A semi-hysterical laugh erupts from her throat. Just how does she explain how her choir night has gone – and just how much trauma is it appropriate to dump on an unsuspecting eighteen-year-old on a Tuesday evening? And why is it she can connect with Abby easier than she can connect with her own daughter these days?
Even as she asks herself the question, she knows the answer. It’s because Abby, unlike Robyn, and definitely unlike Aidan, doesn’t take her for granted. She’s interested in what she has to say and doesn’t expect Laura to do everything for her.
She taps a message back.
Choir was great. All a bit of cheesy eighties fun. Bit of a family crisis for a friend after – with her at hospital. Will prob need caffeine first thing, so it’s a date.
That’s suitably informative but also suitably vague, she thinks as she presses send, takes a deep breath and gets out of the car and walks towards the hospital. Abby replies straight away with a sad face emoji.
Oh no! Hope ur friend is okay. C U in the morning!
Laura hasn’t phoned or messaged Aidan or Robyn. She tells herself it’s because she wants a bigger picture before she does, but the reality is she is afraid their response will be centred onwhat they have to try to do without her rather than concern for the woman lying in hospital, and she is so not in the mood for that nonsense.
Oh God, she thinks as she walks up the steps towards A&E, is it possible that she just doesn’t like her family very much at the moment? What does that say about her?
29
THE ROOM OF DOOM
Becca
Of all the cursed places in the world, the family room of a hospital A&E department has to be the most cursed of all. They might as well call it the Room of Doom.
Except, perhaps, for the general waiting room – a veritable plague incubator. If you get the family room upgrade, you know things are not good.
They don’t give you the ancient IKEA sofa with the well-loved throw over the back of it, the box of value tissues on the table and a bin big enough to hold countless empty coffee cups if everything is going to be a-okay.
Surprisingly, Laura isn’t the first person to arrive. When the door opens shortly after I’ve been directed to the Room of Doom, I see Niamh, her expression sombre, and Adam, who has the look of a very traumatised twelve-year-old about him. He might be twenty, and he might be a father, but in this moment I am looking at my little boy and his fear is evident.
‘Becca,’ Niamh says, looking at me in the same way she did the day my dad died, and my body immediately tenses. I’m not a huge fan of the look, if I’m being honest. It gives off the same vibe of ‘your life is rotting before your eyes’ as being directed to this shitty room does.
‘Mum,’ Adam chimes in and sits down beside me, immediately folding his six-foot frame into my arms for a hug as if he is small enough to still fit. ‘Is she… is she…?’ he says through his tears, unable to finish the sentence.
‘As far as I know she is still with us,’ I say, choking down the emotion that is threatening to suffocate me. I don’t use the word ‘alive’ yet because it feels just a little too close to ‘dead’ for comfort and I don’t want to even acknowledge the possibility of that outcome. So I have to do what countless other parents have done for their children over the years and be brave. ‘The doctor didn’t say too much except that they are working on her now. They suspect it was a stroke,’ I tell him in a matter-of-fact manner, as if I’m not talking about my own mother and instead about some random person with whom I have no emotional connection.
Niamh sits down on one of two very uncomfortable-looking plastic chairs against the opposite wall and says nothing. I’m grateful she is giving me space just to be there for Adam in this moment. And space to just be me in my increasingly overwhelmed and liable-to-meltdown state. (So NOW I can meltdown, it seems. Fat lot of use that is to me when I need to hold it together for the sake of my son.)
‘Saul is really worried about her,’ Adam says, his voice muffled as he continues to hug me. I’m absolutely in no rush to let him go. I need the hug as much as he does. I kiss his head and stroke his hair, much like I would’ve done when he was a little boy.
‘I know,’ I tell him. ‘I’ve let him know what’s happening and promised we’ll keep him updated. Wigan is with him.’
‘Wigan’s a sound lad,’ Adam says. ‘I know they like to party, but he’ll be there for Saul. He’ll make sure he’s okay.’
I nod, kissing my boy on the head again. That’s so very reassuring to hear.
Laura is next through the door, carrying four cups of coffee in one of those cardboard holders that look like a giant egg box.
‘I just brought what I could carry,’ she says. ‘Four cappuccinos. I can go and get more if anyone else arrives. I have some sugar sachets and stirrers in my pocket if anyone wants them.’
‘Thank you, darling. That’s so thoughtful of you. Although I don’t think I could drink even if I wanted to,’ I say as she offers me a cup. Despite my protestation, I take one and sip from it without even thinking. It tastes of hot water and regret, and I grimace. I won’t be drinking any more of that, but I will be enjoying the grounding heat of the cup in my hands.
There is some mumbling about the coffee, some small talk. A mention of the choir and how Karl seems ‘absolutely fabulous’. Laura asks Adam about the baby, and even though he is worried and stressed, his voice is warm and full of love when he talks about his daughter. ‘Jodie wanted to come with me, but we figured that the hospital wasn’t the best place for a baby,’ he says.
Laura tells him they made the right decision and there is a little more chat but all I can concentrate on is the door. The door is my equivalent of Schrödinger’s box, and my mother is the cat. At this moment she is both alive and dead and only the opening of the door by a doctor will confirm which it is.
I do not like this, I think. I do not like anything about it. I do not like the Room of Doom. I do not like not knowing. I do not like thinking about what the future will hold. I definitely do not like this exceptionally uncomfortable sofa whichprobably should’ve been replaced a couple of years ago, or the coffee that I can’t seem to stop drinking even though it’s revolting.
When the door opens again, I feel as if my heart will stop. The only person who should be here and who isn’t is Ruairi, but there is no way he will have made it down from Belfast so quickly, so it absolutely cannot be him. This could be the moment I’m dreading. The arrival of the doctor. I try to settle myself and I think I’m doing well until I see Conal walk in and not the doctor.
