She stares at me as if awaiting an explanation, but there’s nothing I can say that won’t have me sectioned within the hour. I drop the extinguisher and speed-walk past them, exiting the store, pushing my way through the crowds of ruffled customers gathered in the car park, only stopping when I’m inside my car. Then I scream as loudly as my lungs will allow before a coughing fit seizes me.
Chapter 37
Melissa
‘Hi Mel,’ Damon begins. ‘How are you?’
His unannounced appearance at her front door has taken her by surprise. It’s been the best part of a month since she helped him bring about his death, then resuscitated him. She thought creating distance between them might be the wake-up call he needed. That limiting communication might help him rethink his choices. But there’s an air about him that indicates this hasn’t happened. The casual familiarity of his tone doesn’t match his physical demeanour. His body language is awkward, he’s tense and shifting from foot to foot, looking around her, not at her. He is forcing himself to give the impression he doesn’t have a care in the world. As if holding his life in her hands didn’t happen. No, she tells herself, he’s not here to apologise. And a heavy weight settles in her chest.
‘Good, thanks,’ she lies back to him. ‘What brings you here?’
‘I thought I’d fill you in on how things are going at the fertility clinic. I gave them my second deposit today.’ He looks beyond her and down the hallway. ‘Is Adrienne around?’
‘No, she’s at the hospital.’
Her and Adrienne’s shifts are often at odds, but they make it work. They’ve also planned out in detail what will happen if they conceive. While Adrienne will carry the baby, it will be Melissa who becomes the primary caregiver and takes the six months’ maternity leave. But going by Damon’s recent behaviour, she worries if they’ll ever reach egg transfer day. She hasn’t mentioned her concerns to Adrienne, as she doesn’t want to hear a ‘told you so’ and be reminded it was Melissa’s idea to ask Damon to be the biological father. Melissa clings to the hope she can still turn this around.
‘Can I come in?’ Damon asks.
She hesitates, then stands to one side and allows him to pass and closes the door behind him.
Melissa continues to struggle to reconcile the contradiction between ending Damon’s life, then bringing him back, and her job as a paramedic, trained to prolong life. She is, however, a staunch supporter of assisted suicide, having watched her uncle lose his long, merciless battle with prostate cancer. She believes a person has the right to end their life when they want to, and on their terms. What if Damon had a terminal illness and begged her to help him die? Would she agree? Yes, she has decided, she probably would. So is it that much of a leap to help him die, then to resuscitate him? She wants to say no, it’s not, but she’d be lying to herself.
When they reach the lounge, Melissa cuts to the chase: ‘So why are you really here? You could have texted me with a clinic update.’
‘I received my social services report,’ he says before launching into a recap of all he has learned, and all that has been kept from him. He tells her it’s not clear whether he was considered a danger to himself, or someone close to him.
‘I’m sure it isn’t you,’ she says.
‘I hope that’s so. But neither of us can be a hundred per cent sure while I still have gaps in my memory.’
‘I’ve known you since we were thirteen,’ she says. ‘Don’t you think I’d have an inkling by now if you were a risk?’
‘It’s so frustrating,’ he says. ‘What’s the point in sending me that report if they’re not going to tell me anything?’
Melissa changes the direction of the conversation. ‘I’ve been looking into EMDR, have you heard of it?’ Damon stares at her blankly. ‘Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing. It’s a type of therapy that helps you process and recover from past experiences that affect your mental well-being,’ she continues. ‘I think it might be good for you. I have the address of a woman in Kettering who—’
‘No thank you,’ he says firmly.
‘Why?’
‘I haven’t had much success with therapy, have I?’
Melissa knows what he is referring to. She had been the one to suggest they attend relationship counselling, despite knowing their marriage was over. She’d hoped it might provide a neutral territory for her to explain – and for Damon to understand – how she’d never be able to find herself if they remained together. In retrospect she realised that by suggesting couple’s therapy, she’d given him false hope, only to hurt him even further when she finalised their separation. Adrienne thinks Melissa has been trying to make it up to him ever since.
‘It won’t be counselling,’ she continues. ‘It’s more of a tool. A way of removing the emotion associated with traumatic memories.’
‘But those memories only come back to me when I’m dying or dead.’
‘How do you know you can’t access them through EMDR?’
‘I just know, okay? Now can we change the subject, please?’
‘And talk about what?’
He hesitates and she knows what he is about to say before he says it.
‘I need your help again.’
