“Is this…real?” she asked.
“Does it matter? We’re all here: you, me, and her.” He paused, his gaze drifting to the cot. “Ida’s beautiful. I can’t believe she’s here.”
“Ida?”
“Isn’t that what you wanted to call her?” he replied, stroking her face.
They’d tossed names around, a few possibles, but nothing definite. Since his accident, though, it’d been hard to recollect any of it.
“Is it?” she whispered. “I can’t remember.”
“How could you forget that?” His fingers trailed to her lips and stopped. “Ida, like the journalist.”
She tried to savour the moment, to paint the image of him in her brain, but it was interrupted by the sound of frantic beeping.
“Ignore it,” she pleaded, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Please.”
“What is that sound?”
He stood and checked the wardrobe, then stepped into the ensuite, ignoring her.
“Callan, please, just come back to bed.”
The room twisted, the sunlight bleeding into the fluorescent glow of his hospital ward. She felt a hand on her, but she squeezed her eyes shut, willing the moment to last just a little longer.
“Daisy,” a voice said. “Daisy, wake up.”
Her eyes flickered open. One of Callan’s monitors was blaring, and a nurse she didn’t recognise was standing beside her, shaking her gently. Moments later, a doctor entered.
“She needs to leave,” he said without so much as glancing in her direction.
The nurse led her into the corridor, where she stood in stunned silence, trying to make sense of what was happening. Callan’s mother was nowhere to be seen, and the hallway was empty save for a few nurses whispering at their station.
And in that moment, she thought of him—Logan.
She would have given anything, sold her soul to the devil and her life to the highest bidder just to have him there with her. He would have told her not to panic and explained, in his steady voice, that although life might be different now, it wasn’t over. Perhaps he would have stolen a glance at Callan’s notes and offered some comfort, some diluted truth about the road ahead. Or perhaps he would’ve been honest and told her the answer to the question that would haunt her in the months to come.
But he wasn’t there, and she was alone, forced to stand in the ruins of the life she’d once known.
XXVII
DAISY
A week later, Daisy found herself in a position they’d warned her of, but nothing could’ve prepared her for. Callan didn’t recognise her; he barely recognised his own mother.
She’d seen the film, the one where the woman is in a car accident, and the man makes her fall in love with him again and again. For some, that may seem like a romantic concept, but the reality was far different.
There are very few moments in life which truly alter your brain chemistry—and for Daisy, the first was seeing Callan stare at her with confusion and fear, his eyes void of even a flicker of recognition. The second came when she laid her hands overhis, anticipating the familiar warmth of his touch, but instead finding only the cold tremble of a stranger.
Without a voice to communicate, they all had to endure Callan’s startled eyes and guttural noises as he panicked, trying to piece together the fragments of his life but unable to. Then the weeks rolled into months, and despite longing for progress, none was made.
“I think it’s best Callan moves in with me,” his mother suggested. “You two can both visit, and you never know, come Christmas, you’ll be a family again.”
Daisy agreed, not because she believed his recollection would return or he would miraculously fall back in love with her. There simply wasn’t another option, and the hospital was keen to finalise his release home.
By now, their daughter was crawling, and Russell had asked if she’d like to return to work. Callan’s mother was supportive of the idea, believing that a bit of normality wouldn’t be such a bad thing. They could’ve survived on Callan’s army pay, but as she put it, “they wouldn’t thrive.” Part of Daisy believed, however, that his mother—despite her ill feelings towards her—didn’t want her to burn her bridges in case she decided to leave Callan, even going so far as to admit she wouldn’t blame her if she did.
She fixated on the idea, questioning what Callan would do if the roles were reversed. She loved him, and whether it had been a rushed decision to marry him or not, she’d made a vow to love him through life’s inevitable storms and times of impenetrable darkness. If she left him, her words meant nothing. If she left him, their love meant nothing. Like everyone in life, Daisy had made some questionable choices, ones in wayward daydreams and unanchored thoughts she would prefer to take back, but she wasn’t about to let her choice in Callan become one of them.
