all her attention to Isla, who is pointing at the flashing lights of cars speeding past us on the highway. ‘You guys come to see the Arch?’ the driver asks us.
He means the Gateway Arch, the most famous monument in St Louis.
Tomorrow we’ll be in the hospital, it’s Isla’s pre-operation day.
‘It’s a must-see folks!’ he continues. ‘You can take a ride up the top, see awesome views of downtown St Louis as well as across the river to Illinois. But you need to go early, avoid the queues,’ he advises, no doubt wondering why we are such a gloomy old bunch, but then again, we are British.
Finally we are in the hotel reception lobby with its marbled floor and fountain. Dan has booked himself a single room, thankfully three floors below us. ‘Jan.’ He pulls me aside. ‘Can we talk?’
‘I’m tired.’
Aware of Granny standing protectively beside me, he doesn’t push. ‘Sure,’ he says, hands deep in his pockets. ‘We could all do with a decent sleep.’
Awkwardly we wish one another good night, before agreeing to meet for breakfast at eight o’clock. ‘Sharp,’ Granny adds, treating him to another dagger stare.
The following morning, the mini-shuttle bus drops us off outside the main entrance of the St Louis Children’s Hospital. Isla says, ‘Wow,’ as each of us takes in the tall building, the archway, the elephant characters outside and the garden area adorned with brightly coloured Christmas decorations. It’s a relief to see Isla smile since, up until now, she has been unusually quiet. The hotel had a selection of bacon, eggs, pancakes and even muffins that you could make for yourself by putting the mixture into a cooking mould and setting the timer, but Isla wasn’t interested. I don’t think she trusts that we are going on a big holiday anymore.
Carefully I help Isla out of the bus and hand the walking frame to her.
‘I can manage,’ Granny says to Dan, resisting his help. Like me, he looks as if he didn’t sleep at all last night. Over breakfast I saw him hiding a book in his rucksack before Granny, Isla and I had joined him, Granny ignoring his question, ‘How was your night?’ While he was helping himself to another cup of black coffee I took a quick look. It was called,Everything You Need to Know about Cerebral Palsy.There were numerous pencil marks on each page, including a lot of questions with words underlined.
It’s cold, but the sun is shining. Slowly we make our way through the hospital entrance doors and into a huge reception area decorated with more tinsel and fish tanks. I catch Dan watching Isla walk; he’s trying not to wince as she stumbles on, dragging her left foot behind her. I still react physically, as if someone is twisting a knife in my heart. A security guard approaches us with a beaming smile. ‘Hi there, folks, where are you from?’ He says we are very welcome to St Louis, before asking which floor we need. We tell him we need Floor 4, Neurosurgery. ‘Hi there, sweetie,’ he says to Isla as he presses a button on the lift. ‘Aren’t you the cutest little thing! You look just like your daddy.’
I feel sick. This is agonising.
‘He’s not my dada, ha ha. He’s funny man!’ Isla says.
Granny looks away. I turn to Dan, lost for words, hating him for making this even more harrowing than it needed to be.
Floor 4 is another flash of colour with murals on every wall and from here we can look down to the canteen on the ground floor, a large room with glass walls and big stripy hot-air balloons coming down from the ceiling like something out of Disney. After a meeting with therhizotomy coordinator, Jane, who takes us through all the basics of the procedure, she says that the doctor who is performing the surgery is waiting for us.
When I enter the room I like him immediately, a relief given my emotional state. He might be in his white coat but he appears at once human, kindness in his eyes as he shakes our hands and greets Isla like a friend. ‘And you are?’ He looks inquisitively at Dan.
‘A family friend,’ I announce with my best smile before anyone else can say a word.
We all sit down. I notice framed pictures of previous patients on the walls, no doubt all success stories. The doctor asks Isla if she can hold her arms up, ‘Like this.’ He raises his arms above his head. Isla copies him with a big smile.
‘Your arms are in good shape.’ He then wheels himself towards Isla on his swivel stool before testing her reflexes, tapping her knees in turn. ‘She’s better with her right leg.’ He examines her feet. Finally he watches her walk up and down the room on her frame, and by mistake she runs over my foot, making me squeal. ‘Ha ha ha,’ Isla giggles, breaking the ice.
‘Good. She can take a few steps,’ he comments, looking from Dan to me. I sense Granny feels elbowed out of the room; she’s nothing more than a spare part now that Dan, a father figure, is around. ‘But we want Isla to be able to walk with a flat foot, straight knees and by herself.’
We all nod.
‘As you will know from your meeting with Jane, I will be exposing the sensory nerves at the lower end of the spinal cord – the nerves that control feeling in Isla’s legs.’ Dan is scribbling something down in his notepad. ‘Then I will separate the nerves one by one, and cut any that are hyperactive and sending the faulty signal from the brain to the spine, causing the tightness in the legs.’
While Isla is distracted with some toys, we watch this procedure briefly on film. It’s almost impossible watching the doctor snip the nerves. They look like slimy white-and red-veined bands. One mistake is disastrous. When the film is over, Dan says, ‘And what happens if you cut through a wrong nerve?’
‘Well, there is always that risk. In any type of surgery.’
‘Yes, but what happens?’
I shift in my seat. Heknowswhat happens. Jane mentioned the risks to us.
