Liam had kept asking when his dad was arriving, and Tess had felt all at once infuriated by her passive role, waiting for Felicity and Will to make their scheduled appearances. She’d called Will on his mobile. She was going to be icy and controlled and give him his first inkling of the almighty task that lay ahead of him.
“Tess,” said Will. He sounded distracted and strange.
“According to Felicity, you’re on your way over here—”
“I am,” interrupted Will. “I was. In a taxi. We had to stop. There was an accident just around the corner from your mum’s place. I saw it happen. We’re waiting for an ambulance.” His voice broke, and his voice became muffled. “It’s terrible, Tess. Little girl on a bike. About the same age as Liam. I think she’s dead.”
FIFTY-TWO
SATURDAY
The doctor reminded Cecilia of a priest or a politician. He specialized in professional compassion. His eyes were warm and sympathetic, and he spoke slowly and clearly, authoritatively and patiently, as if Cecilia and John-Paul were his students and he needed them to fully understand a tricky concept. Cecilia wanted to throw herself at his feet and hug his knees. As far as she was concerned, this man had absolute power. He was God. This man, this soft-spoken, bespectacled Asian man in a blue-and-white-striped shirt that was very similar to one John-Paul owned, was God.
Throughout the previous day and night there had been so many people talking at them: the paramedics, the doctors and nurses in the emergency department. Everyone had been nice, but rushed and tired, their eyes slipping and sliding. There was noise and bright white lights constantly shining in her peripheral vision, but now they were talking to Dr. Yue in the hushed, churchlike environment of Intensive Care. They were standing outside the glass-paneled room where Polly was lying on a high, single bed, attached to a plethora of equipment. She was heavily sedated. An intravenous drip had been inserted in her left arm. Her right arm was wrapped in gauze bandages. At some point one of the nurses had brushed her hair away from her forehead, pinning it off to one side so that she didn’t look quite like herself.
Dr. Yue seemed highly intelligent because he wore glasses, and perhaps because he was Asian, which was racial stereotyping, but Cecilia didn’t care. She hoped that Dr. Yue’s mother had been one of those pushy tiger mothers. She hoped poor Dr. Yue didn’t have any other interests apart from medicine. She loved Dr. Yue. She loved Dr. Yue’s mother.
But John-bloody-Paul! John-Paul didn’t seem to understand that they were speaking to God. He kept interrupting. He sounded too brusque. Rude, almost! If John-Paul offended Dr. Yue, he might not try as hard for Polly. Cecilia knew that this was just a job for Dr. Yue, and Polly was just another one of his patients, and that they were just another pair of distraught parents, and everyone knew that doctors, like airline pilots, were overworked and got exhausted and made tiny errors that turned out to be catastrophic. Cecilia and John-Paul had to differentiate themselves in some way. They had to make him see that Polly wasn’t just another patient, she was Polly, she was Cecilia’s baby girl, she was her funny, infuriating, charming little girl. Cecilia’s breath caught, and for a moment she couldn’t breathe.
Dr. Yue patted her arm. “This is incredibly distressing for you, Mrs. Fitzpatrick, and I know you’ve had a long night with no sleep.”
John-Paul glanced sideways at Cecilia, as if he’d forgotten she was there too. He took her hand. “Please just go on,” he said.
Cecilia smiled obsequiously at Dr. Yue. “I’m fine,” she said. “Thank you.” Look how very nice and undemanding we are!
Dr. Yue ran through Polly’s injuries. A serious concussion, but the CT scan had showed no sign of a serious brain injury. The pink sparkly helmet had done its job. As they already knew, internal bleeding was a concern, but they were monitoring and so far, so good. They already knew that Polly had suffered severe skin abrasions, a fractured tibia and a ruptured spleen. The spleen had already been removed. Many people lived without their spleens. She might have some danger of reduced immunity, and they would recommend antibiotics in the case of—