Butof courseI was going to think about it. All night long, and then some, I imagined. But that didn’t mean I was going todoanything about it. I was very aware that Amelia’s return to normality might be short-lived. Something had clearly happened to her during the cardioversion therapy, something other than the resetting of her heartbeat. Her true memories had somehow been restored when her heart had been shocked today. In the same way that the false ones had taken seed when it had been shocked that night on the beach all those months ago.
But the effects of cardioversion were known to fail in half of all cases. If that happened to Amelia, might she once again believe she was Mrs Sam Wilson? I had no intention of reaching out to Nick just yet. To raise his hopes only to crush them again would be beyond cruel. I needed to wait until Amelia was discharged from hospital and was back in her own home once more before I even considered speaking to him.
But the thought that there might miraculously now be a chance for us was the reason I eventually fell asleep with a smile on my face.
*
‘It still feels like they’re letting you out of hospital too soon,’ Mum fretted, watching as I packed Amelia’s bulging bags of medication into a holdall.
‘Not to me, it doesn’t,’ said Amelia, who was swinging her legs impatiently on the bed as we waited to be given permission to leave. ‘I can’t wait to be back in my own home.’
‘Why do the doctors need to speak to us again?’ I asked, with an anxious glance at my watch. The car park ticket was only valid for another twenty minutes and getting a fine would definitely take the shine off a day that I hoped would be life-changing. I was going to phone Nick as soon as we got back to the beach. I planned on walking to the spot where we’d first met and telling him that things had changed. I only hoped the way he felt about me wasn’t one of them.
For the last two days, my mind had kept wandering off in directions it had never travelled before. It kept showing me glimpses of a future that might one day be ours. I’d be loading the dishwasher, but suddenly I didn’t see Amelia’s quaint little kitchen, I saw a spacious New York loft with views over the Hudson, the place we called home. Or I’d be pushing a trolley up the aisle of a supermarket, but just for a moment it changed into a pram, where a tiny dark-haired baby with bright blue eyes giggled up at me.
I wasn’t foolish enough to believe they were premonitions, but they were glimpses of a potential future that might become our reality. For the first time since I’d told Nick I was leaving, I was daring to dream. And damn, it felt good.
*
Dr Vaughan gave a peremptory knock on the door frame and walked into the room, followed by an older man I’d never seen before. I gave Mum a quick reassuring smile that did little to disguise my concern that this meeting required more than one doctor. The older medic turned and gently closed the door. I shivered. This was not good.
Dr Vaughan began with a round-up of the successful cardioversion treatment and once again touched on the need for Amelia to undergo heart surgery. He felt a bit like a warm-up act, and from the way my sister’s eyes had narrowed, I knew she thought so too. I looked at the doctors and noticed what appeared to be a subtle shift in power between the cardiologist and the other senior physician.
My head swivelled to Amelia. ‘Do you know what this is about?’
She bit her lip, looking suddenly apprehensive. ‘I think they have something else they want to tell us.’
‘You’re scaring the shit out of me,’ I said, not sure who I was addressing that remark to, but feeling like it applied to practically everyone in the room.
The second consultant, who I’d incorrectly assumed was here because of Amelia’s heart attack, took a small step forward as Dr Vaughan took one in retreat.
‘Amelia, I’m not sure if you remember me. My name is Mr Robinson. I’m a neurologist. We met in the early days of your previous hospital stay.’
‘I remember,’ Amelia said. There was a new dull note in her voice.
‘I understand that the confabulations – the false memories – you experienced before have now disappeared, but other troublesome symptoms still remain.’
‘I’m not so sure they were false memories after all, doctor. They’ve started to feel more like premonitions.’
I swallowed noisily and didn’t dare look at Mum.
The neurologist appeared unfazed, plucking the folder he’d been carrying from beneath his arm and flipping it open to a page covered with test results.
‘Your initial symptoms were baffling to us.’ He paused to give Amelia a wry smile. ‘We doctors don’t like admitting when we’re stumped about something, and you presented us with a conundrum. As you know, we conducted many tests at that time.’ His expression switched to one of sympathy and I knew then, with a horrible, sickening clarity, that whatever he was about to tell us was going to change everything.
‘This isn’t anything to do with my heart, is it?’ Amelia asked, directing the question to the cardiologist, who was standing behind his colleague.
‘No, Amelia, it’s not,’ Dr Vaughan confirmed.
The neurologist surprised me then by stepping forward and perching on the foot of Amelia’s bed. It didn’t look like a pose someone would adopt when they were about to give you good news.
‘Most of the tests we ordered told us nothing, but we’ve now had the results from a particular blood test that we took several months ago.’
‘What is it? What have you found?’ Had my voice ever sounded that scared before?
The neurologist surprisingly turned not to Amelia, but to Mum.
‘Mrs Edwards, has anyone in your family ever been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease?’
