and dragged herself from the scratchy mattress like it was cartoon quicksand. She was determined not to think about Matt and his new wife and their new baby. Determined but damned.
The shadows were so long, she didn’t know what time it was, or how long she had been lying there.
Alex paced into the bathroom. She peed, washed her face with expensive cleansing wash that made her gray skin squeak and then cantered quickly downstairs. Down to the glass and the bottle, and the bottle next to that. And a “fuck it” number of bottles after that too.
J acob had spent an hour in the ward and it hadn’t been enough. Time is not a good healer. Time is a blank page on which the left behind scribble their regrets and their confessions.
This weekly trip to medical purgatory was taking its toll.
Jacob had sat with Natasha Carroll as his final patient. He had held her expensive porcelain hand in his and felt his eyes grow watery and heavy. She had kept her peaceful expression, a sacred statue with its face up to someone’s god.
Natasha Carroll was in a better place. Not philosophically, or religiously, but mentally. Her thoughts were elsewhere, a summer’s dream, set somewhere far more cheerful than this clinical tomb.
Jacob, on the other hand, was very much stuck here. After saying goodbye to Natasha and waving to the nurses, he had stumbled out of the hospital and into the bright sunlight. He was not sated but utterly spent by his time with Amy.
Jacob caught sight of his wrung-out reflection in the window. His sandy hair was speckled with a new gray, the skin around his squinting eyes shriveled like burnt plastic. Guilt was rotting him from the inside out.
He’d staggered just a few feet and then sat down heavily on the gravelly, uneven floor outside the old hospital block, which loomed over him like a prison tower.
Cross-legged and perfectly still, shoulders slumped, Jacob felt his lower back brush the cool of the crumbling brickwork building. His spine felt anchored. So rooted that if an ambulance suddenly veered toward him, he’d be incapable of moving out of its path.
The morning before the hospital visit had been tough. Fiona was allowed half days off work for midwife appointments, and she’d wanted Jacob to take her for brunch after they went for the checkup. The checkup would finish around 10:45 a.m. and the surgery was at least ten minutes by car from the hospital, not including parking time. If he’d had brunch with Fiona, he’d not have had any time left to visit. It was that simple. Fiona or Amy.
He had decided that he would avoid the hospital this week. He would avoid Amy. He told Fiona that, yes, it would be lovely to go for brunch together before they both returned to work.
But in the midwife’s room at the surgery he had watched Fiona’s tummy shiver as the cold gel was dolloped onto the bump; he had held his breath in the half second before the Fetal Doppler whooped into life; he had felt his eyes prickle at the runaway heartbeat of his unborn baby.
With a room filled with the very sound of life and potential, he had thought of Amy.
He had thought of Amy’s heartbeat, weak and whispering. He thought of her years ago when her broken body was threaded with wires and drips and sustained by great hunks of machinery. Back then her heartbeat was barely audible, the needle that recorded it skittered so sporadically up and down the lined paper that every pause seemed like an end.
Right now, Jacob’s unborn baby was gearing up for life, armed with this thundering heart, determined little fists and unspoilt mind. Meanwhile Amy lay trapped, souring like milk on a windowsill.
Jacob’s phone trilled, scattering his thoughts away. Fiona. Jacob shook his head, slapped his face a couple of times and answered.
“Hi, sweetheart, what’s up?”
As he spoke, the liquid-gold sunshine prickled all over his bare arms.
“I’m sorry to bother you, I was just a bit worried.”
He cleared his throat.
The shadows were so long, she didn’t know what time it was, or how long she had been lying there.
Alex paced into the bathroom. She peed, washed her face with expensive cleansing wash that made her gray skin squeak and then cantered quickly downstairs. Down to the glass and the bottle, and the bottle next to that. And a “fuck it” number of bottles after that too.
J acob had spent an hour in the ward and it hadn’t been enough. Time is not a good healer. Time is a blank page on which the left behind scribble their regrets and their confessions.
This weekly trip to medical purgatory was taking its toll.
Jacob had sat with Natasha Carroll as his final patient. He had held her expensive porcelain hand in his and felt his eyes grow watery and heavy. She had kept her peaceful expression, a sacred statue with its face up to someone’s god.
Natasha Carroll was in a better place. Not philosophically, or religiously, but mentally. Her thoughts were elsewhere, a summer’s dream, set somewhere far more cheerful than this clinical tomb.
Jacob, on the other hand, was very much stuck here. After saying goodbye to Natasha and waving to the nurses, he had stumbled out of the hospital and into the bright sunlight. He was not sated but utterly spent by his time with Amy.
Jacob caught sight of his wrung-out reflection in the window. His sandy hair was speckled with a new gray, the skin around his squinting eyes shriveled like burnt plastic. Guilt was rotting him from the inside out.
He’d staggered just a few feet and then sat down heavily on the gravelly, uneven floor outside the old hospital block, which loomed over him like a prison tower.
Cross-legged and perfectly still, shoulders slumped, Jacob felt his lower back brush the cool of the crumbling brickwork building. His spine felt anchored. So rooted that if an ambulance suddenly veered toward him, he’d be incapable of moving out of its path.
The morning before the hospital visit had been tough. Fiona was allowed half days off work for midwife appointments, and she’d wanted Jacob to take her for brunch after they went for the checkup. The checkup would finish around 10:45 a.m. and the surgery was at least ten minutes by car from the hospital, not including parking time. If he’d had brunch with Fiona, he’d not have had any time left to visit. It was that simple. Fiona or Amy.
He had decided that he would avoid the hospital this week. He would avoid Amy. He told Fiona that, yes, it would be lovely to go for brunch together before they both returned to work.
But in the midwife’s room at the surgery he had watched Fiona’s tummy shiver as the cold gel was dolloped onto the bump; he had held his breath in the half second before the Fetal Doppler whooped into life; he had felt his eyes prickle at the runaway heartbeat of his unborn baby.
With a room filled with the very sound of life and potential, he had thought of Amy.
He had thought of Amy’s heartbeat, weak and whispering. He thought of her years ago when her broken body was threaded with wires and drips and sustained by great hunks of machinery. Back then her heartbeat was barely audible, the needle that recorded it skittered so sporadically up and down the lined paper that every pause seemed like an end.
Right now, Jacob’s unborn baby was gearing up for life, armed with this thundering heart, determined little fists and unspoilt mind. Meanwhile Amy lay trapped, souring like milk on a windowsill.
Jacob’s phone trilled, scattering his thoughts away. Fiona. Jacob shook his head, slapped his face a couple of times and answered.
“Hi, sweetheart, what’s up?”
As he spoke, the liquid-gold sunshine prickled all over his bare arms.
“I’m sorry to bother you, I was just a bit worried.”
He cleared his throat.
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