Page 33 of One Step Behind
As we reach the bed, I try to wriggle my hand away from Nick’s. Our palms are sweating and my fingers are starting to hurt from Nick’s grasp, but he doesn’t let go.
‘Hello,’ I say.
‘Hi,’ the woman replies. ‘Are you here to see’ – she pauses, glancing at the bed for a moment – ‘Matthew?’
‘I’m his sister – Sophie.’
Nick clears his throat. ‘And I’m Nick. Sophie’s boyfriend. How do you know Matthew?’ There’s an amused smile tugging at Nick’s lips and I can see the thoughts rolling through his mind. He thinks this woman is Matthew’s girlfriend.
‘I’m Jenna Lawson. I’m the A&E doctor who treated Matthew on Thursday.’
Nick clicks his fingers. ‘Yes, that’s where I know you from.’
‘Excuse me?’ Jenna says.
‘I thought I recognized you from somewhere. I never forget a face. I had appendicitis last year,’ he says as though trying to prompt Jenna’s memory. ‘I walked into A&E clutching my stomach, thinking I was going to die, and you guys wheeled me straight up to a ward and into surgery.’
Jenna gives an apologetic look. It’s clear she doesn’t remember Nick. ‘We see a lot of faces in A&E. A lot of appendicitis too.’
‘Of course,’ Nick shrugs.
‘Do you know what happened?’ I ask. ‘The police said he was hit by a bus.’ And they don’t think it was an accident. I forgot to tell Nick the other night, but if I say anything now, he’ll think I was hiding it from him.
‘That’s all I know, I’m afraid. I’m not his doctor any longer but I can find someone to talk you through his injuries.’
‘Thanks.’
Nick’s hand tightens around mine and I have to bite the inside of my lip to stop myself yelling out.
‘Can’t you just tell us?’ Nick asks, glancing at his watch. ‘Since you treated him.’
Jenna looks to me and I nod. ‘Please.’
‘Your brother was brought into A&E on Thursday afternoon. He had a dislocated jaw and elbow, a broken leg and a pneumothorax.’ Jenna’s voice changes. She sounds so sure of herself, but she’s talking fast and I struggle to keep up.
‘What does that mean?’ Nick cuts in and for the first time I’m glad he’s here. I would never have asked.
‘One of his ribs broke and punctured his lung, causing it to collapse. We were able to fit a chest tube that re-inflated it. He also had a bleed in his brain from a head injury, which is why he’s in intensive care.’
‘Is he in one of those vegetative states?’ I turn to stare at Matthew, my vision blurring. He looks smaller, like the little boy he used to be. I think of the nights we spent with my duvet pulled over our heads and a torch on, Matthew crying at the sound of Mum and Dad’s shouts, and me telling him silly stories about flying dogs to make him laugh, pretending I wasn’t just as sad and scared as he was.
Guilt worms in the pit of my stomach. Is there something I could’ve done to stop this?
Jenna shakes her head. ‘No. He’s in a medically induced coma, which means we’re giving him a drug that is keeping his body and his brain shut down to allow his brain time to heal. Until the swelling reduces we won’t know what, if any, brain damage there might be.’
‘Can he hear us? Should I talk to him?’
‘No one really knows. You should talk to him if you want to.’
‘I don’t know what to say.’ I look to Jenna as my breath catches in my throat and I can’t breathe properly over the emotions raging through my body. I wish I was anywhere but here right now.
From across the bay the alarm stops and quietsettles over the room again. I listen to the thud, thud, beep, shhh, thud, thud, beep, shhh of the machines that are keeping my brother alive.
I wonder if I should take his hand. We’ve never been touchy-feely siblings. Hellos and goodbyes have always been accompanied with a wave, never a kiss, never a hug, and in the end I decide it would be too weird to touch him now.
If I was alone right now, without Nick or the doctor beside me, I’d ask him, ‘Aren’t you going to say something?’
How many times have I asked him that exact six-word question? Hundreds. Thousands probably. It became a joke between us before everything changed. He never answered me, but sometimes he’d raise an eyebrow as if he was asking me a question back.What do you want me to say?
