Page 15 of The Happy Family

‘What we’re trying to establish is whether or not there was any pattern of behaviour or anything else at all that could have suggested that something like this could happen.’

‘No, nothing at all. Sadie has never made any of us feel threatened before. Sure, she’s been upset and struggling since our divorce and it can’t have been easy for her to see Luna move in with me, but she has never shown any sign of wanting to hurt her. Until tonight.’

‘There is a conviction for drink-driving on Sadie’s record,’ an officer says, clearly having run a background check on the suspect. ‘Could her problems with alcohol have contributed to this?’

‘I don’t know,’ I mutter, and it’s true. I didn’t know that Sadie had a problem with alcohol before she got caught drink-driving, and I also don’t know if she has continued to have problems to this day.

We pass through another set of doors before I turn left onto another corridor, and the two policemen scurry to keep up with me. I know I’m almost where I’m headed now, so hopefully there won’t be too many more questions before I get there.

‘We’re simply trying to establish the facts around what happened tonight,’ the second officer says. ‘Which is why it is important we speak to Luna as soon as possible.’

‘I’ve already told you, just like the doctor has. She needs to rest.’

‘And we need to determine exactly what happened because we cannot just take somebody’s word for it,’ comes the curt response.

I stop walking, which won’t help me get back to my children any quicker, but I cannot help it.

‘What do you mean by that?’ I ask.

The police officers share a glance.

‘Hopefully, Sadie comes through this and we can interview her too,’ the first officer tells me. ‘But if not, we only have Luna’s version of events to go off and that could be tricky because, as I’m sure you can imagine, that could be biased.’

‘You think Luna is lying?’

‘No, I didn’t say that. But we have a duty to investigate this fully.’

‘What you need to do is make sure that something like this can never happen again,’ I snap back. ‘That’s your job as police officers. Not to doubt innocent people who have just been stabbed and could have lost a baby tonight. Now, if you will excuse me, I need to go and be with my children.’

I storm away from the police officers then, but they have the good sense to let me go, otherwise my mood would only escalate and I’m sure they don’t really want to have to arrest me for causing a scene on top of all the other work they have to do tonight.

I pass through one final set of doors before I see Arthur and Ruby where I left them. My son is watching something on his iPad while Ruby is reading a book, although I can tell that neither of them is engaged in their activities, and they are just trying their best to distract their worried minds.

I want to wrap each of them in a hug and reassure them that we will get through this, whatever happens. But before I can do that, I see another doctor emerge from a room and he approaches Sadie’s parents. I hurry over to join them in time to hear what he has to say.

But just before he speaks, Sadie’s father intervenes. ‘Excuse me, can you wait over there?’ he asks me, though it feels more like he is telling me.

‘I want to know what’s happening,’ I reply.

‘You’re not married to our daughter anymore,’ I’m reminded, as if I needed to be. It’s a sign that Sadie’s father is harbouring some anger towards me over the events of the past year.

‘I am well aware of that, but I need to know what to tell my children about their mother,’ I respond.

‘You started all of this. She was fine until you had that affair with that woman from your work, so whatever happens next is on you,’ he tells me, but I don’t have time to reply or correct him on the fact that I did not have an affair at all.

‘Just tell us, is she going to be okay?’ Sadie’s mother asks the doctor, who has been standing by while our heated discussion has been going on.

‘Sadie is currently in a coma,’ the doctor says carefully. ‘The head injury she sustained was a serious one and we have operated to relieve the pressure on her skull. She also suffered a mild cardiac arrest at the scene of the incident, and while she was saved, we made the decision that the best chance for her was to induce a coma.’

That all sounds terrifying, and bad, and like Sadie hasn’t got much of a chance. But she is alive, so she does, and while Sadie’s parents comfort one another, Arthur and Ruby rush over. I turn away from the doctor and distract them so they can’t hear any of the scary things that the doctor might still have to say, although as I usher them away, I do hear some of what he says.

‘It’s fifty-fifty as to whether or not she is going to pull through. The next seventy-two hours are critical.’

I know what update I can give to Luna when I go back to see her shortly because I know she is anxious to find out what is going on. But it’s not so easy to give an update to my two worried children, so I’m going to have to navigate this carefully. While I try to figure out how to do that, I wish I had some support. It doesn’t seem like I’m going to get it from Sadie’s side of the family, based on how things just went between us.

So I need Luna to recover quickly now.

I need my girlfriend by my side.