Page 49 of The Life We Almost Had

‘Of course.’ He nodded.

‘Can I… Can I touch him?’ I glanced towards the bed, and the tubes and wires coming out of Adam’s hand, his mouth, his stomach. Everywhere.

‘Yes.’ His voice was softer now. ‘You won’t dislodge anything if you’re careful. Please try and rest though. It’s understandable that you want to be here but you have to look after yourself. Think about your unborn child.’

And just like that, he tore me in two.

‘I’ll speak to you again tomorrow.’ He hesitated at the door. ‘Mrs Curtis, I hate to ask but if you could give the details of your travel insurance to reception, someone can get onto them first thing. It sounds clinical, I know, but it is necessary.’

‘Yes, I will,’ I said. I didn’t have the policy but I remembered Adam saying he was booking it through the travel agent.

Somebody else to ring.

Something else to do, when all I wanted to do was cry.

Outside, a fist of darkness snatched the last of the daylight away. Adam’s room was gloomy, lit only by the light from the corridor spilling through the window, but I preferred it this way. After Dr Acevedo left, I’d cautiously approached Adam’s bed, almost scared of this man I had been married to for the past five years. He was vulnerable in a way I hadn’t seen him before. I had sat, watching intently, for a flicker of eyelids, for the movement of a finger,a toe, however tiny. My head had throbbed with shock and sadness and fear.

‘Wake up. Adam, please wake up.’ My whispers had been urgent, the way they sometimes were in the middle of the night when I had thought I’d heard something. Adam would instantly spring awake and pad downstairs barefoot, in his boxers. There was never anybody there and Adam, in our first few years together, had never complained about being woken. In more recent times, he had huffed and sighed his way back to bed and I’d tetchily asked if he’d rather stay asleep and be murdered. He had dramatically rolled over, pulling the covers to his chin, telling me I was being ridiculous.

‘Adam,’ I whispered again. I wouldn’t have cared if he’d called me all the names under the sun if I’d managed to rouse him. I didn’t care about any of the small things anymore, because the big thing, the most important thing, was that he woke up so we could go home. ‘Wake up,’ I whispered again, ignoring the pitiful expression on the nurse’s face who remained in the corner of the room, like a statue.

But he hadn’t.

I talked incessantly, reminding him that he had a life worth coming back to. When I’d exhausted our memories, when I’d been exhausted by our memories, I plucked random countries from my mind and talked about his plans to visit them. ‘France. You remember that’s where you were going to start your trip, Adam? You were going to eat frogs’ legs and croissants and visit the Notre-Dame.’ We had talked about it sometimes, the two of us completing Adam’s dream trip before we started a family, but I hadn’t wanted to leave my home. My family and friends. It wasn’t only the thought of Mum living alone, without Dad, coping with Nan;I found the thought of months living out of a rucksack daunting rather than exciting. I wondered whether Adam ever regretted not going. Whether he ever regretted meeting me. ‘We could go now,’ I offered. ‘You, me and the baby. The adventure of a lifetime. That’s what Nell toasted on the plane when we first flew out here. Did I ever tell you that? It has been, hasn’t it? The adventure of a lifetime, you and me?’ We may not have travelled or done anything notable but we had made a life together, we had created this new life that bloomed inside of me.

Hours later I was quiet; I had been dozing on and off but was awake once more. Through the greying light I could barely make out his features. I held his hand, careful where I placed my fingers and closed my eyes, stroking his thumb with mine. It could be just he and I as dawn broke. Throughout the night I had adjusted to the noises in the corridor outside, the squeak of a trolley being wheeled in the corridor, the chatter of nurses, the odd peal of laughter, relegating them to the background. It was nothing but white noise. Oddly comforting.

‘Okay, mister. Hint taken. I’ll shut up and let you sleep for now. You must be exhausted after all your hero antics yesterday. I can’t believe you’ve saved me from almost drowning twice. But soon it will be time to get up. We can’t all laze about in bed. Some of us are growing a life, remember? And if you don’t wake up, you’re going to end up with a child named Charlotte or Harry. Neither of which you liked.’

I cast my mind back to five years ago. The way we thought it would effortlessly happen for us. Knitting another square in our patchwork blanket of the family we wanted to create had almost caused us to unravel. I tried to remember how it was when we were happy. But I couldn’t. It was impossible to focus on anything except the here and now.The fear that I was losing him. The nagging, gnawing feeling in the pit of my stomach telling me I had caused this. Divine intervention. Wasn’t that what I believed I had wanted, last week, last month, last year? To be without him? And now that I was faced with that prospect, I found myself clinging on too hard.

Too tightly.

The following day Adam was still under sedation. Still just lying there, and although I knew it was safer this way so the pressure in his brain didn’t increase, I longed for them to wake him up. The nurse urged me to go back to the hotel to shower and rest, but I convinced myself that we’d only be here for one more night. That tomorrow Adam would wake and we’d both be leaving together. For the second night, I settled down at the side of his bed and tried to snatch some sleep.

My heart pounded. At first I wasn’t sure what had pulled me from my fitful dreams. It wasn’t the nurse carrying out her regular checks. Adam’s machines were still illuminated, still silent. No alarm had sounded. Then I felt it. A cramping in my stomach. Not a niggling, time-of-the-month cramp. Or cramps from not eating properly for two days. Steel fists twisting my insides. Sweat slick on my skin. The scrubs I was still wearing sticking to me. My breath came hard and fast. I doubled over on the chair, waiting for the pain to stop. When it finally did, I cautiously raised my head. Where was the nurse? There was supposed to be somebody in the room with Adam at all times. I willed my pain-weak body to stand so I could fetch her, but the pain hit again. Winded, I crossed my arms over my stomach and dropped forward, my head almost in my lap. The spasms were intense.The way I imagined contractions would feel. My body fighting to push something out.

No.

There was a dampness between my legs. I was crying now. The pain unbearable, both physical and emotional.

No.

Waves of nausea battered me. I vomited all over the floor. Shaking, my hand reached for the emergency buzzer. I wrapped my arms around myself tightly as though I could hold myself together.

As though I could keep my baby inside.

‘Please,’ I gasped as the nurse rushed into the room, flicking on the light. ‘Please. There’s something wrong with me.’

I stood to move towards her but the floor shifted beneath my feet. The last thing I could remember before the blackness swallowed me was trying to make a deal with God to keep my baby safe. Trading my life for my child’s. Trading Adam’s life.

The second I had thought that, I hated myself and I tried to take it back. I wanted them both. I needed them both.

Adam, don’t die.

He was the last thing I saw as my vision tunnelled.

My last conscious thought.

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