Rescue Heart

Chapter Seven

C h a p t e r . S e v e n

I hated hospitals. It would be fair to assume that having spent so much time in a hospital bed, that I would have grown accustomed to and comfortable with the sights, sounds, and smells. But I loathed them. The surgical, clinical smell stung my nose. The bright lights, the solid white and blue all around me burned my tired eyes, and the sound of beeping and crackling air vents gnawed at my ears. My senses were affronted, and this alone was enough to chase the sleep away. Added to the immense burden of worry, I had known from the start that I was in for a long, sleepless night.

A couple of hours after Tom and I arrived at the hospital, Mum was brought to a private ward for some ‘peace’ – if such a thing was possible to find in this environment. But her room was darkened, and much quieter than the horrible waiting room, and as I sank into a chair by her bed I found my eyes straining to close almost immediately, which made me feel almost guilty.

Mum had been put into an induced coma to allow her body to recover. The bleed in her brain had been dealt with, all that was left was for her to come to her senses again. There was no way to evaluate the damage that had been done until she woke again, but Tom and I had been warned to anticipate some memory loss, and potentially much more.

She was remarkably lucky to have escaped alive, although her bruised and battered body was a sorry sight. Her neck was smothered in protective bandages and splints covering her broken collarbone. Heavy bruises mottled her temples, and there was a large, bandaged patch on her head protecting the scar from her surgery. Her body was coated in nicks and grazes, with some severe lacerations where the glass from the smashed windows had sliced her skin. In addition to her broken collarbone, she’d fractured both wrists and sustained some muscle damage in her lower back that would take a while to heal.

“As a general rule, we ask the family members of all patients to adhere to our strict waiting times,” the on-duty nurse said with a slight frown. Her blank, grey eyes flickered to Tom and I, reading our expressions, and she sighed haughtily. “I suppose, just for tonight, I can let it pass. But you will need to leave when the day-shift nurses start in the morning, and you will only be able to visit during allocated times.” Her tone was shrill and brittle, like that of a prissy teacher who thrived on pointless lecturing. She seemed to enjoy having some form of authority over us, but in our emotionally-ruined states, we didn’t have anything to say to her, other than give her our muted thanks for being granted exception.

Mum was attached to a saline drip and a heart monitor by the nurse. The doctor checked her vitals, and together the two medical professionals scribbled a few things down on Mum’s chart, illegible medical jargon that I couldn’t decipher.

“Your mother just needs to rest now, and there should be no problems. If any difficulties arrise, please press the red alert button to alert one of the duty nurses,” the doctor informed, offering us a pitying look. He then left, trailed by his ‘tottie’ nurse, and they closed the door.

The room was shrouded in darkness, spare from the light glowing from the monitors, and the bright light from the corridors that seeped through the slats in the blinds. Tom sat in the shadows of the room, and although I couldn’t see the tears leaking from his eyes, I could hear his sharp intakes of breath between muffled sobs. I almost felt a shard of my heart splinter off, and fall away into the abyss of darkness in my chest, like the shattered shards of a glacier sinking to the depths of the ocean floor.

My brother pulled his chair closer to Mum’s bedside, and his hand found hers. Their fingers interlocked, and he placed a kiss on the bruised back of her hand, and held it close to his chest, screwing his eyes tightly shut.

There weren’t any words I could offer to my brother to comfort him in his sorrow. In a weird way, I felt senselessly numb and completely detached from all of this. It was almost as if I had no capacity left for emotion, no energy left to feel the very same pain that he was feeling. Because you’ve used up all your sympathy on yourself, I thought harshly. I felt something then; the burning resentment and self-loathing that had replaced any woeful misery I used to feel for myself.