by Carys Jones
The machines circling Marie beeped at the same monotonous rate, assuring Bill that she was at least still breathing, still clinging on to life. The atmosphere in the ICU had become subdued. Everyone knew that she should have woken up already but no one was ready to address the very real possibility that she never would.
Bill loathed the beeping. At home he heard it; in the car he heard it. It had somehow crept in to his subconscious and become the unofficial soundtrack to his life. Each digital sound grated against his skin.
Sebastian was sleeping in the visitor’s lounge. Outside the world was dark and most people were resting. But not Bill. He wondered if he’d ever be able to sleep again. Each time he tried to close his eyes the beeping intensified, reminding him of the current plight of his precious daughter. How could he possibly sleep when Marie might be dying?
A salty tear slid down his weather beaten skin. He rubbed it away with rough hands, calloused by years of manual labour.
“Come back sweetheart,” he urged his daughter, his voice so soft it was barely audible.
“Come back to Daddy.”
He’d not been Daddy for almost a decade but now she seemed so fragile and yet so pure, just as she had when he’d first held her in his arms. He’d vowed to always protect her and now here he was, watching her slip away. How could he have let her down so terribly? How could he have let this fate befall his only child?
A rasping sound struggled to be heard over the drone of the machines. Straining his ears, Bill listened for it again. He heard it, unmistakeable this time. Tentatively he moved Carol, not wanting to wake her, and leaned forward. There on the bed, Marie was looking back at him, her eyes wide as she frantically tried to speak but the tube down her throat prevented any sounds she was trying to make.
“Marie!” he screamed her name as loud as he could, no longer caring about his resting wife.
“Marie, my baby! You’re awake,” he positioned himself beside her and cupped her soft hand in his. He was weeping freely and didn’t care.
“Marie,” he called her name again, certain he’d never before felt so ecstatic.
Marie tried to turn her head but her peripheral vision was obscured. Something was holding her firmly in place. She wanted to open her mouth to scream out but couldn’t. There was something obstructing her windpipe, some kind of tube.
Anguished tears began to run down her cheeks. Marie felt like she was suddenly in the centre of some macabre horror movie where she was the star. All she could see were garish white lights beaming down on her coupled with an incessant beeping sound which was increasing in pitch. What was going on?
Tossing from side to side Marie tried to free herself of the tube but in doing so she became aware of a plethora of new pain points. Her arms felt as though they were being pinned down at her side, unresponsive to her desire to use them. Her vision as she glanced around seemed blurred and her thought process was foggy. Had she been drugged?
“Marie, it’s Mommy,” voices called out to her through her drugged haze.
Carol Schneider watched on in horror as her daughter thrashed about on her bed. The nurses quickly appeared their faces tense and their movements swift. They held Marie down to the bed, preventing her from moving and shone a torch in her eyes, watching how her pupils responded.
“Marie, can you hear me?” a senior nurse asked, his voice loud and crisp. “Nod if you can hear me, you can’t talk as you’re currently intubated.”
Marie managed to nod just slightly in response.
“Okay, good. I know this is scary but bear with us. You’re currently at St. Jude’s Hospital receiving treatment after a car accident. We’ll take the tube out of your throat but you’ll need to wear an oxygen mask for a while until you acclimatise to breathing on your own. We just don’t want you to panic.”
As Marie listened her eyes grew wide. She nodded when prompted but did little else.
“Bill, is she alright?” Carol fretted as she stood away from the bed, letting the medical team do their work.
“Of course she is,” Bill clarified. “She’s awake.”
“But she seems…scared,” Carol watched as Marie was carefully leant forward and the tube was pulled out from her throat. It made her stomach turn to see it be uncoiled from within her daughter’s body.
“She’s just woken up in hospital, she’s no idea how she got here, wouldn’t you be scared?”
Marie’s parents observed her as she coughed and spluttered, finally free of the intubation before she was laid back down on her pillows and an oxygen mask firmly planted over her face. It made a sharp hissing sound as it delivered the vital gas to her lungs.
“Okay, Marie, that’s good,” the senior nurse addressed her, having to raise his voice to be heard over the hissing of the oxygen.
“Just take it easy and let your body adjust to being awake. I’m sure you’ve got lots of questions which we’ll answer for you shortly.”
The senior nurse went to leave Marie’s side but she reached out and managed to grab his arm. Her fingers felt icy and sharp against his skin. He looked at her as she averted her gaze to her parents, then back to him, appearing alarmed.
“Does she not recognise us?” Carol asked, becoming panicked as she approached the bed.
“Marie, it’s me, it’s your Mother!”
Marie kept her gaze fixed firmly on the senior nurse.
“It might take her a while to regain her memory,” he explained, turning to face Carol. “I wouldn’t worry, just give her some space.”
Carol looked at him in disbelief, as though he’d just asked her to deliver the moon to him. He was asking the impossible. Her daughter had just awoken from a coma, the last thing she wanted to give her was space.
“She’s awake,” Bill Schneider wrapped an arm around his wife, her shoulders high and tense against the embrace.
“Let’s give her chance to wake up properly. The main thing is, she’s awake.”
“Yes,” Carol nodded and let her husband guide her away from the bed, out of the ICU so that they were once more looking in through the window.
*
Sebastian was awoken by someone sharply nudging his shoulder. He immediately sat up, instantly awake. Since the accident he’d only been able to nap, not sleep properly.
“What, what is it?” he asked, re-familiarising himself with his surroundings. He was in the visitor’s lounge of the hospital sleeping awkwardly upon an old blue sofa. Around him were a dozen or so blue chairs. On the far wall was a coffee machine which omitted a low consistent humming sound and above him were harsh strip lights which burnt against his tired eyes.
“What is it?” he asked again, rubbing his eyes. He turned to see Angela squatting down beside him, still wearing her scrubs.
“It’s Marie,” she said softly. “She’s awake.”
*
“What’s happened, is she alright?” Sebastian bombarded Carol and Bob with questions as he joined them outside the ICU.
“Has she said anything? Is she okay? What has the doctor said?”
Carol appeared to not be aware of his presence. She stared intently through the window at Marie, watching her daughter glance around the ICU with a bewildered, fearful expression burnt upon her beautiful features.
“The doctor is coming to assess her shortly,” Bill answered him, his tone grave. Clearly, Marie’s awaking had not been the celebratory moment they’d all been yearning for.
“When she woke up she seemed…disorientated.”
“Oh,” Sebastian couldn’t hide his disappointment. He’d been pining all his fragile hopes on Marie waking up and instantly being her vibrant self. He hadn’t braced himself for the possibility that she might wake up and not be Marie anymore.
“But she’s awake,” Bill stated. “That’s the main thing.”
“Yes, of course.” Sebastian looked in on his fiancée, wondering if she could see him beyond the glass. Would she recognise him?
“Can we go in and see her?�
��
“It’s best to wait for the doctor,” Bill explained. “We don’t want to scare her.”
Scare her? The suggestion seemed ludicrous to Sebastian. They were her family, her loved ones, her people. How could they possibly scare her?
*
The oxygen mask felt hot and uncomfortable against Marie’s face. She made several attempts to remove it but each time a nurse miraculously appeared and firmly placed it back over her face. Marie continued to scan the room, assessing her surroundings.
It was difficult to hear anything over the hissing sound of the oxygen. As she lay there nurses continually came and placed objects in her arm or around her arm, speaking in hushed tones to one another as they did so.
Upon turning her head Marie could make out a machine which had a digital display full of numbers which changed every other second. The numbers made no sense to her as she watched them. The changes were only slight but still interesting.
Looking down Marie saw that she was on a bed wearing a white cotton night dress emblazoned with a blue logo which said NHS. A thin blanket was pulled over her bottom half, hiding her legs from her. She could move her legs, slightly, but like her arms they felt like they were locked within something and currently unusable.
Her vision was slowly becoming crisper as the effects of the drugs in her system began to wear off. But she retained the sensation of floating, like she was somehow disconnected from her physical self. It was a relaxing yet alarming feeling. It made Marie aware that she was still beneath the influence of something. She wished her senses were sharper so that she could make sense of everything.
*
“She’s on a high dose of morphine,” Angela explained to the family as she exited the ICU.
“Once she’s off the oxygen and breathing comfortably on her own we can start to assess her injuries more clearly.”
“Thanks,” Sebastian smiled awkwardly, grateful of the update even though it didn’t bring him any comfort.
“Is it normal that she seems so confused?” Carol asked though she didn’t turn away from the window. She kept one hand pressed against it, willing Marie to look up at her and register who she was.
“She’s awake,” Bill spoke before Angela could respond. “That’s the main thing. Everything else will come in time.”
“But I want to hold her,” Carol turned to face them, her eyes red and raw. “I want to wrap her in my arms and never let go. She’s my baby.”
“I understand,” Angela sympathised. “You can go in soon.”
Soon didn’t seem good enough to Carol. It felt like a lifetime since she’d talked to Marie, since she’d hugged her and smelt her daughter’s sweet floral scent. Marie always smelt of flowers. She loved any perfume so long as it had a floral base. Marie liked to smell of summer and the outdoors.
“I want to hold my daughter,” Carol’s voice trembled, verging on breaking.
“And you will,” Sebastian promised her. “You will.”
*
Carefully Marie raised her hand. Finally it was responding to her thoughts, though it was slow and clumsy, as if it had forgotten how to move. She lifted it up to her oxygen mask and after fumbling for several seconds she pulled it off, freeing her face. Gasping, she savoured the freedom. The mask made her face hot and uncomfortable, the artificial air tasting dry and old.
She breathed in the air of the room around her which was only a slight improvement on the quality circulated by the mask. Gasping, her pulse began to quicken, causing alarms to sound on the various monitors around her and nurses to come rushing to her side. Immediately they reached for the mask and tried to return it to Marie’s face.
“No!” Marie objected, pushing them away.
“You still need to wear this for a while,” the senior nurse told her sternly, as if he was berating a naughty child.
Marie objected and turned her head to the side so that he couldn’t get the angle of the mask right.
“No!” she said, struggling to speak. Her throat felt unbearably dry and each sound she formed scraped painfully against the sides before it was delivered through her sore lips.
“Marie, it’s for your own good,” the nurse told her. She doubted that but she’d put the device back on if she could find out just one thing. Summoning up what little strength she had Marie managed to croak out the question which was plaguing her thoughts;
“Orion,” she coughed, her lungs throbbing unbearably as she forced herself to speak.
“Where is Orion?”
*
The following day Marie was removed from the ICU and placed on a ward in a single sex bay opposite a woman who had broken her pelvis after falling from a moving bus.
Relentlessly Marie asked where she was, asked for Orion but no one listened. They told her to relax, to try not to move too much. They reassured her that everything would be fine. But how was that even possible?
“Marie, baby, it’s Mum,” Carol Schneider tentatively approached her daughter’s bed. She could no longer keep a constant vigil at the hospital; instead she had to visit during designated hours.
And so she driven over to the hospital with Bill and joined other tense relatives who entered the ward at six that evening. Sebastian had stayed behind at their home. Now that Marie was out of the ICU the two visitors per bed rule was strictly enforced.
Marie turned her head to look at her mother. Carol greeted her with an overly enthusiastic smile.
“There’s my baby,” she declared. “Don’t you look beautiful?”
Marie remained stoic in response. She had no idea how she looked. She’d not seen a mirror in days. How long had she even been in this place? She had no idea. But the woman at her bedside did look familiar. With each passing hour Marie began to recall more of her time here, more of her life, and her time in Azriel started to feel further and further away.
Carol placed a number of glossy fashion magazines on the table beside Marie’s bed.
“These are for you to read when you’re feeling better. I got all your favourites like Glamour and Cosmopolitan.”
“Thanks,” Marie managed to reply, her throat still sore. She’d been told it would take several days for it to start to feel less tender as a result of being intubated.
“You look so much better, you’ve got colour in your cheeks,” Carol gushed. “She’s got good colour, hasn’t she Bill?”
From his position lingering awkwardly at the base of the bed Bill nodded nonchalantly in response. He wasn’t sure Marie did look better. Certainly it was a relief to see her without the intubation tube or oxygen mask but without them her facial wounds were prominently on display and each time he looked at her something within him died.
Both of Marie’s eyes were turning black. Her cheeks were a deep purple as their bruises came out and she had numerous lacerations scattered across her face like some sort of macabre graffiti.
“I want to go home,” Marie told them sternly. She was tired of the hospital, tired of being restricted to her sick bed.
“The doctors said you can go home soon,” Carol enthused. “And we’ll take good care of you when you’re back. I’ll make your favourite dinner and you can sit in your old bedroom watching all your DVDs.”
Marie turned away from her mother and gazed out towards the window at the far end of the room. Outside it was already dark as the impending winter held long days at bay. Marie didn’t want to return to the house her mother spoke of. She wanted to return to Azriel. The people there needed her. Each moment she spent here in this place her kingdom dwindled.
“We can’t wait to have you home,” Carol continued, gesturing for Bill to sit on the plastic chair beside her. Reluctantly he came over and sat down, the chair appearing comically small against his hulking frame.
“I don’t belong here,” Marie announced dreamily, still gazing out of the window.
“Of course you don’t,” Carol agreed fervently. “You belong at home.”
“But I’m a princess,” Mari
e declared, her eyelids feeling heavy. Even though she spent the day in bed she was constantly exhausted as her body worked to repair itself.
Carol instantly agreed with the statement;
“Yes!” she enthused. “You’re our princess. Isn’t she Bill?”
Marie didn’t hear if her father responded, instead she dropped in to a deep, dreamless sleep.
*
Dr Simmons read over the case file for a fourth time. He wanted to be certain that there was nothing he’d missed. He held the scans which had been taken on the day of admission up to the light and scrutinized them.
All of the issues which he saw had already been addressed. The broken bones, the bleed upon the brain, they had all been dealt with. There was nothing left to do but send Marie Schneider home. The hospital had done all it could for her, the rest of her recovery would be in her hands.