Splintered Memory

by Natascha Holloway

  Her friendship with Claire had always been a cause of dispute with Matt. The two of them just didn’t see eye to eye on anything, including her. They’d always bickered, but somehow she’d always been able to remain neutral. That had all changed though when Claire had started dating Nick. Somehow it seemed that their fledgling relationship had been the catalyst for all of her arguments with Matt, but it had only been recently that she’d realised just how much of a toll her friendship with Claire had and was having on her relationship with Matt.

  She couldn’t remember a time when they’d ever argued the way that they had been recently, and she knew that she owed it to him to address this with Claire. Charlie knew that Matt was the most important person to her, and that if something had to give in her life it’d never be him. Yet at the same time she owed Claire more than just a call to tell her this.

  There was also another issue. Charlie had never once broken a promise to Claire, and she’d promised her on her birthday to go with her when she went for her abortion. That had been today, and Charlie hadn’t felt right going back on her word. If she was honest she also hadn’t wanted to, despite knowing how angry Matt would be if he knew where she’d been today.

  She pressed her foot down harder on the accelerator and glanced at the time again. She was running late, and she knew that if she wanted to avoid having another argument with Matt about Claire then she needed to hurry. She’d told him to meet her in town at eight as they were going to their favourite Chinese restaurant, and she knew that she needed to go home first.

  She wanted to get back, unpack, shower and change. She wanted to look good tonight, because she knew that when she told Matt her news they’d be celebrating. She also knew that he was going to be shocked, but equally delighted when he heard what she had to tell him.

  Charlie had initially booked the table hoping to be able to tell him that she’d been made a senior associate at work, but she’d found out a few days ago that she hadn’t been promoted. To her surprise though, she hadn’t felt downcast about this news. It just hadn’t seemed to matter quite as much to her as she’d thought it would, although she had wondered if her reaction might’ve had something to do with her having found out only hours earlier that she was pregnant.

  She knew that Matt was going to be ecstatic when she told him. He’d wanted to start a family for a while now, but she knew that he hadn’t wanted to push her. He understood the demands of her career, just as she understood his, and he knew that she was devoted to making partner.

  Charlie was still devoted to making partner one day, but now she didn’t feel that there was quite so much of a rush about it. She’d also started to wonder if she might like to change roles. She’d been at her current firm since she’d left uni, and of late she’d started to find the daily grind less and less enjoyable.

  She’d thought that maybe she’d like to move away from a large firm and go in house with a company, or perhaps just move to a smaller firm. Yet after seeing everything that Claire had been going through recently, she’d realised just how much she wanted to have a family with Matt. She’d known that she hadn’t wanted to put it off anymore, especially not just for the sake of her career.

  Charlie hated that she’d been lying to him about work, about Claire, and about being pregnant. She felt guilty that he didn’t know but Claire did. They’d never kept secrets from each other, but until she’d made the decision about her career for herself she hadn’t wanted to discuss it with him. She’d known that he’d worry that she was giving up something that she’d always wanted in order for them to have a family, and she hadn’t wanted his worries or guilt about her career to make her doubt her own decision. She also hadn’t wanted to raise his hopes about them having a baby, if she hadn’t been one hundred percent sure that she had wanted to start a family.

  The very last thing she’d wanted to do was to tease him with the idea that they should try for a baby, only to change her mind. It wouldn’t have been fair on him. Unfortunately the problem was, when she’d finally made the decision to come off the pill they’d been arguing so much about Claire that she’d forgotten to tell him. So she knew that he didn’t even know that they’d been trying for a baby, which she felt sure was only going to add his surprise tonight.

  She looked again at her watch anxiously and breathed a sigh of relief. It was a quarter to five, and she knew now that it was okay. She was just coming off the M5 and onto the Bristol Road. If she really stepped on it she could be home just before five, which would give her enough time to hide her bag before Matt got home.

  She knew that she was making the assumption that he’d end his shift on time, which wasn’t all that likely, but she thought that it was better to be safe than sorry. She knew that if he beat her back home then she’d have to explain where she’d been, and then they’d argue and she’d never get the chance to tell him that she was pregnant.

  Glancing into the rear view mirror, she didn’t see the car in the lane next to her suddenly swerve into hers. Charlie slammed on the brakes, but it was too late. She heard the sound of her car hitting the one in front a second before she felt the impact of it. Her face smashed against the steering wheel and everything went dark.

  Emily

  She’d been supposed to meet Charlie for a glass of wine, but when she arrived at Matt and Charlie’s the back door was wide open. She smiled as she walked straight in, just as everyone always did at Matt and Charlie’s, and she shut the door behind her. She’d long since gotten used to it being left open by Matt, and shut by Charlie when she’d lived with them.

  She loved their house. Coming in from the backdoor you were immediately in their kitchen. It wasn’t big, but it was cosy. It also had just enough room for a small round table in the middle of it, which Matt used as a general dumping ground for his coat, keys, bag, and whatever else he had on him.

  The kitchen led straight onto the living room, and as Emily headed on through she stopped dead in her tracks. Matt was stood on one side of the living room and Charlie was stood on the other, and it was clear that they were right in the middle of a very heated argument.

  “Why is it too much for me to say that I’m sick of her putting all of her shit on you?” Matt yelled.

  “She’s my best friend. I shouldn’t confide her secrets to you, but I do because you’re my husband and I don’t want to keep any secrets from you. But her shit is my shit,” Charlie retorted.

  Matt sneered.

  “Fuck you!” Charlie said angrily.

  “So her being able to confide in you is more important than our relationship?” Matt asked.

  “No, but you’re being ridiculous! You’re my husband,” Charlie said. “You’ll always come first, but I won’t apologise for taking my friends feelings into account. Yes Claire’s fucked up, and I’m not denying that. But,” she continued as Matt went to intercede; “she does love Nick in her own way, and you shouldn’t be so eager all the time to ruin what they have.”

  “Me ruin it? You’re joking right? What if things were the other way around? What if I confided in you that Nick had been fooling around and had gotten some other girl pregnant? Are you telling me that you wouldn’t be straight on the phone to Claire?” Matt demanded.

  Charlie looked at him and opened her mouth to retort, but then she closed it again. Emily watched as Charlie’s face faltered as she realised that she didn’t have a response, and she slowly sank down onto the sofa and put her head in her hands. Emily saw the anger in Matt’s face drain as he too watched Charlie, and she followed him with her eyes as he walked across the room to sit down next to her.

  “I’m sorry,” Charlie said looking up into Matt’s face. “I hadn’t thought of it like that. I’d only seen things from Claire’s perspective. I’ll speak to her, and I won’t put you in the middle again I promise. But please, for now, for me, promise not to say anything to Nick,” she asked him softly as she put her hand delicately to his face and turned her body to face him.

  “Charlie,
” Matt said. Unfortunately his tone had already let him down by sounding defeated.

  “Please,” Charlie said sweetly. To which Emily watched Charlie smile and flash her big brown eyes at Matt. She then kissed his chin, his cheeks, and finally his lips. A knot formed in Emily’s stomach, and she seemed paralysed to the spot but she was unable to look away.

  “Pretty please,” Charlie said even more sweetly and continuing to give Matt little kisses.

  Emily watched Matt succumb to Charlie, and she watched them kiss. She heard their whispered apologies to each other between their increasingly ragged breaths, but just as she was forcing herself to turn away Charlie suddenly stood up and stripped off her top. Emily saw that she was braless underneath, and she felt her face flush. She turned to leave, but in the same instant Charlie saw her stood in the doorway. She tried to look away feeling incredibly embarrassed, and Charlie tried to cover herself up with the top that was still in her hands as she said; “hi!”

  “I thought we were having drinks? Sorry,” Emily said as she turned to leave.

  “No, wait,” Charlie said. “Shit. Sorry we are supposed to be having drinks, don’t go.”

  Matt, who had only looked over at Emily once his attention had been drawn to her by Charlie, stood up and looked at his wife with indignation. He had obviously been hoping that Charlie would let her go.

  “No, honestly, it’s okay. You obviously have other engagements,” Emily said nodding in Matt’s direction and feeling incredibly embarrassed as she felt her face burn brightly.

  “She does,” Matt said grinning at his wife and making Charlie also flush with embarrassment.

  Emily felt the knot in her stomach tighten, and a stab of jealousy cut through her chest.

  “Can you give us ten minutes? I’ll come and meet you in the pub,” Charlie said to Emily.

  “Oi,” Matt said poking Charlie in her side; “couldn’t you have said twenty?”

  Charlie laughed, as did Emily.

  “I’ll wait in the pub,” Emily said to Charlie before dashing from the room still feeling massively embarrassed.

  It was not the situation that had caused her embarrassment, but her jealousy. The jealousy that was still consuming her as she shut Matt and Charlie’s backdoor behind her and made her way to the pub.

  Matt

  “What have we got?” Matt asked the paramedics as the doors of the ambulance were opened, and he took the chart that the male paramedic handed to him. He then looked down at it and began reading it out loud; “female, unconscious, had to be intubated in the field...”

  “Dr Grayson,” Emily said interrupting him.

  He looked across at her. She was stood on the opposite side of the stretcher to him, and he could see that her face was full of concern. Yet it seemed to be full of concern for him and not the patient. He followed her eyes down to the female patient in front of them, and he saw that the unconscious female that had had to intubated in the field was Charlie.

  Matt dropped the chart that he’d been holding to the floor, and he stared almost unseeingly at Charlie. He didn’t hear any more of what was being said around him, because suddenly the whole world had been silenced. Lying there right in front of him was his wife. She had a tube in her throat, and there was blood on her face.

  “Charlie,” he said to her not letting the paramedics move the stretcher inside the hospital. He stroked her face lightly as though she was merely asleep, and like he did at home to wake her.

  “Dr Grayson,” Emily said to him urgently and taking his arm and pulling him out of the way; “we need to get her inside.”

  Everything in Matt’s had world stopped, and he didn’t understand. He’d been running late. He’d expected Charlie to be in town, either still at work or killing time before meeting him at the restaurant. Why had she been on the Bristol road? What was she doing in the car? Where had she been? Yet as the questions filled his mind, the answers instantly followed.

  He knew where she’d been, and he felt a sudden rush of anger towards his wife. He couldn’t believe that after all of their arguments, after all of her promises, she’d still gone to Bath to hold Claire’s hand while she aborted what could possibly be his friend’s baby.

  ***

  “How embarrassing,” Charlie said turning to face Matt after she’d heard Emily shut the back door to their house.

  “She lived here. She’s bound to have heard us having sex. What are you embarrassed for?” He asked smiling and then leaning in to kiss her neck.

  He ripped the top that she was holding in front of her out of her hands, and cast it onto the floor. He wrapped his arms around her waist, pulled her towards him, and pressed his body against hers as he leant forward to kiss her again.

  “What do you mean she would’ve heard us?” Charlie asked pulling back from his kiss.

  “We’ve got ten minutes till you’ve promised to go for a drink. Do you really want to spend them talking about whether or not Emily has ever heard us having sex, or would you rather that we actually go upstairs and have sex?” Matt asked grinning now, and again leaning in to kiss her.

  “Upstairs, stat,” Charlie said with a huge grin spreading across her face.

  Matt grabbed Charlie’s hand, and they headed towards the stairs together at full pace.

  ***

  Matt scrolled through his phone for Claire’s number, but he was so angry that when he found it he could barely hit the call button.

  “Hey Matt, if you’re calling for Charlie she left hours ago. Maybe she’s hit some bad traffic or something,” Claire said perfectly at ease.

  “She’s not in traffic,” Matt said through gritted teeth. His temper was rising to the point where everything he was seeing seemed to be tinged with red. “She’s been in accident.”

  “Oh my god, oh my god,” Claire said clearly panicking on the other end of the line.

  “Shut up Claire. God’s not going to help,” Matt said cruelly.

  “Is she going to be okay?” Claire asked.

  Matt hung up. He didn’t have enough patience to try and console Claire. It was her fault that Charlie had been in an accident, and he didn’t even know why he’d bothered calling her.

  He tried desperately to calm down, but he was just so angry. He leant against the wall outside the hospital and rested his head back, took some deep breaths, and tried unsuccessfully to clear his mind. He felt his phone vibrate, and he looked down at it and saw Claire’s name flashing up.

  “What?” He asked venomously.

  “Matt, Charlie’s pregnant. She was going to tell you tonight, but I thought you might need to know now,” Claire said. It sounded to Matt like she was crying, but he hung up without really caring or saying another word to her.

  He felt in shock, but he knew that whichever one of his colleagues was treating Charlie would need to know. He ran back inside and towards where he knew she would’ve been taken for treatment.

  “Matt you can’t go in there,” James said catching his upper arm as he went to carry on walking past him. “Matt, I’m serious. You’re no good to her in there. You can’t be her doctor.”

  “Who is in there?” Matt demanded of James aggressively, wrenching his arm out of James’ grip.

  “Oak’s in with her,” James responded.

  Matt did a double take. Oak was one of the best doctor’s at the hospital. He was calm under pressure, and he seemed to be able to make the right call about each and every patient without doubt or hesitation. He was nicknamed Oak because he had years of experience and wisdom, and was always around for all of the doctors to go to, but he rarely treated patients anymore.

  Oak believed that his experience was better used in guiding the talent of the future, but there were rumours that he drank and avoided patients. Matt though had dismissed these as nonsense. He’d often seen Oak watching over the carnage that the A&E regularly witnessed, and he’d always been able to jump in and lend a hand wherever and whenever it was needed.

  Matt couldn’t
decide whether it was a good thing or not though that Oak was in with Charlie. Did this mean that her condition was so bad that he’d had to step in? Or had he stepped in because everyone had known that it was Charlie? It was likely to be the first he knew. He didn’t even need to imagine what the rest of her chart had said. They’d already been warned that the female patient was likely to be DOA. He’d said as much to Emily.

  “He needs to know she’s pregnant,” Matt said hearing his voice crack as he said it and trying desperately to forget the idea of Charlie having been dead on arrival.

  James looked at him sympathetically, and then asked the obvious question that Matt cursed himself for never having asked Claire. “How far along is she?”

  Matt looked at him blankly. “I don’t know. She hadn’t gotten around to telling me yet,” he said.

  James turned and walked into the room where Charlie was being treated, and Matt could feel that he was shaking. He knew that he was in shock, and he knew that he was seconds from falling apart. He walked away from the room where Charlie’s life was potentially hanging in the balance, and he all but ran towards his office. He could feel the panic rising within him, and it was beginning to overpower him. He felt like his heart was about to be torn wide open.

  Matt only just made it to his office before the tears came, but embarrassed by his reaction he punched the wall. As he felt the pain in his right hand burn, he began to cry in earnest. He slid down the wall, pulled his knees up to his chest, and put his head in his hands.

  ***

  “That was amazing,” Matt said to Charlie. He was smiling, and feeling exhilarated as they walked out of the Red Sea and back up onto the beach where they’d left their towels and clothes.

  They were each holding their snorkels and flippers in their hands, and as he looked across at Charlie he thought for what was probably the hundredth time that day just how lucky he was. She was beautiful, and she looked phenomenal in the black bikini that she had on. Added to this her skin was enhanced by a week’s worth of Egyptian sun, and her body was currently sparkling from the reflection of the water that was still desperately clinging to her bronzed skin.