‘I’m familiar with Dr Chapman’s work and while I commend his research into neurological disease, I can tell you now what’s in Adam’s mind. Nothing.’
He’s always been more pessimistic than I’d like, but his opinion is still a punch to the gut.
I glance at Adam. When I had sat by his bedside talking to him, I had longed for him to be able to hear me but now I hope he isn’t listening to this.
‘Dr Acevedo.’ Oliver steps in. ‘I can return with the Institute’s solicitor if you’d prefer, but can we perhaps talk outside?’ He pushes his glasses nervously onto the bridge of his nose. I don’t hold out any hope that he can talk Dr Acevedo around but when they come back into the room, Dr Acevedo has Adam’s release papers and a pen. My hand is quivering. It takes me three attempts to scrawl my signature.
‘You’re doing the right thing,’ Nell says.
Adam is wheeled along the corridor, with me once again trotting at his side. This time the doctors from the Institute are speaking in English, chatting to me, trying to put me at ease. It’s so different to when we arrived, but the fear… the fear is still the same.
Am I going to lose him?
Once Adam is settled at the Institute, I return to the apartment to pack our things.
‘You do think I’m doing the right thing?’ I ask Nell for the hundredth time as we eat our last dinner together.
‘Absolutely. I was reading this thing online—’
‘Please. No more science.’ My head’s throbbing.
‘Sorry. It’s just so fascinating. I might train to be a neuroscientist. Imagine that! I could win the Nobel Peace Prize.’
‘I think you could do anything, Nell, and Dr Stevens has a nice ring to it.’ I spear a piece of fish with my fork. ‘I wish you weren’t going home tomorrow.’ Everything seems manageable with her here.
‘I wish I didn’t have to, but it’s only for a few days while Chris sorts out cover at work and can look after the kids. I’ll fly out again next week.’
Next week. By then everything might have changed.
Or nothing.
‘Anna, you could always wait until I’m back to start the trial?’
‘I’ll think about it.’ We both know I won’t. We’re painfully aware that time is precious. That it might be running out.
A 3 per cent chance of recovery.
‘He’ll come back to me, Nell, won’t he?’
She squeezes my hand.
The car Oliver sent to fetch me winds around the coastal road. Out of the window I see nothing but darkness. Night has settled, merging the sea with the sky. It’s odd to think of Nell sleeping in the apartment, alone in the double bed Adam and I should be sharing. Tomorrow she’ll be back in the UK, but I won’t be alone. I’m grateful for Oliver and his support.
Back at the centre, in front of Adam’s door, I am introduced to Luis.
‘He’ll be Adam’s main nurse,’ Oliver tells me. ‘There’ll be somebody with Adam at all times but if you have any concerns and Luis isn’t on shift, he will likely be in his room just across the corridor. You can call him any time, day or night.’
‘I’ll be checking on Adam regularly, Mrs Curtis, whether I’m working or not.’ He shakes my hand.
‘Call me Anna, please, Luis. So… what happens if something goes wrong? At the hospital there was an alarm. So many doctors and nurses.’
‘We’ve a large medical team, please don’t worry,’ Oliver says. ‘Adam will receive state-of-the-art care here.’
‘I know but…’ But I’m having second thoughts. It’s too quiet here without the clatter and chatter I’ve become used to.
‘Here.’ Oliver pushes a button into my hand. ‘Press it.’
My thumb presses down and immediately a siren blasts, orange lights strobe. Within seconds the corridor is filling with people. Oliver taps on his phone and the siren falls silent, the lights stop flashing.
‘Feel better?’ he asks kindly.
‘Yes. Thanks. I think I’ll go to bed now.’
‘Do you want me to come in with you? Your luggage is already inside. I could help you unpack?’
I shake my head.
Everyone slips away until it is just me, my fingertips on Adam’s door handle, steeling myself to go inside and when I do, disappointment bites. There’s still the flash of the monitor. A nurse stationed in the corner. My eyes fill with hot tears. It’s ridiculous I had harboured an expectation that it would be different here. I’d felt a bubbling hope under the surface of my skin that perhaps moving him would trigger something. That now I’d have found him sitting up in bed, reading. The lamp blazes – and I hate myself for all the times I’d complained that he was keeping me awake. Our last row was only a few days before Adam had booked our holiday.
‘The light’s too bright. I’m trying to bloody sleep.’ I had sat upright, shielding my eyes.
‘I can’t read without it. Sorry, I won’t be—’
‘Why can’t you just buy a kindle like normal people?’ I had made a show of thumping my pillows, throwing myself back down with a sigh.
‘I like the feel of a paperback in my hand.’ He had turned the page.
‘You wouldn’t get that bloody rustling with a kindle either.’
‘Christ, Anna. Next you’ll be saying I breathe too loud.’
I had muttered under my breath.
‘Is there anything I do lately that doesn’t irritate you?’ Adam had snapped.
I had remained silent and when Adam slammed his book onto his cabinet and clicked off the light, I had lain rigid with anger long after he’d fallen asleep. I had thought I hated him. I had thought I didn’t love him anymore.
‘I’m so sorry.’ I crawl over the safety rail on the bed and lay beside him. ‘I’ll make everything better, if you just wake up.’
We need to learn to communicate again; my session with Eva has taught me that. I try to remember the us that used to talk for hours. Lately we’d passed Grandad’s coin back and forth instead of using words. I loved the sentiment behind it but it made us lazy. It made us think that was enough.
It wasn’t.
I have been unhappy these past few years. That hasn’t always been the case throughout our marriage, but in this moment when I try to think of Adam, remember why I fell in love with him, this is the Adam that now comes to mind. The one with tubes and wires, skin as pale as the sheet he lies upon. But still, I want him back. Surely things will be different now I’ve had a glimpse of life without him?
Will they? Will our problems have magically disappeared?
I’m exhausted with it all. I curve my body against his and rest my head on his shoulder. I can’t believe that I’m questioning us. Still unsure of who we are and who we’ll be when Adam wakes up. Who Adam will be. If I was questioning if I loved Adam before, how would I be if he were a stranger? If he couldn’t talk. If I had to wash him, feed him, dress him every single day. Would he even know who I am?
My thoughts should be full of love and hope and positivity, but they’re not. I feel lost and scared and confused.
Tomorrow.
Tomorrow I’ll find out what’s inside Adam’s head.
My last waking thought is that I hope it’s better than the doubts filling mine.
Chapter Forty-Two
Anna
My breakfast has been brought to me. The breeze is soothing as I sit at the table by the open window, pushing an egg with a sunshine-yellow yolk around my plate. It feels wrong to eat solid food while Adam is metres away being fed through a tube. I’m not hungry. Nerves are squirming in my stomach. Later this morning Oliver and Sofia will be here and the clinical trial will start. For the millionth time I question whether I’m doing the right thing, not just for Adam but for me. Yesterday I hadn’t thought beyond what might be in Adam’s mind but today I’m worried about me. Am I being selfish? How will Mum cope if something happens to me? The letter I left with Nell doesn’t seem enough. All of a sudden, I feel the urge to talk to Mum. I’d i
ntended to ring her before Adam’s cardiac arrest but, distracted, I still haven’t called and told her about the accident.
‘I’ll be back soon.’ I kiss Adam and slip out of the door.
The beach is almost empty. It’s still early but the sun is already throwing out warmth. The sky is brilliant blue and cloudless; it’s going to be scorching later. I sit. The sand is damp beneath my cotton sundress. I kick off my flip-flops and cross my legs under me. It takes several deep breaths of the salty air before I can dial Mum’s number. I know she’ll be up, pottering around her kitchen, checking her wall planner to see what she’s filling her day with.
‘Hello, love. I didn’t expect to hear from you while you’re away.’
Her voice renders me mute. Overcome with the emotion of needing her.
‘Anna, what’s wrong?’
‘I don’t want you to worry but—’
‘Oh God, it’s terrorists, isn’t it? Are you somewhere safe?’
‘It isn’t terrorists—’
‘A tsunami. You need to be somewhere high—’
‘Mum! It’s Adam.’ I pause to let that settle in. ‘There’s been an accident.’ Slowly, reluctantly, I tell her, not everything – not about the baby or the clinical trial – but enough.
‘But he will wake up?’
I close my eyes. She sounds so close it’s as though I can reach out my hand and touch her. I wish that I could.
‘His original doctor, Dr Acevedo, said that typically comas last between two and four weeks.’ I keep the details as vague as I can.
Two years. Twelve years. Twenty years.
‘A month! Oh, Anna. I’ll come. I’ll book a flight and—’
‘You can’t. Nan needs you.’
‘You need me.’ I’ve never heard her sound so strong. So determined. After Dad died, every single decision she had to make took forever as she endlessly deliberated. Constantly asking my opinion. Leaning on me the way she’d always leaned on him, sometimes too much. I was grieving too.
‘I’m okay. Adam’s got a great new doctor, Oliver Chapman, and Nell’s coming out in a few days – she rang a few moments ago to see how the holiday is going.’ I lie to spare her feelings. She’ll be hurt that Nell knew several days ago and had flown out straight away.
‘I can be there—’
‘I know. And thank you, but let’s give it a few days and see what happens. Adam could wake and we’ll be home before you get here! I’m coping.’
‘I’ve no doubt about that. You’ve always been a tough little thing. After Dad… you did so much. Too much. I wasn’t in a good state, but I’m okay now. Please don’t feel you have to keep things from me.’
‘I won’t. Mum, about Dad. Is there anything you wish you could have told him when he was in hospital that you didn’t get to say?’ We had all thought he’d recover. None of us said goodbye.
‘Yes,’ Mum answers straight away. ‘I talked to him while he was unconscious. I don’t know if it’s possible he could have heard me. The doctor and one of the nurses said he couldn’t, but there was another nurse who said she believed he could. Anyway, I told him that I’d be changing his diet, swapping sticky toffee puddings for fruit and that we’d dig out his golf clubs from the garage, make sure he got some exercise. But what I didn’t say, what I should have said, is that I’d be okay without him. Not because I wanted to be without him, or I believed I would be okay, but because…’ She falters. ‘Because if he could have heard me, it would have reassured him. Made letting go that little bit easier. He always worried so much and I hate to think his last thoughts were wondering how I’d cope alone.’
She sniffs and I know she is crying too.
I’m doing the right thing.
What comfort Oliver’s work could have brought Mum. Knowing that Dad could hear her would have made such a difference. Would have allowed her to say all the things she needed to make it easier for him. For her.
‘I’ve got to go, Mum, but I’ll call you soon.’
‘I love you, Anna.’
‘I love you too.’
And leaving my doubts and fears on the beach, I head back up the incline to the Institute.
It is time.
I shuffle out of my bedroom, self-conscious in the gown Sofia has given me to put on. All of my bras have underwire and because I can’t wear anything with metal in the scanner, I’d had to take it off. Self-consciously I cross my arms across my chest as I pad, in socked feet, to find Oliver.
Again, he shows me the console room where he and Sofia will be watching me, both through the glass and via the computer screen. Luis settles Adam on the patient table, as I now know it is called.
‘The scanners are notoriously noisy,’ Oliver tells me. ‘Unfortunately the knocking sound you’ll hear is something we couldn’t entirely eradicate with our new design but you’ll be wearing noise-cancelling headphones. I’ve a microphone in the console room and I’ll be able to speak to you. There’s a mic within the machine so you can talk to me. I want you be comfortable and if you’re not, just say and I’ll get you out as quickly as I can.’
‘Okay.’ Nerves writhe around my stomach. ‘There is enough air in the machine for both of us?’ Oliver’s new design may be larger than usual but now I’m about to go inside it, it seems impossibly small.
‘Absolutely. Some people can experience anxiety in a confined space but, again, we can get you out at any time.’
I don’t care how bad it gets or how panicky I feel. I won’t ask to stop. This is possibly my only chance to do this.
‘We’ll be timing you for thirty minutes and then we’ll call a halt. Potentially it might feel much longer; I’m sure you’ve had dreams that seem to have lasted an extraordinarily long time, but when you woke up, you might only have been asleep for several minutes?’
‘Yes.’
‘In a dream state, the processing speed of our subconscious mind is much faster than the conscious mind. An event that in reality might take hours can be experienced in just seconds in the subconscious mind.’
‘Last night I dreamed about the time Adam and I stayed up all night on the beach talking, seven years ago. I woke thinking it must be morning but I’d only been asleep for twenty minutes.’ It was all so vivid. The taste of cheap wine like vinegar on my tongue. The setting sun burning orange. Clicking our love lock to the fence. The smell of salt. The feel of Adam’s skin under my fingers. Tracing the map-shaped birthmark staining his arm.
‘That’s because your brain understands how long that night took and used your real-life experience to simulate the passage of time. Minutes can seem like hours.’
Hours with Adam is what I want more than anything right now.
‘If there’s anything in Adam’s consciousness we’re hoping to record it, but again, this is a prototype and its capabilities on paper may not match the reality. I don’t want you to get your hopes up.’
I try to force a smile. My hopes are sky-high. ‘I know. Can we just start, please?’
‘Okay.’ A smile stretches across Oliver’s face before his features settle into serious scientist once more. I can’t blame him for being excited. This is his life’s work. His big dream. Suddenly I am heavy with the weight of responsibility that I might let him down.
I settle myself on the table next to Adam, linking my fingers through his. Sofia slips the goggles onto me and then the headphones. There’s a jerk and then we’re sliding into the scanner. I’m not claustrophobic but the sense of heat, of being closed in, is uncomfortable, and if this wasn’t my chance of seeing what Adam is thinking, I’d be tempted to scramble out. There’s a hiss and then Oliver’s voice sounds through the headphones.
‘Okay, Anna?’
‘Yes.’ My voice sounds inaudible to me.
‘I’m going to count down from ten and then we’ll begin.’
Ten
Am I doing the right thing?
Nine
I am terrified there’ll be nothing there.
Eight<
br />
Terrified there’ll be something there and it will be unbearable.
Seven
What if he’s thinking he doesn’t love me anymore?
Six
What if he knows I’ve been questioning my love for him?
Five
I can’t breathe in the machine.
Four
My heart is racing too fast.
Three
I want to stop. I’ve changed my mind.
Two
I have to know.
One
Adam, I’m coming for you.
Chapter Forty-Three
Oliver
Oliver stares at the scanner through the window, his senses on high alert as he listens for signs that something is happening, watching to ensure Anna isn’t trying to climb out of the machine in panic, but she is still and silent.
‘Sofia?’ he asks quietly. He knows his assistant is studying the computer screen, while he stares through the window – he can’t tear his eyes away from the machine in the other room.
‘There’s nothing.’
‘Nothing as in it’s not recording or nothing as in the equipment isn’t doing what we thought?’
‘Either? Both? I can’t tell.’
‘What are you seeing?’
‘Darkness. Nothing but darkness. But we can’t expect it all to run smoothly the first time, can we? You know what Edison said: “I haven’t failed, I’ve just found ten thousand ways that didn’t work.” Let’s leave her for the thirty minutes and see if anything changes.’
But it doesn’t.
The computer screen remains black.
Chapter Forty-Four
Anna
My head is spinning. I’m dazed, disorientated. There’s a sense of having been picked up and dropped somewhere else entirely, and in a way I have. I am back at home in the UK. In bed. On the wall is the black and white framed photo of our wedding day. Adam’s forehead touching mine. My flower crown circling my head. On the bed next to me, my husband.
‘Adam.’ I burst into noisy tears.
‘Hey.’ He scoops me into his arms. At first I am stiff. Scared that if I move, Oliver will take it as a signal that I want to be brought back but I can feel my body is still, the movement only in my mind.
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