Life as I Know It

by Melanie Rose

  It seemed that I had only just sat down when a uniformed nurse arrived to escort me through the double doors into the inner sanctum of the emergency room. I eyed the row of curtained cubicles apprehensively, but she led me past them to an open area where several medics were working on a patient lying on a stretcher, surrounded by carts overflowing with machinery, wires, and hospital equipment.

  “I’ll fetch a doctor to come and speak to you,” she said as she scurried toward the group.

  I waited anxiously, running the strap of my bag nervously through my fingers, watching as the nurse tapped one of the doctors on the shoulder and motioned toward where I was standing. I couldn’t see Grant and assumed he had been separated off into a side room or taken up to a ward.

  The doctor looked around at the nurse’s whispered words and I recognized him at once. It was Dr. Shakir, who had attended me when I’d been in the hospital myself less than two weeks before. He hurried across to greet me, his hand outstretched.

  “I’m sorry to have to meet you again under such difficult circumstances, Mrs. Richardson.”

  “Where is my husband? Is he all right?” I asked, realizing through the numbness in my brain that it was a pretty foolish question. But I still wasn’t sure where Grant had been taken or how badly he was injured.

  “Your husband has been in a very bad accident,” Dr. Shakir explained. He turned to indicate the patient behind him on the stretcher, and I realized with a sickening jolt that the patient who was warranting all the attention must be Grant. I tried to look past Dr. Shakir but the other medical staff blocked my view.

  The doctor took my elbow and guided me smoothly back out into the corridor, where he waved me down onto a chair and perched on the corner of another one beside me.

  “Can I see him?” I fixed frightened eyes on the doctor. “How bad is he?”

  “We are trying to get him stabilized, so we can take him to the operating room.”

  I breathed out a sigh of relief. “So it’s fixable? Has he broken something?”

  Dr. Shakir’s expression became infinitely sympathetic. “Mrs. Richardson… Lauren, wasn’t it? Apart from multiple cuts and contusions to his head and body, your husband suffered severe crush injuries when he was trapped under the truck. The fire brigade freed him as swiftly as possible, but, as with many crush injuries, there are complications.”

  I felt my mouth go dry and I glanced past him to where a blue curtain obscured my view through the low window to the emergency room. “Will he be all right?”

  “At this stage it is difficult to say. Your husband is presenting with severe hypovolemia—that is, decreased blood volume—due, we believe, to the possible hemorrhaging of internal injuries sustained in the accident. He hasn’t long come in and we are at present in the throes of assessing him while administering intravenous fluids. We have ordered an emergency full-body MRI scan to locate the source of the bleeding… but”—Dr. Shakir avoided my anxious gaze—”there is a danger that a combination of the shock and dehydration may result in acute renal failure.”

  I looked at him blankly, not willing to understand what he was saying. Taking a deep breath, I asked the question again. “You mean you don’t know where he’s hurt?”

  “We believe Mr. Richardson has multiple internal injuries, but until we have the scan and we have him stabilized, we can’t risk opening him up.”

  “Is it very serious?”

  “Your husband is fighting for his life.”

  My whole body seemed to deflate. For a moment the room swam woozily before me, and then I raised my head and looked the doctor in the eye. “Can I see him?”

  Dr. Shakir rose to his feet and waved me back toward the emergency room. As I approached the bed, the other nurses and doctors stood back and I could see Grant at last, although I hardly recognized him, surrounded as he was by tubes, wires, and catheters all connected in turn to bags of fluid, oxygen, blood, drainage tubes, and rhythmically beeping machinery. His head was dotted with heavy gauze dressings and I wondered how bad the cuts and contusions were.

  “The head wounds are minor”—Dr. Shakir was at my elbow and seemed to be reading my thoughts—“in comparison to his other injuries.”

  “Can he hear me?” I crept closer to the bed and stared down at this man whom I had only known for such a short time, yet who had played such a significant part in my life as Lauren and in the lives of the children. I tried not to think of my bruised ribs and Grant’s duplicity in allowing me to believe all had been well between us before the lightning strike. Taking one of his bloody hands in mine, I squeezed it gently, remembering how he had been there for me when I had come around in hospital that first time, confused and in denial about what was happening.

  “Grant,” I whispered, bending low so he could hear me, “Grant, you have to fight. The children need you.”

  Grant’s eyes flickered open and he squinted up at me. “Lauren? Is that you?”

  His voice was thin and rasping, as if the strain of speaking was almost too much for him. The beeping of the machines increased in intensity with the effort and the medics clustered around, checking his pulse, drawing blood, and checking his drainage bags.

  “I’m here, Grant,” I told him, still holding his hand, although I stepped back slightly to allow Dr. Shakir to examine him again.

  “We can’t wait for the MRI. I think we’ll have to risk opening him up.” Dr. Shakir was shaking his head.

  “We have an elevated creatinine reading,” one of the nurses reported urgently. “He’s going into renal failure.”

  “I think we’re losing him,” another nurse exclaimed. “Stand by with the crash cart.”

  The medics pushed me away and I stood back, my hands shaking and my eyes wide with fear, watching as Grant fought for breath. I vowed to repay the favor and be there for him for as long as he needed me.

  He opened his eyes again, and this time he seemed to focus clearly on my face. I stepped closer again. “Can you forgive me?” he whispered.

  “You did what you thought was right.” I felt tears brimming in my eyes and blinked them back.

  “I would never have harmed the children,” he said, so quietly I had to make myself a space in the press of bodies around him and lean close to hear him.

  “I know, Grant. You are a good father. I never doubted it.”

  He smiled faintly, though his face had drained of blood and his eyes had taken on a dull, almost lifeless depth. His voice was no more than a labored exhale. “You know I love you, Lauren, don’t you?”

  I leaned even closer and pressed Lauren’s lips briefly to his forehead. “I know.”

  Grant’s eyes closed and the machine beside him gave several jerky fluttering beeps, culminating in a long, flat, unbroken tone.

  The medics and nurses leapt into action and I was pulled away and hustled out into the corridor, only vaguely aware of the escalating activity around his bed and the shouts of “clear” from one of the medics. For several minutes all was pandemonium and then I was suddenly aware that the room had gone quiet. The feverish activity around Grant’s strecter had ceased and everyone was standing very still.

  The machine emitted a long, low wail, and I held my hand to my mouth, realizing that the children’s father was dead.

  The evening passed in a daze. Karen had brought the children to the hospital and I had taken Sophie to see her father’s body, believing she was old enough to understand and to say good-bye.

  The younger children didn’t really comprehend the enormity of what had befallen them, and the necessity of continuing with their normal bedtime routine gave me a reason to leave the hospital with them and Karen and return to Grant’s family home without him, despite the fact that my heart was weeping for his children.

  After getting the younger children to bed, Sophie cried herself to sleep on my lap. Eventually, Karen and I tucked her up in her bed without undressing her in case she woke again, then we sat in the lounge and stared at each other, too shocked by
what had happened to speak.

  At length, we drew the curtains against the outside world and Karen poured us each a large brandy. I sipped at it hesitantly, not used to the burning sensation as the unaccustomed alcohol trickled down my throat.

  “Do you think Jason did it on purpose?” I asked at last.

  Karen nodded. “It looks like it. The police said witnesses reported the motorbike sped across the path of Grant’s car at the junction, giving him no chance whatsoever. In wet conditions like this he could never have avoided the crash. It’s fortunate the truck driver wasn’t hurt, too.”

  “Jason can’t have meant to kill himself as well, surely?”

  “He seemed pretty desperate to me. That’s what he must have meant about no one having you if he couldn’t. He wasn’t threatening you, he was planning to get rid of Grant, even if it meant killing himself.”

  “Why didn’t you say any of this to the police?”

  Karen shrugged. “What would have been the point of that? I didn’t want to implicate you. It’s better that the police think Jason was a stranger. The children need you more than ever now, and we can’t risk anyone thinking you were involved in any way.”

  “What if this is my fault?” I asked, taking a large mouthful of the brandy and choking as it stung my throat. I wiped a hand over my eyes and looked beseechingly at Karen. “I know I didn’t choose any of this but if I hadn’t taken Lauren’s place, she would probably have gone off with Jason, and Grant would still be alive.”

  “We don’t know for sure that she would really have gone with him,” Karen said gently.

  “The vicar believed Lauren was going to leave the family,” I reminded her. “That’s why she prayed so hard for the family to stay together.”

  “You have to assume that her prayers were answered then,” Karen pointed out. “The powers that be may or may not have known the journey would end like this, but they still set you on it, didn’t they?”

  I shook my head. “I still feel this hasn’t worked out as it should. Both the children’s parents are dead now, aren’t they? That can’t have been intended.”

  “We’ll probably never know whether any of this was intended,” Karen said, shaking her head. “Maybe, after all, it’s to do with that stuff you said you’d looked up about the relativity of space and time, and the lightning being the catalyst to set it all in motion. But whether any of this was planned, or whether it was some huge accident of nature, the outcome is that you are still here. The children believe you are their mother and they love you.”

  “Except Teddy. He knows I’m not.”

  “You can’t have everything. And he loves you anyway. You’re doing the best you can, Lauren. The children will learn to cope.”

  “I hope you’re right,” I whispered, taking another swig of brandy. “I really hope you are right.”

  I was sure I wouldn’t sleep that night, but as soon as Lauren’s head touched the pillow I awoke to find that I was lying cold and stiff and miserable on the couch in my flat. I stretched out my cramped limbs and looked at the sitting room clock. It was ten o’clock in the morning on the last day of Grant’s life.

  Putting my head in my hands, I wondered if there was any way I could warn Grant about what Jason was intending, but then realized that although from my perspective I hadn’t experienced my Wednesday yet, Lauren had already had hers. The accident had already taken place in Grant’s and Lauren’s lives and there was nothing I could do to change those terrible events, no matter how much I might wish to do so.

  For a moment I sat in absolute dejection. My life as Lauren had been turned upside down, and in this consciousness—as Jessica—I had driven away the man I loved with all my heart and soul.

  Dragging myself to the bathroom, I began to run a bath, but the boiler must have blown out in the night because there was no hot water coming from the taps. I stared out of the high window at the rain pelting down outside. My clothes were damp and soggy from last night’s long walk home in the rain, and my hair hung in stringy clumps. The flat was so silent that even the ticking of the clock made my nerves quiver.

  A flash of lightning lit the gray sky outside the window, and I listened for the thunder, counting automatically in my head. Three seconds. The storm must be several miles away.

  Walking back to the sitting room, I looked at the mat in front of the door. No sign of a note there from Dan. So Karen had been wrong; he hadn’t been banging on my door in the night. But she had been right about one thing, I thought, as I replayed the previous night’s events in my mind. I’d been so sure of his reaction that I hadn’t really given Dan a chance to come to grips with what I was telling him. I’d just blurted it out and run away.

  I realized that I owed it to him to try to explain what had been happening to me in a more rational manner, and to give him a chance to talk to me about it.

  Picking up my car keys, I ran outside through the pelting rain and climbed into my car. I knew I looked a wreck, but I needed to talk to Dan urgently before he left for work.

  It only took me a few minutes to get to his place, and I parked the car, then ran up the drive and hammered on the door.

  After a few minutes I figured I must have missed him, and I didn’t want to risk dragging his father out of bed to answer the door, so I went back to the car and sat there with my newly wetted hair dripping onto my jeans, and tried to think.

  If Dan had gone to work after what had happened between us I would have been very surprised. If he wasn’t at home, I reasoned he could be out walking with the dogs, despite the rain, thinking things over. If that were the case, I thought I knew where he might have gone.

  Ramming the car into reverse, I turned and drove back the way I had come, out of Epsom and up toward the Downs. I parked in the same lot I’d parked in almost two weeks ago, shaking my head at the realization of how much had happened to me in such a short space of time. Locking the car and wrapping my arms around my shivering body, I headed towards the spot where I had first met Dan. The rain was bitterly cold and I was wet through to the bone already. I knew without needing a mirror that my lips would be a deep purple color by now, as deep as the ominous-looking sky. The trees on the horizon, which had been so beautiful in their autumn regalia only a week ago, looked sad and bedraggled under the onslaught of the pounding rain, and the beaten-down grass resembled the gray sheen of a rolling ocean.

  After following the chalk path for a few minutes I glanced up to see a small shape hurtling toward me. “Frankie!”

  She barked in delight and tried to jump up at me, and in another moment Bessie had joined her. I knelt to pet and hug both the soggy dogs against me, and as I did so I glanced up through the gray mist of rain to see Dan standing a short way off, watching silently.

  Slowly, I rose to my feet, my eyes locked on his.

  Frankie stared anxiously from me to him, then ran back with Bessie in her wake to stand with Dan. Dan bent and clipped the dogs’ leashes to their collars, then he straightened up and gazed sorrowfully at me. I felt his eyes boring into mine and then he started to walk toward me.

  Lightning flashed suddenly with a tremendous cracking sound and my whole world lit up around me. It felt as if the heavens had opened and sent shards of white-hot glass slicing into my body. The rain ceased to exist and I was standing in a golden glow of light. I could feel my hair standing on end and hear a high-pitched ringing in my ears. Very slowly I saw Dan reach out his hand to me, a look of desperate horror on his face. The two dogs were howling, but somehow it sounded very faint and far away. For one blissful moment I felt totally connected to Dan, and then the ringing in my ears became a roaring sound and my world went blank.

  I sat up in bed with a jolt. Sweat was pouring off me and my whole body was shaking uncontrollably. Reaching over to the bedside cabinet, I flicked on the light and realized it was only eleven-thirty at night. I’d been in bed no more than an hour and a half, yet I felt as if I’d been in the deepest of sleeps. I gazed around at the fami
liar room with the door leading off to the en suite bathroom. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, yet I felt strangely disconcerted.

  Climbing out of bed, I drew my negligee closely around me and tiptoed out onto the landing. At the door of each of the children’s rooms I paused and peeped inside. Sophie was curled up, a damp tissue balled in her fist. Her peaceful face was still wet with tears. Grant, of course! No wonder I felt so disoriented. The children’s father had been killed in a terrible collision with—that motorcyclist. How could I have forgotten something so terrible?

  Nicole, looking so like me, was on her back snoring with her mouth slightly open. I tiptoed in and straightened her covers, then wandered on to the next room, where the twins were sleeping in adjacent beds.

  Toby was smiling in his sleep, and I brushed a lock of hair from his forehead, then turned to gaze at Teddy. My special child was curled around his precious ball, his breathing shallow, even, and peaceful. I touched the back of my hand to his pink cheek and thrilled at the comforting warmth of his little body.

  I loved the children so much it almost hurt to breathe, yet when I thought of Grant I felt nothing but regret for a wasted life and sorrow for the children that they would have to grow up without him.

  I turned to walk back to my bedroom just as the spare-room door opened and Karen stuck her tousled head into the landing.

  “Oh, it’s only you,” she said. “I wondered who that was walking about. I thought you were asleep.”

  “I had the weirdest dream,” I told her, frowning. “It seemed so real at the time, but now I can’t remember what happened.”

  “Lauren?” my sister said sharply, looking at me strangely. “Is that you?”

  I stood stock still, staring at her uncertainly, and then I smiled and threw my arms round her neck. “I dreamed,” I whispered in a fascinated voice. “Lauren dreamed, and I’m still here in the middle of the night.”

  “Jessica?”

  “Yes,” I nodded. “I’m here.”

  Karen let out a cry that was half sigh, half groan. “I thought for a moment there that you’d gone, that it was Lauren here on her own—the real Lauren, I mean.”