‘Come in,’ came the voice of Mr McCoy.
I opened the door and there were Mr and Mrs McCoy standing in the same clothes they’d been wearing the day before and there was Ronan; eyes closed, machine pumping, looking blueish-white in the face. And there, by his side, was the doctor. I looked around at them all, breathless, holding the L plates to my chest.
‘You did it,’ said Mr McCoy, coming towards me and giving me a heavy hug.
‘I did it,’ I said, held in Mr McCoy’s embrace and looking around his shoulder at Ronan in the bed; not awake.
‘Well done, Brendan, well done,’ said Mrs McCoy, coming over and hugging me too.
‘You were taking your driving test today?’ said the stranger in the room, the doctor. ‘You passed, well done, good man.’ He was standing over Ronan.
‘Is everything OK?’ I said, feeling that my arrival had interrupted something.
‘If you want to close the door there and take a seat I can explain,’ said the doctor.
Dad closed the door, which seemed to vacuum seal the room. The L plates dropped from my hand, sailed a little along the floor and lay still.
Everything seemed still.
Everything except Ronan, rhythmically pumping like some terrible instrument, looking more lifeless than ever.
‘Shall I explain or …’ said the doctor, aiming his eyes at Mr and Mrs McCoy. They nodded for him to proceed. ‘Alright.Well, I have spoken with Aaron and Emma regularly over these past few days. I believe you’re aware that since Ronan’s last seizure it’s been a bit of a battle and we’re just not winning and we’ve been forced into a corner we never wanted to be in. These machines have been the only thing keeping Ronan going, brain activity has depleted rapidly to the point where there is, unfortunately, no activity. We’ve reached the point of having to make a decision on whether to continue or not. I know this is an incredibly difficult time and an incredibly difficult decision for Emma and Aaron to make, but, as we have been speaking again this morning, I think we all feel that the decision has been made for us. We’re left with no choice, we really have tried everything we could and sometimes that’s simply not enough.’
I turned to Mr and Mrs McCoy. Side by side, they looked so composed. They looked strong. They looked sad.
‘You’re … letting him go?’ I said.
‘The case, I’m afraid,’ said the doctor, ‘is that he’s already gone.’
‘How can he … he’s not!’ I said. ‘He can’t … he’snot!’
‘I know it’s hard to understand but really all we’re doing at the moment is keeping his body going. Ronan, as you know and love him, is gone. I know it’s the worst possible news, it’s devastating for me as a doctor to have to deliver this and I can never know the hurt it causes. I’m incredibly sorry.’
Mrs McCoy shook out of her solid state, collapsed towards her husband and sobbed in his arms. Dad, from behind, put both hands on my shoulders and squeezed tight.
‘When?’ I said.
Mrs McCoy looked at me with desperate eyes.
‘We were waiting for you, Brendan,’ she said. ‘We wanted you to be here, we wanted you to be with us and know why.’
A blade sliced down through me as I realised what she was saying.
‘Now?’ I said.
Mr and Mrs McCoy looked at me and then at the doctor.
‘I’ll leave you if you all want to take a moment,’ he said.
‘Thank you,’ said Mr McCoy.
‘Of course, please let me know if there’s anything,’ he said, walking towards the door and placing a hand on my shoulder briefly on the way. ‘I am so sorry.’ Then he left and closed the door.
What happened next in that room lives in my brain as a type of ceremony. We spoke quietly, prayer-like, to Ronan as he pumped and pumped. We spoke into his ears that couldn’t hear us. We gazed at his eyelids that never opened. We watched his mouth that never replied but maybe we could hear his voice in our heads anyway, the answers he would have given.
‘I’m going to miss you so much,’ I said to him.
‘I’m going to miss you too,’ he’d have said.
