Fractured(21)

I struggled to move, to sit up, even with all the wires and tubes attached. The noise of this ineffectual stirring did however alert someone in the room.

‘Well, hello there. Welcome back to us, Rachel. It’s good to see you awake. Let me just call your father.’

There was a sound of a door opening and footsteps rapidly receding down an echoing corridor. I realised I was alone before I could manage to command my numb lips to form a question.

Was she going to phone my dad? Had someone already informed him I was in hospital? Dread at how he would have reacted to that news rippled through me. He was too ill to cope with any more worry in his life right now. I wondered if they could bring the phone to my bedside. Perhaps if he could just hear my voice he’d be reassured that I was OK. But how could I calm and reassure him about my condition when I didn’t even know what that was myself? I gave an angry moan of pure, impotent frustration.

‘Hey, hey… none of that now. Everything’s going to be all right.’ Swift and sure footsteps approached the bed. How was this possible?

I started off the pillow, ignoring whatever agony might ensue. My head was already spinning in shock anyway.

‘Dad? Dad, is that you?’

A warm and familiar roughened hand engulfed my own where it lay on the stiff hospital sheets.

‘Of course it’s me, my love.’ His breath warmed my face as he bent to kiss my cheek, his beard scratching against me.

‘Oh Dad…’ I began, and then, although there were a thousand things I could say, should say, none of them managed to come out as I was helpless to stop myself from dissolving suddenly and very noisily into tears.

‘There, there, there,’ muttered my dad, frenziedly patting my hand in discomfort. I knew the look that would be on his face, even without the benefit of sight. He had always been fazed by my tears, either as a small child or in my turbulent teenage years. Knowing how difficult it was for him to deal with them, I made a real effort to stem the torrent.

‘I’m so glad you’re here, Daddy,’ I sniffed, slipping back into the childish name without even realising I’d done so.

‘I’m so glad to see you awake again, my love. You can’t believe the fright I got when I first came in and saw you like that – all wired up and everything. It brought back so many horrible memories.’ I heard the catch in his voice. Of course, he must have been unable to stop thinking back to the night of the accident.

I could only imagine the anguish he must have gone through back then, as he’d sat for days on end beside a hospital bed just like this one. It was many months before he had ever revealed to me the true terror he had lived through while I lay unconscious and unresponsive. And even though the doctors had reassured him that I just needed time; that the emergency services had got me breathing again before the threat of brain damage; that I would make a full recovery; he must still have been fraught with anxiety until the moment I had first opened my eyes.

That was the moment of relief from his heartache and the beginning of mine. For I hadn’t allowed him to put off giving me the dreadful news; had refused to wait until I was ‘stronger’. And truly, who was ever going to be strong enough to hear the news that your best friend had died, while saving your life?

The accident of five years ago was obviously as much in his mind again as it had been in mine.

‘Memories of the accident,’ I said softly.

‘Accident?’ he sounded puzzled. ‘No, love; memories of your poor mum.’

I was confused, he so rarely spoke of her. I suppose the thought of losing me had reawakened many painful recollections. I wasn’t sure how to respond but was saved from the need by the sound of the door opening and several people entering the room.

‘Hello, doctor,’ greeted my dad. It sounded as though he knew the man who had just entered my room, knew him quite well, in fact. For the first time I thought to ask the question:

‘How long have I been in here?’

‘A little over thirty-six hours, young lady,’ replied the doctor, in a voice that I supposed was meant to be calming. I did not feel calm. As though in a game played against the clock, my mind frantically tried to fit together the jigsaw pieces of what had happened to me. Like an arc of electricity between two terminals, I suddenly remembered: the cemetery; the crippling headache; my sudden virtual blindness. I remembered it all.

I lifted the arm not encumbered with hospital paraphernalia to my bandaged head.

‘Have you had to operate on me, for the headaches? The blindness?’

A deeply amused chortle came from the doctor. How could there be any humour in what I’d just asked?