I do a few loads of washing and tidy up until I hear the school van pull into the drive.
Mary, the driver, waits until I am in position beside the side door of the van before she unlocks it. I help Bee out and we stand on the doorstep and wave goodbye to the van. At least I do. Bee is excited to see me and has started screeching excitedly. She starts jumping up and down and grabbing my hand to get me to join in.
I laugh. It is so good to see her. I have missed her.
“You don’t blame her do you,” mum had asked fearfully, the first time I’d come home from the hospital.
“Of course not. Why would I?”
“Because she startled the horse.”
“So? She didn’t know what she was doing.”
“Do you think Albert’s parents blame her?”
“No.”
Truth be told though, I didn’t have a clue whether they did or not. I didn’t care if they did anyway. I knew Albert wouldn’t.
Albert
I’m dying.
Or I’m dead.
I can feel myself slipping further and further into the darkness.
Nightmares.
Black, faceless beings clawing at me. I run and I run and I run but I can’t escape them.
I try to scream but no noise comes out.
Why can’t I open my eyes?
Terror.
Oblivion.
Maddy
Muffled voices.
“Why is she always here?”
“Louis.” A warning tone.
“What? She’s not family.”
“She’s his girlfriend.”
“Barely. How long have they known each other? Two minutes?”
Seven months actually, I nearly say to him, but I don’t bother. What’s the point? He’s an idiot. Idiots don’t care what anyone else has to say about anything. They think I’m asleep. I keep my eyes firmly shut to keep up the pretence. It’s preferable to making small talk.
“I’m just saying it should be family only.”
“And I’m telling you to drop it, ok? As far as I’m concerned she is family. Albert would want her here.”
“Whatever.”
Louis has been here three times. Three times in two weeks. He’s stayed about an hour each time and each time it’s been excruciating.
I don’t understand it. I’ve tried and I’ve tried, but I can’t figure it out. These people are Albert’s family. Wonderful, kind, sweet, funny Albert. They should be grateful to have him in their lives.
His mother is. She adores him. We’ve spent hours together watching him sleep while she recounts childhood anecdotes and I fall more and more in love with the boy who adopted an orphaned baby bird and tried to teach it to fly, and who gave the five dollar note he was given on his fifth birthday to the homeless man who lived in the big hedge on the empty section at the corner of their street.
“Of course he probably spent it on cigarettes or alcohol,” Wendy said. “But I never told Albert that. He was so proud of himself.”
She talks to Albert when she thinks I am asleep. About how proud she is of him. How much she loves him.
But his dad and his brother only visit when it’s painfully obvious that if they don’t it will look bad. They don’t talk to Albert. They barely look at him.
I understand not everyone is the same. I know that different generations show affection differently, and that sometimes people just don’t like other people, for whatever reason.
But this is Albert. He is their son, their brother.
What the hell is wrong with them?
Albert
Voices.
Strange, distorted voices.
I hear my name.
Maddy. She is here. I feel her presence; reassuring.
She has not left me.
Is that light?
Is it the tunnel I’m supposed to go towards?
Where is this place?
Maddy
“Albert? Can you hear me?” I watch his face intently, hoping he will surprise me by opening his eyes and giving me that big beautiful smile of his and saying, “Gotcha!”
He doesn’t.
“I swear he squeezed my hand last night,” Wendy says.
“It’s possible,” the doctor says, but his voice says otherwise. “Although I think it’s too soon for that. He will start to become more aware though now that we’ve reduced the medication.”
“When will he wake up?”
The doctor shrugs. “Soon, hopefully.”
“What do you mean, hopefully?” Colin asks shrewdly.
“Unfortunately, as I’ve said before, it’s a waiting game.”
“I’m sick of you and your vague answers.”
“Colin!”
“Well I am. Honestly, what’s the point in medical school if all you can say at the end of it is, Maybe. Hopefully. Possibly. Any fool in a white coat could say that.”
“I apologise for my husband,” Wendy says to the doctor. “He’s just worried.”
The doctor smiles at her. “It’s understandable. Don’t worry. I have a thick skin.”
“That’s not all that’s thick,” Colin mutters.
“Colin!”
He’s so rude. I’ve stopped taking it personally now because he speaks like this to everyone; doctors, nurses, the lady behind the counter in the café. Albert’s friend Connor who has visited a few times. There doesn’t seem to be anyone that Colin holds in as a high a regard as himself. Everyone else, it would seem, is stupid.
“There!” Wendy squeals excitedly and we all jump.
“What?”
“His eyelids flickered.”
We all stare intently at Albert’s eyelids for a minute or two. They stay resolutely shut.
“Don’t expect him to just wake up as one would from sleep,” the doctor warns. “It’s a process. He’ll be a bit groggy and disorientated for a while too. Be gentle with him.”
“How long till we know if he’s a vegetable or not?”
“Colin!”
“He is not in a vegetative state,” the doctor says. “Tests show brain activity. We’re just not sure of any long term damage to his cognitive abilities. I’m afraid we just need to be patient.”
“That’s easy for you to say,” Colin grumbles.
Albert
The light is getting brighter and the voices are getting louder and more frequent. Why do they keep waking me up?
I went for a walk today. Down a country road. It was gravel. There were cornfields on either side. A chicken followed me most of the way until he got tired, then he lay down and turned into dust. The sky was bright blue and the sun was up high in the corner.
I heard music, country. I wanted to dance but my feet wouldn’t lift off the ground.
A pig came out of the cornfield and told me it was dinner time.
I don’t like pigs, but I prefer them to the faceless black cawing things. So I told him I was coming but after he left I was too tired so I lay down like the chicken and watched my feet dissolve to dust. I think I fell asleep, then.
Why does my head hurt?
Maddy
This morning, sixteen days after his accident, Albert woke up.
He opened his eyes and he looked around the room. When he saw me he smiled.
He mumbled something, it sounded like, “I’m coming.”
Then he closed his eyes again and he drifted back off to sleep.
Albert
Why does my father keep scowling at me? Have I forgotten to mow the lawns again?
Maddy
“A coma?”
“Yes, an induced one.”
Albert blinks at us. He has lost weight. Being fed through a tube will do that to you. His cheekbones are prominent in a way most girls would kill for.
“An accident?”
“At the stables. A horse kicked your head,” Wendy explains patiently for the tenth time today. Yesterday we told him twenty times. One day soon it will stick, that’s what the doc
tors say.
“You’re a hero,” I tell him, my voice breaking. “Thanks to you Bee is still alive.”
“A bee?”
“No, Bee. My sister.”
“Oh.” He blinks. “A coma?”
Albert
She looks so peaceful when she sleeps. I was confused when I woke up and saw her on a mattress on the floor in the corner, but then I remembered.
I am in hospital. I had an accident.
I have been in a coma.
My head hurts, though not as bad as it did yesterday. That has to be a good thing.
I don’t remember the accident. I only know what they’ve told me.
I feel a bit like you feel when you first wake up, but I feel like that all day. Groggy. Like I’ve had too much to drink and not enough sleep. I suppose it’s the drugs they have me on. I don’t care. I’m just grateful to be alive.
I remember the nightmares. I can still feel the terror I felt.
Maddy
“Doctor says you’ll be able to go home soon.”
“When?”
“Soon.”
“When is soon.”
“Soon. Wait and see.”
“I don’t want to wait and see.”
“Too bad.”
“You’d make a terrible nurse.”
I laugh and snuggle closer to him. “Gee thanks.”
I am up on the bed beside him. Every day he comes back to us a little more. He remembers things, although not the accident itself, just the days leading up to it. He has started to make jokes, bad ones of course. But he gets tired easily, and grumpy. It’s understandable.
“Is it night or day?” he asks.
“Night.”
“I don’t like the curtains closed. Open them.”
“No. They don’t like me to open them.”
“Who?”
“The nurses.”
“How do you know?”
“Because you ask me every night. And when I open them they come in and growl.”
“Oh. Please?”
I sigh. “Ok. Just for a little while. But you’re taking the heat if we get in trouble.”
“Deal.”
I push off the bed and walk in my socks over to the window to draw back the curtains. As soon as he sees the starry sky he relaxes.
“I missed them, you know,” he says.
I flick the main light off so we have only the light from the small one by the door and then hop gently up on the bed beside him. He curls one arm around me.
“The stars?”
“Yes. I remember it was black and I wondered where the stars were.”
It’s the first time he has mentioned the coma willingly. His brother has asked him questions about what he can remember and he refuses to answer. Wendy shut Louis down as soon as he mentioned it because, like me, she could see he was terrified.
“I thought I was dead,” he says softly.
“Shush. Don’t say that.”
“Imagine if I never saw you again?”
“You don’t have to. Because you’re still here, and so am I.”
“I love you, you know that right.”
“Yes.” I push up on one elbow, my hand on his chest, my face close to his. “I love you too.”
I kiss him. Softly, because he is still recovering and I am wary of hurting him.
“So it was only the stars you missed then?” I joke, nuzzling his lips.
“Of course not.”
I smile.
“I missed the ocean too.”
He laughs when I pout, outraged. The sound of his laughter is music to my ears. I had thought at one point I might never hear that sound again. It would have been unbearable.
“And you of course,” he says. “Desperately you.”
We kiss again. I pull away.
“Are you sure this isn’t too much for you?”
“Too much?” he murmurs, reaching up a hand to stroke the side of my face. “It will never be enough.”
Albert
“So when can I go home?”
The nurse changing the bandage on the side of my head clucks. “Stay still. You’ve made it loose again.”
“Sorry.”
“I don’t know when you can go home. You’ll have to ask the doctor.”
“He doesn’t know either.”
“Well there you go then.”
“So who does?”
“What? Stay still.”
“Who knows?”
“Albert, as much as we’re all extremely fond of you, you’re starting to drive us mad with the constant questions.”
“Sorry.”
She sighs. “I’m sure it won’t be much longer. You’re doing well, although –” she frowns, using her hand to tilt my chin sideways so she can see my head in the light. “Have you been exerting yourself? Your wound has started to bleed again on the corner. It’s a little inflamed.”
“Is that bad?”
“Well it’s not good.” She gives me a stern look. “No it’s ok. It’s minor in the grand scheme of things. But I’ll get the doctor to prescribe some antibiotics, just to be on the safe side.”
“Then can I go home?”
She rolls her eyes. “You don’t give up do you?”
“Never.”
“Good. That’s a good attitude to have. Now sit still while I finish wrapping this. When is Maddy due back?”
“Not till tomorrow,” I say forlornly.
“Good. That girl needs a break. She has barely left your side in weeks.” She finishes what she’s doing and starts wheeling her trolley away. “I’d hang onto that girl if I was you.”
“I plan to,” I call after her.
I miss her. Even though I saw her this morning, I hate when she is not here. The time passes so much more slowly. I literally sit and watch the minute hand click over on the clock until she returns. But I understand why she had to go. Her mother has been working and looking after Bee so that Maddy can be with me, but now she has a head cold and Maddy is giving her a break. I have to share her, and I hate that, but I understand.
I’m asleep when I feel someone adjusting my blankets. It could be a nurse but my instinct tells me it’s not. When I was in the coma I could sense when Maddy was in the room. Not consciously, just on some deeper level.
I still can.
I open my eyes and blink at her sleepily. The light from the hallway gives her dark hair a halo. She looks like an angel.
“Hey you,” she smiles.
“I thought you weren’t coming back until tomorrow?”
“I wasn’t. But I’ve dosed mum up on lemsip and she’s feeling better. She and Bee are asleep but I couldn’t sleep, so here I am.”
“I’m glad you came.”
“Good. Now go back to sleep. I’ll be on the floor if you need me.”
“Sleep up here with me.”
“After the last time? I’m not supposed to remember, that nurse was not happy.”
We laugh at the memory of being scolded like naughty teenagers.
“Don’t be so chicken.”
“Who are you calling chicken?” she demands.
“You.” I try to make a chicken noise. It sounds like someone punctured a balloon.
“Move over then,” she says.
I pull her close and breathe in the smell of her.
“Maddy?
‘Mm.”
“I don’t think you should come in tomorrow.”
She pushes herself up on one elbow to look down at me, frowning. “Why not?”
“You’ve been spending so much time here with me and as much as I appreciate it and believe me, I really do appreciate it, I just think you need to spend some time with Bee. I thought you could do this.” I reach over to the bedside table and pick up a newspaper, opening to a page I folded down earlier. “Look.”
She scans the black and white words. SENSORY MOVIE DAY, the headline says. She gives me a ‘look’.
“I know,” I grin. “I’m the perfec
t boyfriend right?”
I watch as she reads the article I found that morning. One of the cinemas in town is holding a sensory movie day for autistic children. The fact that they are screening the new Beauty and the Beast movie got me excited, because Maddy has mentioned before that it is Bee’s favourite film. She loves the cartoon version, and according to Maddy knows all the words off by heart.
“I thought she might enjoy it” I say.
“She’ll love it.” She stares at me for a minute, silent.
“What?”
She sighs. “Once again I’m blown away by how much you understand my life when so many have never taken the time.”
“I know how much Bee needs you too. It’s selfish of me to keep you here all the time.”
“You didn’t ask me to be here. I’m here because I want to be.”
“Are you always this stubborn?”
“Are you always this annoyingly sensible and understanding?”
I shrug. “It’s one of my weaknesses, yes.”
She leans down and kisses me on the tip of my nose. “If that’s your weakness I’d hate to think what your strengths are,” she says.
I reach up and lightly pull her head down so that our faces are only millimetres apart.
“You give me strength,” I say. “I can do anything with you by my side.”
Maddy
Springing things suddenly on my sister is not a good idea. Spontaneity became a thing of the past when she was born, replaced by careful preparation. There are certain things that must be done when going somewhere new in order to not upset her. Wherever possible anyway.
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