Page 112 of The Interview
“My head was spinning. Then Marley and Ash came through the door, and it was like a calmness just washed over me. I was like, right, this is what’s happened, this is what needs to be done. Everyone is about to fall apart. Our life as the family unit we knew was never going to be the same, and somehow, you need to deal with it.” Len drains the contents of his glass, scratches at the stubble on his jaw, and looks around the room at each of us.
“And you did a fucking great job, son,” my dad says. “All of ya. During my family’sworstmoments, as a father, I had myproudestmoments. The way this lot pulled together for each other, for me and Bern, but more especially for Georgia, all while dealing with their own grief, blew me away.”
“Did you manage to get hold of Sean’s dad?” Daniel asks.
“His mum and his dad. She turned up at the hospital with his stepdad. His dad came into the room with us, but I got another room for his mum.” Len’s eyes slide from me to Daniel, and I realise he’s unsure what to say.
“Sean’s mum left his dad and married his dad’s brother, then went on to have two children with him. Worse than that, she told Sean a lot of lies when he was growing up about his dad being abusive, which he never was. Her new husband just didn’t want him being a part of Sean’s life. It’s why they were constantly on the move as he was growing up,” I explain.
“Right. I’m not sure our researchers discovered that. There’s nothing in my notes,” Daniel says.
“Probably too busy trying to dig up shit on me and George,” Cam says.
“Touché,” Daniel replies with a smile and a wink. “And where were you when you found out?” he asks Cam.
“In my office, watching everything unfold on Sky News. I called Bailey. The first time I got hold of him, he told me it was bad. Said that Sean was only being kept alive for Georgia to say her goodbyes. That she’d lost her baby and was currently in surgery, and they were trying to save her. He said he thought it would be kinder to let her go, that he didn’t think she’d want to live after such a loss.”
“I thought the same,” Marley says. I watch as he closes his eyes and lets out a long exhale. “I know, I know, it’s mental to think that I thought that now when you look at the woman she’s become, her life with Cam, the kids, and everything she’s achieved, but I’ll be one hundred percent honest with you right now, I honestly didn’t think she would ever recover from losing him.”
I feel like I’m floating.
“How does that make you feel?” Daniel asks. “That your brothers thought that?”
I close my eyes and attempt to let my thoughts settle.
“From the moment I woke up from my surgery and was told what had happened, right up until Cam came back into my life, I thought the exact same way as my brothers.”
“Who was it who told you?” he asks.
“Marley.”
“Me,” Marley says at the same time. “It was me who introduced them. I thought it was only fair. Mum and Dad were a mess, and the girls…”
“He stepped up,” my dad says. “When none of us had it in us, he stepped up and delivered an unimaginable blow. Proud of you, boy.”
Marley sends a small, tight smile Dad’s way, then his eyes find mine. I decide then that I won’t make my brother relive what must, still to this day, be one of the worst moments of his life.
“When I came round from my surgery in the recovery room, I knew instantly I was no longer pregnant, but it took a minute for me to remember the accident. I asked the nurse, who kept checking my obs, if I could see my baby, if they knew how my husband was. She just kept telling me that a doctor would talk to me once I was back up in my room and on the ward. I thought maybe he’d had to go to special care because he was four weeks early. I thought maybe Sean needed surgery because I had a vague recollection of seeing blood on the pavement by the side of his head. And then they wheeled me back up to my room, and everyone was there, my entire family. I thought that if I just kept my eyes closed, they’d all go home, but they didn’t. They stayed and whispered amongst themselves, but I couldn’t hear what they said. They cried, but I didn’t know what that meant, and that’s when I first started to think that Sean might’ve been badly hurt.
“I’d already wiggled all of my fingers and toes and knew all my limbs were working, so it wasn’t me. In the end, I opened my eyes, and Marley was sitting at the side of my bed.
“‘A car hit us,’ I told him like he didn’t know. I was being pumped full of pain relief and was in full-on panic mode, but thedrugs wouldn’t actually let me panic. I wanted to ignore what had happened. No, not ignore. I wanted to explain what had happened, so we didn’t have to talk about the consequences and why I was now in the hospital. The drugs, morphine, or whatever it was I was hooked up to, removed my inhibitions, and as much as I didn’t want to know the answer, I asked the question. I asked Marley where Sean was. I asked if he was with Beau. I imagined him doing skin-on-skin time in the special care unit. I knew that’s not where he was, but I imagined, and I hoped…”
“She asked if she’d had a caesarean,” Marley says. “I told her she’d had to have surgery.”
“And I still thought he meant a C-section, so for a few brief seconds, the briefest amount of time, I felt relief. I thought we were good. I asked if the surgery was to get him out, and Marley said, ‘Yeah, but he didn’t make it. Beau didn’t make it.’”
“The sound she made was like nothing I’ve ever heard,” Jimmie says.
“It’s not a sound a human should ever have to make, and it’s definitely not a sound a mother ever wants to hear her child make. Not when there’s worse to come and there’s nothing you can do to protect them from it,” my mum says, emotion so very apparent in her voice.
“And then she asked where he was, where Beau was, and if Sean was with him, but before I could answer, a doctor and nurse came in and were explaining what had happened, what had gone wrong. It was obvious George wasn’t taking any of it in, though. She’d been hit by a fucking car and thrown up in the air like a rag doll at eight months pregnant. Her placenta had ruptured and detached, her baby had died within minutes of the accident, and she’d nearly bled to death. They’d had to perform a partial hysterectomy to save her life.
“We all heard what they were saying, but George? George was just nodding, blank, numb, nothing. And then they asked ifshe wanted to see him, and she said…” My brother breaks. He sobs, and tears stream down his cheeks, dripping from his jaw. He draws in a few deep breaths then slowly releases them. “She sounded just like she did when she was a little girl. Like when our mum told us to mind our manners. They asked if she wanted to see Beau, and she said, ‘Yes, please,’ so fucking politely. They were bringing her dead baby to her, and George remembered her manners and said, ‘Yes, please. I’d like to see him.’ I don’t know why, but it broke me. It broke me then, and remembering it now, it’s doing the same.” Marley wipes away his tears.
Cam tops up his empty glass.
Marley takes a sip of his drink and continues.
