Jay held me in his arms as we stood on the gravel outside the Laurences’ house watching the blue lights of the ambulance strobe through the inky night sky. The blare of sirens tore through the peaceful community. Curtains twitched along the well-manicured street as the neighbours wondered what was going on but were too proud to openly gawp. This was the kind of place where people kept to themselves.
The ambulance left Fairmont Heights and set off towards the hospital and once it had disappeared out of view, we sat into our car and sank back against the seats, knowing there wasn’t much else we could do. Neither of us could believe what had just taken place. It felt surreal, like we had all been actors in a bad film.
I turned to Jay for assurance. ‘D-do you think he’s going to be okay?’ I started sobbing once again. I hadn’t stopped crying since poor Elliot had been assaulted. Jay had worked on his tiny body lying limp on the cold kitchen tiles, checking his breathing and manoeuvring him into the recovery position.
‘I hate to say it but he’s in a bad way.’
I cried harder. Despite everything that had happened between Finn and Elliot, he was still only a five-year-old boy andmy heart ached for Maya and what she must be going through. If the situation was reversed and it was my son inside the back of that ambulance, I couldn’t even begin to imagine how distraught I would be feeling at the evening’s turn of events. I couldn’t wipe the image of poor Elliot’s crumpled body and the excruciating pitch of Maya’s piercing shrieks out of my head. It was unbearable.
‘I feel terrible; it’s all my fault,’ Jay continued.
I shook my head. ‘It’s not your fault. It’s Hugo’s – he’s the one who lashed out. Poor Elliot, he didn’t deserve this.’
‘I know but if I hadn’t risen to Hugo’s jibes, if I had walked out of there earlier instead of letting it escalate then none of this would have happened. We should never have gone over there. I should have known it would be impossible to have a rational conversation with that man.’
‘You weren’t to know. None of us were. It’s easy to look back in hindsight and think what we all could have done differently but nobody expected Elliot to jump in the way like that. Not even Hugo.’
I was assailed by a flashback of Elliot’s tiny body flying backwards through the air as his cheek connected with Hugo’s fist. That split-second look of fear on his little face as he tried to understand what had just happened before he had fallen unconscious. I knew the horrendous image would be imprinted on my brain forever.
‘I can’t get the force of that punch out of my head. I really hope he pulls through.’
‘How could Maya let Hugo get into the ambulance with her after everything that he’s done? If she doesn’t leave him after this then she’s a fool,’ Jay went on.
‘She’s in shock. I don’t think we should judge her. She probably wasn’t even aware of what was going on; she was just so focused on getting Elliot to the hospital.’
‘Do you think we should tell the Gardaí?’ Jay went on.
I turned to him in shock. ‘B-but it was an accident…’ I said.
‘The Gardaí might not see it that way. Hugo assaulted a defenceless minor.’
It hadn’t even dawned on me that Hugo could be arrested for assaulting his son. I sighed heavily. ‘Maya has enough on her plate without us dragging the guards into it. I can’t imagine what she’s going through. Do you think we should go to the hospital to support her?’
Jay hesitated. ‘She might not want to see us. And Hugo definitely won’t. What if he kicks off in the hospital? I don’t want to inflame things any more.’
‘We’ll do our best to stay out of his way.’
‘I don’t know…’
‘I think we should at least try,’ I coaxed. ‘Maya is my friend; I want to be there for her. If she tells us to leave then we’ll have to respect that.’
‘Okay, then,’ Jay said, putting on his seat belt and starting the engine. ‘Let’s go there.’
55
MAYA
Minutes or hours, I couldn’t tell. Time felt elastic. Ethereal. I had stepped into a world where all my thoughts were just of Elliot in a slow-motion reel. My poor, defenceless son, his tiny, broken body lying unconscious on the kitchen tiles. Already, the skin on the side of his face where he had been hit had turned blue-black. As I looked at him, covered to the waist by starched white sheets, I wondered, how he had got here? He should be at home in his bedroom, with his goose-feather duvet tucked right up underneath his chin. He should be snug in his pirate-ship-shaped bed with his nightlight projecting stars up onto the ceiling.
My eyes were starting to turn triangular following zig-zag lines on monitors that would indicate whether he would live or die. I willed him to get better; I bargained with God. I promised things would be different, that I would finally do what I had been putting off for so long, if he would only give me another chance to get it right.
A nurse entered to check his vital signs and Hugo and I moved back from the bed to give her some space.
‘How’s he doing?’ I asked eagerly when she had finished updating his chart, desperate for some news.
‘He’s stable for now, that’s the main thing,’ she said giving nothing away. It felt like I had been asking the same question over and over again and getting the same response every time.
Hugo pushed his chair back in frustration and stood up. ‘For God’s sake, will you just tell us if he’s going to be okay?’ he blasted angrily. ‘You come in and out, checking this and checking that, but you’re not telling us what we need to know! Is he going to be okay?’
