‘So, you’renotcoming back next week, then?’
There was a good reason why I’d put off making this phone call for several days, and there was little satisfaction in hearing it play out exactly the way I’d thought it would.
‘I just don’t see how I can, Jeff. Not yet.’
‘It’s pretty easy, really. You phone up the airline, you give them your charge card number and in return they give you a seat on the plane.’
Jeff’s sarcasm felt like fingernails being dragged down a blackboard.
‘It’s not that I don’twantto come back,’ I said, wondering how true that even was. ‘It’s just there’s no way I can leave right now. Mum and Amelia still need me here.’And I need them, I silently acknowledged. When disaster strikes people you love, it’s only natural for you to cleave together, to hold on even tighter to the family you have left. I remember that only too well, because that’s what happened before.
‘But what about your job? You’ve worked so hard to get this opportunity.’ Jeff was bringing out the heavy artillery now. And he was right; I’d had to work twice as hard as anyone else on the team to justify every rung I’d climbed on the career ladder.
‘They’re being great,’ I said, my smile going a little tight as I thought back to the other call that I’d been dreading to make, which had actually gone far better than this one was currently doing. ‘Monica has agreed to let me work remotely on a part-time basis for the next few weeks, until we know where things stand with Amelia, and they’re not pressuring me for a decision on the executive editor role.’For now, I added silently.
‘That’s reasonable of them,’ said Jeff, in a way that made me think he didn’t entirely mean it. ‘I guess I just miss you being here in New York,’ he said eventually.
I wondered if he was even aware that what he’d just said wasn’t the same as saying he missed me.But did I even want him to say that when I couldn’t – hand on heart – say the same?
‘Perhaps we need to sit down and talk about things properly when you get back,’ Jeff said carefully.
Fortunately, the line chose that moment to erupt in a crackle of static, buying me time to wonder if it was alet’s call it quitsconversation or alet’s move in togetherone that he was suggesting. How bad was it that I had absolutely no idea what was in his head?
‘Sure,’ I said, cowardly taking the easy way out. ‘We should do that when I get back.’
*
There was a new pattern to my days. I got up early each morning, finally conceding it was the seagulls, rather than my body clock, who got to decide when I’d slept enough. I’d splash icy cold water on my face, which brought a rosiness to my cheeks. Then, long before the sun was up, I’d pull on my borrowed sportswear and head out for a morning run. Jeff would hardly recognise this new version of me – because I hardly recognised her myself. But for the first time in my life, I began to see how running could be addictive. Pounding along the beach by the water’s edge, my thoughts felt somehow cleaner and sharper. The decisions I tussled with in the middle of the night seemed to find a way of resolving themselves as my footprints scored into the unmarked sand.
I never saw a soul on my morning runs. And I told myself I didn’t want to. And yet, for reasons I chose not to examine closely, each day I headed towards the mudflats and not to the nearest village. Once back at the cottage, I’d spend the morning catching up on the work emails that seemed to breed like rabbits in my inbox overnight.
But afternoons and evenings were Amelia time. I’d worked out the best shortcut to the hospital, and even had a favourite parking spot in the multistorey car park. Somehow the security guard in the main reception had discovered I lived in New York and greeted me each day with aFriends-styleHow are you doing?, which I still found funny, although I could see that might easily fade in time.
If I’d had even the smallest of doubts about my decision to stay, they would have evaporated the moment I told Mum I was extending my visit. I could practically see her standing a little taller, as though a heavy weight had been lifted from her shoulders.
If she’d been more her normal self,more Amelia, then I’m sure my sister would have been delighted I was still here. Although a totally back-to-normal Amelia was more likely to have told me to ‘get my arse back on a plane before I screw up my career and why the hell was I dithering about accepting that promotion?’ She’d probably also have thrown in something cutting about it being time I flew solo and stopped using her and Mum as an excuse not to take chances. It was strange, really, that she and Jeff didn’t get on better, because they clearly thought along the same lines.
The one thing I didn’t think I’d ever get used to was the feeling of uncertainty as I approached Amelia’s room. On her good days, I’d leave the ward with a hopeful spring in my step. But on her bad ones, I could feel despondency shadowing me like a stalker all the way back to the car.
As an editor, words had always fascinated me. But these days my laptop search history was full of ones I wished I’d never heard.Confabulationwas currently number one on that list.
‘It doesn’t even sound like a real word,’ Mum had complained after our discussion with one of the many doctors involved in Amelia’s care. We seemed to be working our way through every medical department in the hospital, as though it were an à la carte menu. The young female physician with hair so blonde it was practically white hailed from the psychotherapy department.
‘What you need to understand,’ she explained patiently, ‘is that someone who confabulates is not lying. They truly believe everything they are telling you. So, to Amelia this husband she talks about is very real. In her mind, he definitely exists.’
‘And this confab thingy—’ Mum began.
‘Confabulation,’ I supplied quietly.
Mum flashed me a grateful smile. ‘Do you think it was caused when her heart stopped beating?’
In the space of less than two weeks, I’d learnt one thing to be true of every doctor we’d met: they hated being asked questions they couldn’t answer.
‘It’s hard to say for sure. There are many different reasons why it occurs.’ She extended a slender hand and began counting off our worst nightmares on her fingertips. ‘Psychiatric disorders, traumatic brain injury, even some types of Alzheimer’s have been known to cause it.’
There was a long moment of silence while we waited to see who would ask the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question. In the end, I did. ‘And can you cure it?’
‘We canmanageit,’ the doctor answered.
