by K T Bowes
“I’ll call you Hanny,” he said with confidence. Hana noted he didn’t ask permission. Relief flooded her heart.
“I like that,” she replied. “How did you choose?”
“Well,” he said, turning on her knees and paralysing her from the thighs down. “I always wanted a Granny, more than anything. I wanted one so bad. The other boys and girls get picked up by grannies from kindy and taken for treats. But you don’t have fluffy white hair like them. And you don’t have a stick. Granny doesn’t suit you.”
Hana detected the slightest lisp as Jas spoke. She appreciated his reasoning. “Yes,” she answered, feeling happy. “I like it. Thank you. It’s a great name.” If a four-year-old could decide she wasn’t yet over-the-hill, he earned the right to call her whatever he liked.
Amy peeked around the bedroom door a while later, looking for recipients of her sumptuous lunch preparations. Hana lay flat on the floor behind a cardboard box with an Action Man soldier grasped in her hand. Jas bounced up and down on the balls of his feet on the other side of the box, waving a somewhat battle-scarred Dr X. The doll’s trousers looked too small, displaying rather a lot of bum crack for an action hero. Jas hurled rolled up paper bombs onto Hana’s head, yelling, “Duck Hanny!” With an expert flick of Hana’s wrist, Action Man soldier headed them like a soccer star.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Hana’s afternoon with her new grandson passed before she realised. Bodie dropped her back at the hospital while Amy looked after a sleeping Jas. He stopped near the front doors and Hana thanked him. “I hate that multi-storey. Thanks so much for doing this.”
“I’ll be back around eight thirty,” he said with an offhand shrug. “My room at the watch house still needs sorting. I’m expected at work tomorrow.” Bodie gave a casual wave and pulled out into the traffic.
Hana found Logan asleep when she arrived. He looked peaceful, despite the grey pallor of his skin. A week of beard growth gave him a rugged handsomeness and she sat in the visitor’s chair and watched his chest rise and fall. The air of calm left with the arrival of more visitors, bringing with them screaming children and loud greetings. Logan awoke with a start, finding Hana leaning on the windowsill. She occupied herself by watching an elderly man hold up the traffic on the main road. He held his stick out towards the stationary vehicles while he ambled towards the kerb. The geriatric resembled a tiny dot from Hana’s vantage point, like a small bug creeping across a handkerchief. She nodded in acknowledgement of the man’s courage in holding back a metal tide with nothing more than a wooden stick.
“Hey.” Logan spoke to her and Hana turned and gave him a special smile. “I told you not to come back.” He grunted and tried to sit up, clutching his stomach as red gunk oozed into his pipes.
“I rarely do as I’m told,” Hana commented, fluffing his pillows and using the remote to raise the bed head.
Logan smirked. “I admit I’m relieved. It’s boring in here.”
“I missed you last night.” Hana sighed and put her arms around his head, hugging him close into her chest. “You don’t smell of you anymore. You smell of hospital.” She kissed the top of his head.
“Sorry.” He clasped his fingers through hers. “They won’t tell me when I can go home.”
“How do you feel?” Hana moved the chair closer and stroked Logan’s fingers.
“Like someone shoved cotton wool in my brain. I can’t think straight.”
“That’s the anaesthetic,” Hana soothed. “Don’t worry about anything. Just rest.”
Speaking pained Logan and wore him out. Instead, they held hands and watched other patients converse with their visitors. It made fascinating viewing. Some talked without drawing breath and others sat and ate the food they brought for the invalid.
A nurse appeared at the doorway with a chart in her hand, making a beeline for Logan’s bed as she read it. Another bag of clear liquid dangled from her hand and she switched it with the empty one and reconnected it into the drip. “Drink this, love,” she said, handing Logan a plastic cup of water and a tub filled with tablets. At Hana’s questioning look, she commented, “There’s an infection. This is an antibiotic.”
With a swish, she turned and left before Hana could ask anything else. Logan swung his feet to the floor and reached out for her. “Stop stressing. I can see your brain working and it’s making me tired.”
Hana nestled into his tee shirt, enjoying his nearness. She knew it would make her miss him more later when darkness and loneliness pressed in. “Oh.” She sat up. “I haven’t told your family. Am I supposed to?” She heard her own insincerity and shame pricked her cheeks with pink spots. The fear they might not care filled her with terror and loathing in equal measure.
“It’s fine,” answered Logan. “I’ll ring Dad when I get out of here.”
Noticing he didn’t mention Miriam, Hana shrugged. She didn’t challenge him, choosing not to meddle.
The few hours of visiting dashed by in a haze of antiseptic smells and patients stumbling around in hospital gowns. Logan managed a short walk along the ward and an hour in the television room. Hana didn’t remember afterwards what they watched on the wide, cracked screen. Every set of steps cost Logan another bout of wrenching pain which left him sweating and ill. When Bodie arrived at just after eight o’clock, he looked shocked at Logan’s appearance. “You look like crap,” he said with unhelpful honesty.
“Geez, thanks bro’.” Logan grimaced, his slate grey eyes standing out in his pale face. It terrified Hana how fast someone so vital and filled with life force could degenerate.
“Here.” Bodie handed Logan a battered mobile phone. “Amy dug it out. I’ve topped up the credit, so at least you can text Mum if you want.” He laid a pile of novels on the cupboard. “I raided Amy’s bookshelves. They might not be your thing but I figured boredom might be setting in about now.”
“Thanks mate. I appreciate it.” Logan smiled, his face pale and sick. Beads of sweat formed on his forehead.
Hana left with great reluctance, sensing Bodie’s growing impatience. “I’ll come back tomorrow as soon as they let me in.”
Logan smiled and accepted her gentle kiss. Then he dropped his bombshell. “I’m going home tomorrow, anyway.”
Hana’s face betrayed serious doubt and she looked to her son and then back to her husband. “Oh, I doubt it,” she said, her expression one of confusion.
“I bloody am.” Logan gritted his teeth and Hana avoided challenging his determination. While Bodie joined the queue for the lift, Hana sought the nurses’ station.
“I’m Mrs Du Rose,” she began, the name strange on her lips. “My husband thinks he’s going home tomorrow and I wanted to check if that’s true.”
“I can’t discuss his medical condition without his permission,” the nurse answered, smoothing her fingers across a name badge with Selina in a spiky font.
“So, do I bring him clean clothes for sleeping or for travelling?” Hana demanded, her tone betraying her agitation.
“He won’t go home tomorrow,” Selina stated. “Or the next day.” The woman bit her lip.
Hana sighed and ran a hand over her eyes. “This is so bewildering. Is there any way I can see Logan’s surgeon and ask him to explain everything?”
Selina shook her head. “Doctors’ rounds are at nine in the morning and visiting is at eleven.”
Hana paused and stared at her, wondering if her English words emerged as Martian. “So, how do I see Logan’s doctor?”
“You can see him at nine.”
Hana cocked her head. “I can? I can come here at nine and speak to Logan’s doctor?”
“No.” Selina shook her head and her ponytail bounced against her shoulders. “Visiting isn’t until eleven.”
Hana inhaled, her frustration growing. Four buzzers went off in quick succession above the nurses’ station. “Please help me,” she pleaded.
“Look,” answered Selina, “I’m on an early
shift tomorrow. Come in around nine and I’ll give you permission to sit with your husband while he sees the doctor.” Hana looked doubtful, wondering if she lied to get rid of her. Selina inclined her head. “I’ll be here. I’ll remember.” She accompanied the last with a broad smile.
“I’d like to hear everything explained,” Hana replied, returning her smile with gratitude. “Logan won’t talk about it.”
Bodie drove Hana home to Culver’s Cottage, checking the road behind him before turning into the driveway. “I think we should swap cars,” he said as they pulled up to the house. “The tinted windows might give you some anonymity around town and you could see Logan when you wanted.”
Hana smiled, touched by her son’s kindness. Fear back-lit the gratitude. “I’m not the world’s greatest driver, Bo. I’m too scared I might ding it.”
Over a cup of coffee in the cheerful kitchen, Bodie reassured her. “It’s just a car,” he said philosophically and Hana gaped in surprise.
“Wow. I swear I thought you said your pride and joy was just a car.” She smiled. “I’m hearing things.”
“That’s before I knew I had a son,” Bodie said, leaning forward over his drink. “Now it doesn’t seem so important.”
Hana watched the look of pride cross Bodie’s face at the thought of Jas. “He’s a gorgeous little boy,” she said, seeing his eyes light up with pleasure.
He grinned. “Amy’s done a great job,” he admitted. “He’s adorable.”
Bodie left as night extended its black fingers to exclude even the stars. Hana tried to settle in the huge, empty four-poster bed as time clicked over into the next day. She spent half an hour reading her bible, scanning the trials of David. It read like an adventure story and she drew parallels with her own predicament. “I’m not courageous or noble,” she sighed. “But I am under fire.”
She snuggled under the covers and prayed, settling her soul and trusting a higher power with control over her circumstances. Peace came, but sleep didn’t. Hana padded to the kitchen in the early hours and boiled the kettle for tea. The curtain material lay where she left it, just inside the front door and she drank her hot drink and stared at it.
Hana finally slept around four o’clock in the morning, too exhausted to stay awake any longer. The alarm on her mobile phone roused her at six. The room seemed darker and Hana groped for her phone in confusion. She found it on the floor next to the bed. Switching on the lights in the bed canopy, Hana rolled over and admired the rich floor length curtains, cascading from the curtain track. She smiled and offered herself a mental pat on the back. “Not bad, Hana. Not bad at all.”
The drapes still looked good in the half-light as Hana finished dressing. She hoped daylight wouldn’t diminish the sense of satisfaction at the sight of the creamy swags. Her arms ached from heaving the sewing machine up the stairs from the garage in the dead of night. She’d sewed for hours, focussing on creating a restful space for Logan once he returned home.
She almost toppled from the bedroom chair, hanging the heavy curtains at three forty-five that morning. Tiredness meant errors crept in, fortunately masked by the lining material. Her sewing expert mother always advocated hand-sewn hems. Hana lifted the material in the cold light of day and examined the machined line. Dying just after Bodie’s birth spared Judith McIntyre the agony of witnessing Hana’s fumbled attempts at home making. “Oh Mum,” Hana sighed as she admired her handiwork. “I hope you’re proud of me. I’m sure you would have ignored my mistakes.” A heaviness settled on Hana’s heart. “All of my mistakes.”
The sumptuous curtains hung well. They met in the middle, despite the irregular line of hemming. Although exhausted, Hana gave a smug grin as she pulled them back after her shower, exposing daylight tinged with grey. She wrinkled her nose at the fronds of thread hanging from the bottom. “As long as nobody looks too hard, I should get away with it,” she mused.
She drove into town early, snagging a good park and avoiding the multi-storey. Climbing the stairs to the surgical ward, Hana experienced a rush of adrenaline, a symptom of too little sleep. It propelled her onwards, so she arrived at the reception desk full of energy.
The dour-faced receptionist stamped on her optimism. “Ward doesn’t open until eleven,” she snapped, glancing up at Hana and then back to her computer screen.
“But Selina promised!” Hana protested, abandoning the fruitless argument ten minutes later when threatened with a call to security.
Filled with a sense of righteous indignation, Hana consigned herself to the dirty visitors’ room and a droning documentary about oil wells. The sofa looked more ripped since the day before and someone had snapped off the channel changer. Hana rocked in her creaky chair and seethed. After a while, she got up and fidgeted, pacing herself up the corridor and back to the reception desk.
“Selina can’t give you that authority,” the receptionist said, enunciating her words in case Hana was stupid as well as early. “She’s not in charge here.”
“But she did,” Hana argued. “I can’t just sit there watching television while the doctor speaks to my husband about an operation I don’t understand. Who can give me authority?”
“Nobody.” The receptionist shrugged. “It’s against the rules.”
“But Selina did,” Hana protested. “I’m not lying!”
She sat in the visitor’s room and watched the surgeon step out of the elevator. He wore a blue turban and a serious expression. He marched onto the ward, flanked by a posse of white coated underlings. Hana lost hope in the hour he spent walking through the ward, knowing she’d need to rely on Logan for second hand information. She tried and failed to bury the sense that things were worse than he acknowledged. A long while later, Hana watched the surgeon and his entourage head back towards the elevator. On a whim fuelled by exhaustion and annoyance, she ran after them.
“I refuse to discuss my patients in the corridor!” Mr Singh raised his voice and Hana blanched. She swallowed and forced out her words, indicating backwards with her outstretched hand.
“Then sit with me in the television room,” she begged. “I just want five minutes of your time. Please.”
The collective eyes of the entourage bugged as one, her bravery worthy of hushed lunchroom gossip later. Mr Singh’s name badge winked in the light from the wide windows and he exhaled in an exaggerated sigh. “Five minutes!” he snapped.
The surgeon sent his collection of students and registrars ahead of him, sitting with Hana in the scruffy lounge. He maintained Logan’s privacy while furnishing her with basic details. “As his wife, I can tell you that Logan sustained broken ribs which punctured his spleen and caused a bleed. He needed open surgery to remove his spleen. The last lot of tests showed the start of an infection and he’s taking an antibiotic to counteract it. He’ll take those tablets for the next ten days. My staff will remove the drains this morning and the drip came out last night.”
His Indian accent and the paraphernalia of his Sikh beliefs soothed and comforted Hana. She relaxed. “So, he’ll be okay?” she asked.
Mr Singh smiled. “I know he’s threatening to discharge himself.” Hana clamped her teeth onto her bottom lip and he waved away her discomfort. “Your husband is a terrible patient. He’s healing as well as expected for someone with his condition. If you’re willing to take responsibility for him, I can let him go but you must prepare for a relapse, in which case I’ll readmit him.”
A lump formed in the back of Hana’s throat. Gratitude mingled with fear. “Thank you,” she whispered. “I feel daunted. Logan hid the pain from me for a week. How will I know if he’s in difficulty again?”
Mr Singh cocked his head. “I think you will. You brought him in before.” He patted her hand and stood. Hana still wanted to push the nurse and receptionist through the eighth-floor window, but the doctor went some way towards restoring her faith in medical staff. He stood to go, turning back as he reached the door. “Oh, that cast on his arm is dreadful
. I’ll ask my nurse to redo it before he goes. I’ve written a script for pain relief, so make sure they give it to you before you leave.”
“Doctor!” Hana stood in a sudden movement, halting him half way through the exit. “What do you mean by his condition? Are you talking about the spleen thing? Or something else?”
The doctor considered her for a moment. Then he shook his head and smiled. “Talk to your husband, Mrs Du Rose.”
With a wave, he left. Hana spotted a familiar face in the doorway and Selina appeared like a genie. Hana stood, her body rigid with frustration. “I drove here all the way from Huntly this morning because you told me I could!” She jabbed her finger towards the lift as Mr Singh stepped onto it and the doors closed. “If that nice doctor hadn’t bothered to sit with me, it would have been a complete waste of time!”
The nurse took a step back and Hana sensed how angry she must look. “Please leave me alone,” she demanded with an exhausted sigh. She sat on the ripped sofa and put her head in her hands. The nurse slipped away and Hana noted she neither apologised nor let her see Logan. She looked at her watch and saw another half an hour left until the ward opened to the public. Craving coffee, she gathered her handbag and the goodies she brought for her husband and left.
Hana pressed the button for the elevator, her former burst of energy depleted by stress. She squeezed the bridge of her nose between her fingers and struggled to control the misery bubbling into her chest.
“Hana!” Logan battled with the door, the metal rack stuck against the skirting board. Its wheels pinioned him in the doorframe. Hana stepped back as the lift opened and a porter emerged pushing a patient in a wheelchair. She turned towards her husband. “Hey, don’t cry,” he implored her as he hauled the drip across the distance. Hana released the bridge of her nose and exhaled. Logan cupped her chin in his palm and tried to read her expression. “I only just heard you spent the morning in the waiting room. I could’ve sat with you.”
