Richard looks pleased. He rocks the bundle with more energy.
"Have you named him yet?"
"Nah, been waiting for Meg. We’ve picked out three names and were just waiting to see what he looked like."
Meg motions to the doctor for his pen. He passes that and his little spiral notebook to her. She writes "Derek" in big letters.
Richard stops rocking the baby. "Derek? We didn't pick that one!"
Meg stabs the paper and looks at him with thin lips.
"Okay, okay. Derek it is. I guess you've earned the right to name him. But where did it come from?"
She leans back on the pillow and closes her eyes. The nurse clicks her tongue and adjusts the bedclothes. "Time to leave the poor lass in peace. Off you go now. You can come back later."
Meg sleeps the sleep of the dead for the next twelve hours. She wakes feeling fresher, uncurls and stretches. Then, noticing Doctor Forbes hovering in the doorway, she smiles and motions him in.
He talks for ages, telling her the story of a birth that just kept going wrong. "I was at another hospital attending a birth. When I finished, there was another just down the hallway. I was on the phone constantly to the people here, giving them instructions about how to proceed, but the situation rapidly worsened."
He removes his glasses and massages the bridge of his nose. "It was just one situation presenting itself after another. I won't go into details now, that'll keep for another time — but we ended up deciding to induce a coma in an effort to try and stabilise you. That helped, but then you went too deep. It seemed that you just didn't want to come out of it again."
She nods to show she is following him.
"Your brain activity was abnormally low, but has come back to normal now. We were very pleased to see that." He pulls a tiny torch from his pocket and flashes light into one eye and then the other.
"I must say your recovery is brilliant now. The drug dosages have been reduced without problems. You'll be home in no time."
Meg smiles but doesn’t feel happy. She has to go home to Richard? Then there's the little stranger — a baby she's never known — hasn’t even felt in her womb.
"The ENT man said the tissues of your throat are still too swollen to determine the full extent of the damage. He'll look again in a couple of days. He asked that you don't talk until then."
She nods. Not talking was proving to be a godsend. No wonder Luke indulged in it for so long.
"Richard said he'd told you there was a lot of internal damage. Here's the bad news. We had to remove your uterus. Sorry."
Meg feels that this is the least of her problems. She is still just trying to work out her place in the strange new world she has found herself in. Doctor Forbes is watching her closely, waiting for her reaction to the news about her uterus. She shrugs and smiles. Easy come, easy go.
"Okay, well I think that's about all I need to trouble you with today. A physio will come by later to put you through some light exercises. Richard's waiting outside — so I'll choof off and come back tomorrow."
She gives the thumbs up sign.
"Here you go, Richard. She's all yours. Don't stay too long."
The doctor makes some notes on the chart and waves as he leaves.
"The baby is still asleep. Thought I'd leave him that way. How are you today?"
She nods.
"Great. Hey, are you sure about that name — Derek?"
She frowns and crosses her arms.
"Okay, okay. I just thought you might have been, I dunno, a bit woozy yesterday. Made a mistake or something."
She shakes her head.
"Fine — whatever you want. Now, what do you need me to get for you? Your wish is my command."
Meg motions for a pen. Richard goes to the nurses' station and returns with a sheet of A4 paper and a blue ball point pen. Meg frowns at the pen — a horrible cheap thing — but begins to write. She starts with the word "List" at the top of the page.
"This looks ominous."
She smiles and the pen begins to move down the page, each item numbered:
1.Journal with good quality paper — French
2.Fountain pen, good brand, 3 boxes of refills
3.Ordinary notebook for communicating with people
4.Felt tipped pen for 3
5.My tablet— it will need a mobile broadband SD card from the Telco
6.Mobile phone
7.A photo from our wedding
Richard's face brightens when he sees the last item. "Aw, that's nice. I'll bring one in a nice frame." Meg smiles, but falsely. She doesn’t want the photo for any romantic reason — more to check on how it differs from the one she remembers.
Richard points to number five, frowning. "Tablet? You don't have one. I can buy you one if you really need it." He sounds like it is the last thing he wants to do.
Obviously her very expensive state-of-the-art tablet no longer exists, or never did. This is going to be hard, working everything out. She points to number five and adds, 'a good one’.
"Well, okay — I suppose. You've come out of that coma with expensive taste. I'll get all this for you." His voice sounds resigned.
Do they have money problems? They never used to. Bummer!
Richard stays for a few more minutes, conducting the one-sided conversations. Meg pretends to doze off so he'll go. She needs the stuff on the list.
He bends and kisses her on the cheek. "I'll be back later, with some of this stuff. I may not be able to get all of it. I'll bring the rest tomorrow."
She frowns and shakes her head. She makes a big shape with her hands.
"All of it. You want all of it today? Wow. Okay then. I'd better get moving. Hey, when you want to see...um...Derek, just ask the nurse. Bye, darling."
At last she is alone with her thoughts. She has to get things right in her brain.
Meg smiles as the web browser loads. Internet at last. She has so many things to look up she doesn’t know where to start. The date. There it is. The thirteenth of July, 2013. That doesn’t fit in with the date when everyone died, or the last date she knew in Maleny, which was August 20th, 2016. This is like some date plucked from a calendar by a mischievous child.
Next she visits the website of the merchant bank Richard works for. His profile isn’t among the management team. It isn’t there at all. She does a web search for Richard Atkins and there are absolutely no results. He’s obviously not a high-flier anymore. Maybe he never has been one.
That means he would never have been working with Lucy — the one that caused the end of their marriage. Interesting.
Nicholas and Emily seem to have never existed. She wonders about her parents. Are they alive?
So where are she and Richard living now? She does a search of the white pages, but there are no entries. They have always had a silent number, though.
Another big breasted old nurse barges into the room, and makes tut-tutting noises. It is late. She takes the tablet from Meg and puts it in a drawer. Pills are handed to her in a cup, and Meg swallows them.
She tries to make more sense of everything, but falls into a confused sleep.
"So this is my new journal. I hope it's as good as the old ones for working on problems, because I have a few.
I'm back in my old life but it's different. In weird ways. Richard is my husband and he's nice. Likable, but you know, the old wounds are still too fresh. He's so nice he seems a bit sinister — like a shark in a dolphin suit.
I have a son whom I don't feel any attachment toward. I guess that will improve with time.
The other thing is colour. This will sound really strange, but where I am now — this world— has less colour than the one I was in — the Maleny one, I mean. The other one was just so vivid, so alive, and so damned colourful. This one is muted and washed out.
I'm confused and scared. I don't know who to turn to. I don't know what's real any more. I need help.
Perhaps I can ask the doctor some questions tomorrow. That might be a good i
dea."
"Hi Meg. How are you feeling today? Oh, a note! Great."
Dr Forbes reads it and frowns.
"Oh yes. I know of several cases where patients have had very realistic dreams when in ICU. There's actually a name for it — ICU psychosis. I had a woman patient who came out of critical care convinced she'd been on a cruise with friends for the entire time. She told me about the meals they had eaten and the European ports they'd called in to. She'd even ridden a donkey up a hill in Greece." He laughs.
"They think it's caused by a combination of things: morphine and other drugs, the state of the brain." He stops suddenly and looks at her closely. "Been for a wee holiday yourself then? I can get someone more expert to talk to you about it."
She shakes her head, and acts with nonchalance.
"Ah okay. Well, anyway — good news. Home in two days. I've told Richard and he'll bring you clothes and get a baby seat installed in the car." He takes her hand. "You've come through this very well. You'll just need further treatment on that throat and then you'll be one-hundred-percent."
"One hundred percent? I don't think so. My uterus is missing for a start. Ninety-seven percent?
Had I woken with a voice that worked, I believe I would have been labelled as suffering with ICU psychosis. Can you imagine the questions I would have asked within minutes of waking? Where are Nicholas and Emily? Richard, you bastard, what are you doing here? Why aren't you off screwing that Lucy woman? Why isn't everyone in the world dead except me and a handful of others? Ha!
I don't think I'm suffering from any psychosis. I feel very sane. I think that the first terrible labour tipped me into the parallel universe where Luke, Connie and I lived. Then the next labour pushed me into this one, which is similar to the first, but different.
How will I ever know for certain? It seems important to me that I find out. Actually it seems vital to my sanity.
I've thought out a plan. I'll tell Richard to bring my clothes tomorrow, along with my handbag and purse and things. He'll question it, but the new Richard is a hell of a lot more compliant than the old one. I'll give him a reason why I want them a day early and he will swallow it.
I know the rhythms of the hospital now. When it's quiet I'll get dressed and slip out.
There should be cabs waiting outside. I'll get one to take me to the closest car rental agency. A small, sporty number I think. I'll be doing a lot of kilometres.
I'll drive to Maleny like I did before. I'm in a similar condition to when I did it the first time so will know how to pace myself. If I find the house — the lovely first rammed earth one I lived in, surely that's proof? Then I'll look for the second one. Double proof. Is it? Maybe I've already seen them in this life I'm in now. Maybe it's not one-hundred-percent sure.
I've looked up paediatricians in Sydney and there's one called Derek. His home address is in Coogee. If I get a look at Derek and he's the same as the one in Maleny, is this absolute proof?
Or the time capsule. I could go to the library and see if one has been buried there. Would it be there yet? How does this time thing work? I'm getting confused.
So I'll go and do these things. If I find none of them — what does that mean? Perhaps it means I should return here for treatment.
Or maybe not.
Wish me luck.”
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This novel wouldn’t have made it to print if it wasn’t for those wonderful people who selflessly give their time when requested. They are the beta-readers who check drafts and offer constructive criticism. Terry, Robyn, Rebecca, Jessica and Lee - thank you.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Brenda Cheers is a writer of both short and long fiction.
She lives in Brisbane, Australia with her partner and two daughters.
See more at www.brendacheersbooks.com
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