With my hand on the curtain, I turned to look back at him one more time, to make sure he was all right. I couldn’t bear to be parted from him. Watching the nurses work with careful efficiency around his bed, I knew he was in the best hands possible and yet I felt like I was abandoning him. I should be by his side, there to care for him myself, not leaving him in the hands of strangers.
Erich looked at me a moment longer and nodded slightly. Then his eyes closed, a spasm of pain flitting across his face as the nurses began to cut away his trousers.
I could do nothing for him now and Johanna needed me. I slipped through the curtains, willing myself not to cry.
The doctor waited for me, face impassive but sympathy in his eyes. He took my arm and drew me away from Erich’s cubicle just a little.
‘His leg – how did he get so terribly injured when my daughter has only cuts and bruises?’
‘A cement truck swerved on the Hume Highway, lost control and ran head-on into your husband’s utility.’
I nodded, trying to imagine how it happened but not quite understanding. ‘But how is my daughter still walking?’
The doctor looked at me and I got the feeling that he was assessing how much he should tell me. I tried to appear calm and composed, rearranging my features into a neutral expression.
‘What I was told was that your husband flung himself across your daughter to stop her from going through the windscreen before the truck hit them. He saved her from serious injury or possible death. She must’ve still hit the dashboard with her head. But your husband would have suffered life-threatening injuries or been killed outright if he’d stayed upright behind the steering wheel. His actions saved them both.’
Tears filled my eyes as pride and love blossomed hot in my chest. Erich’s desire to protect Johanna and his quick thinking had kept them both safe. He was selfless, he always had been. ‘How is my husband, then?’
‘Despite his blood loss, your husband is medically stable. Amazingly, the main injury was sustained just to that right leg.’ The doctor shook his head in wonder. ‘However, from what we’ve seen and checked on X-ray, those injuries are severe. He has a comminuted fracture of his fibula, unstable transverse and oblique fractures in his tibia and femur and he also has an open compound fracture of the femur.
‘I know it’s a lot to take in. He’ll require a long period in traction to allow those bones to knit and heal. The important thing is that we avoid infection. Once we have union of the bone – that means that the fractures have healed and the bones are stable and whole – the process of rehabilitation begins.’
‘How long will he be in hospital?’ I whispered, feeling the weight of the world descend on my shoulders.
‘I suspect it will be anywhere from six to eight months, perhaps more if there are complications.’
Everything around me seemed to fade into the background as my head began to spin with the implications of that statement. I felt a hand on my arm and looked up to see the doctor peering into my face.
‘Are you all right, Mrs Drescher?’
I nodded and swallowed hard, squaring my shoulders as I collected myself. I had to be strong. ‘How long until he can walk?’ I had to know what I was dealing with.
The doctor shook his head. ‘If all goes well, it may take a year or two before he can walk again, but we won’t know until then whether he’ll get full use of the leg. There are so many breaks and his injuries are severe . . .’ His voice trailed off.
‘I have to know, doctor,’ I said in a low voice. I thought of poor Carmela struggling at home with the children and her handicapped husband. Prospects were not good for Giovanni, who was still unable to provide a decent income for his family. But although I wanted to scream in frustration and rage that such a thing had happened to Erich and our family, I felt a calm wash over me. My survival instinct took over. I was the one who had to keep our family afloat.
He nodded, glancing towards the cubicle where Erich lay, as if he could see through the pale blue curtains, and then his hazel eyes rested on me. ‘It’s early days, and perhaps too soon to tell, but I’ve seen these kinds of injuries before and I want to warn you that there is the possibility that he may never walk again.’
‘I see.’ My heart lurched to my throat. But I couldn’t contemplate that possibility right now. The main thing was that Erich was alive and safe.
‘I’m so sorry. We’ll do everything we can to ensure the best outcome possible.’
I nodded, murmuring my thanks before turning away, numb.
Walking the corridor, each step taking me further away from Erich, I felt separate from the world, contained in a bubble of shock and disbelief. The curtains and beds swam in and out of focus as I found my way back to Johanna. I had to concentrate on her; to think about Erich’s condition was too terrifying for the moment. Somehow I had to stay strong. It was time to take her home and lavish all my love and attention on her, while trying desperately not to feel so helpless, trying not to think about what was going to happen to us now.
Otto took us to look for Bella. Johanna was inconsolable, desperate to find the dog, and wouldn’t calm until we agreed to look for her. She didn’t know what had caused the accident and hadn’t seen what had happened to Bella. We learnt that the dog hadn’t been found on the back of the ute after the crash, so we assumed that she must have jumped off and run away. We drove around the area of the crash, calling her name. Otto and I even walked the streets, enquiring if anyone had seen her. Nobody had.
When I returned to the hospital the following day, it was a rude shock to find Erich trussed up, his leg elevated, bandaged and in traction, two splints and a dizzying array of ropes, pulleys and weights attached to a frame above the bed. He was on an eight-bed ward, each cubicle curtained off from the other to afford some privacy, but I could still hear the sounds of men hawking and coughing. The smell of hospital disinfectant was strong, no doubt masking the smells of closely confined, immobile men.
At home, I fussed over Johanna as a way to avoid thinking about Erich’s condition and the future ahead of us. In the early weeks she woke most nights with nightmares about the accident and Bella, but once the shock wore off and the pain from her injuries had receded, it was obvious she didn’t want me to coddle her any longer.
After that, most nights I went to bed trying to work out how our finances would stretch. We had the rent to pay, the block of land to pay off, payments on the ute and the fridge, just to start with. No matter how I reconfigured the numbers, I always fell short. At least Erich’s hospital stay was covered by our health insurance, so I could breathe easy knowing he had the best care for as long as he needed it. However, I didn’t know how long he would be in hospital. Although his job was gone owing to the amount of time he would have off, he’d been promised work on his return – if that was even a possibility.
I needed to either reduce our expenses or find a way to make more money. As far as I could see it, we had to sell the farm or I had to find more work, something that didn’t need a car to get to, because it would be months before we could buy another car from the insurance. At least Reinhardt had kindly allowed me to borrow one of his cars to do the weddings on Saturdays. Some nights I fell asleep, too exhausted to worry any longer, but other nights I cried myself to sleep. This wasn’t the life we had wanted for ourselves. All our plans for the future were in disarray and it was up to me to work out our next step.
*
It was a week or so before I took the girls to see their father. Erich was on so much heavy medication that he dozed on and off through my visits and I didn’t want them to see him in such a bad state. When I did take them, Greta and Johanna were nervous about going near him, worried they would bump the intricate apparatus and hurt him.
‘Come on, my girls,’ said Erich in his brightest voice despite the pain he was still in. ‘I won’t bite. I’ve been waiting all day to get my hugs from you both.’
‘But, Vati, what about your leg and all this?’ said
Greta tentatively, waving her hand at the ropes and pulleys. Johanna stayed by my side holding my hand tightly, watching her father warily.
‘It’s all right. Just stay on my left side. Here,’ he said, patting the bed next to him, ‘come and sit with me and tell me what’s been going on. How’s school?’
Greta looked at me hesitantly and I nodded, smiling. She sat carefully by her father’s side and hugged him gently. I noticed Erich’s subtle grimace as the mattress moved under her weight and jarred his body ever so slightly.
‘It’s all right, Vati.’ Greta had gone very pale herself. ‘How are you?’
‘I’m much better now that you’re here.’ Erich smiled at her, brushing the dark hair from her face.
‘Really, Vati. How are you?’ she repeated, frowning slightly at him.
Erich sighed, his shoulders slumping a little. ‘I’m still in some pain and a bit uncomfortable with this traction but better than I was. It’s going to take time, but I’ll be all right in the end.’
She nodded thoughtfully and began to tell him about her day, trying, I’m sure, to distract him from his pain.
‘What about you?’ Erich asked Johanna a little while later. She was now standing next to the bed, enticed by Greta’s story and keen to add her perspective on what her sister had been telling him.
Johanna’s face fell and her bottom lip began to wobble. ‘We can’t find Bella. I’ve looked everywhere, calling and calling, but she never comes.’ Greta had told me that Johanna walked the streets after school, looking for Bella.
‘Come here so I can give you a hug.’ Erich kissed Greta on the head and she slid off the bed to allow Johanna to climb up beside him. He clasped Johanna to him, glancing at the dressing still covering her forehead. Much of the swelling in her face had subsided but purple and green bruising ringed her right eye and discoloured her cheek and upper jaw. The cuts and grazes were dark with scabs but healing well. ‘Bella will be all right. I don’t think she was hurt in the accident but she would have been lost. She’s probably found a good home by now.’
‘But she’s our dog and her home is with us!’ Johanna’s tiny voice nearly broke my heart.
Erich looked at me helplessly. I shrugged and shook my head. I had done everything to find her but Johanna couldn’t accept that Bella wasn’t coming home. The look between us confirmed what we both knew – Bella was likely killed in the accident, thrown from the ute – but neither of us wanted to traumatise the girls any further.
‘Shh, now,’ said Erich, patting her back. ‘Keep an eye out for her when you walk home from school. Maybe one day, she’ll find her way back to us. In the meantime, Mutti and Mr Weber have given out their telephone numbers. If anyone sees her, they’ll call.’
‘I know, Vati.’ Johanna wiped the tears welling from her eyes. ‘She wouldn’t have run away on purpose. The accident scared her.’
‘What happened?’ asked Greta quietly, standing next to the bed. ‘The accident . . . how did it happen?’
Erich stared at the curtain opposite his bed. ‘There was a boy crossing the highway in that terrible rain. It was hard to see anything. The concrete truck was coming towards us but couldn’t stop in time. It swerved to miss him, lost control and hit us instead.’
I knew he was playing that moment over, wondering if he could have done anything different. We had discussed it at length but there was nothing – we were just lucky that neither of them had died that day.
‘Vati leant across me so I wouldn’t go through the windscreen,’ said Johanna softly, holding her father’s hand. She kissed his cheek. ‘Thank you, Vati, for keeping me safe.’
Erich buried his face in Johanna’s hair, pulling Greta into his side, to hug them both.
I blinked away tears. That day could have ended so differently. Although I didn’t know how we were going to manage with Erich off work for so long, at least we were all still alive and together. I couldn’t let the weight of our situation crush me and make me forget how lucky we really were. We’d somehow work the rest of it out, I knew that much, and all I could do now was to take one day at a time.
We visited Erich every day after work. I’d go home to have a quick bite to eat with Mutti and the girls and then we’d walk up to the hospital to spend an hour or so with him. On Saturdays I’d go whenever I could between wedding bookings, but it was Sundays that Erich and I most looked forward to, when we could spend longer together.
Sometimes Mutti would come to the hospital with us but otherwise she stayed at home to clean up after dinner or supervise the girls. I knew she was worried about me but she said very little. I was amazed at her self-control because usually she’d be bursting to give me her opinion and advice on what I should do. She seemed to be more sensitive to my feelings since she’d arrived and had only occasionally spoken out of turn about Erich or our situation here in Australia. Maybe she’d really changed but I noticed the sorrow in her eyes from time to time and wondered if it had more to do with the guilt she carried about losing the money that would have changed our lives. There wasn’t much she could do for me, except continue to help out at home and keep an eye on the girls, but even her silent support was a blessed relief. It gave me time to think through my options.
10
It soon became apparent that we couldn’t manage on one income. I tried everything I could – working longer hours, seven days a week between the studio and my retouching and colouring, and juggling the bills – but it wasn’t enough. Thank God I had Mutti at home with the girls, because I was barely there. When I did have time, I was visiting Erich in the hospital.
About a month after the accident, I finally faced the inevitable. Visiting hours were almost over and we’d exhausted the small talk. Erich knew how dire our financial situation was but I felt we couldn’t delay making a decision any longer. After all the hard work we’d done to get ahead, we were almost back to where we started.
I shifted restlessly in my chair and took a deep breath in then blew out a long sigh. ‘We have some decisions to make,’ I said quietly. None of the options we had were good.
‘We’ll get through this, I promise you.’ Erich’s hand rested on my forearm, warm and solid, but the anguish in his eyes was heartbreaking. ‘I will make this right.’
‘I know.’ I picked at the fluff on the cotton blanket uneasily.
‘We can sell the farm. It will give us some flexibility until I can return to work.’
I glanced up in surprise to find his face impassive, his resolute eyes the colour of the ocean, watching me. The farm and what we could do with it meant so much to him – and to me too, I’d realised, once we’d started going out every Sunday. To give it up before we’d even lived there meant sacrificing yet another of our dreams.
‘Are you sure?’ I placed my hand over his, still resting on my arm. ‘You love the farm . . . It’s what you really wanted.’
‘I won’t put you under any more stress than I already have. We’ll just have to start saving again when we can.’ He sighed, shifting slightly on the bed. ‘We can’t go back to those days in Germany of not being able to put food on the table. I won’t have you and our children in that situation ever again. It defeats the purpose of coming to Australia and I won’t have it.’ His jaw muscles clenched and tightened, the fierce emotions warring with cool logic. He’d had time to think about our choices and although I didn’t like it, selling the farm was probably the best way forward. But now that it had been said out loud, it didn’t feel right.
There was another option I’d been considering, one I knew that Erich would never think of himself. It would make life more difficult rather than better in the short term, but perhaps we could keep our dream alive.
‘Let’s move out to the farm the way it is.’
‘No.’ Erich jerked his hand free. ‘No. That’s not a possibility.’
I leant forward, my elbows on the bed. ‘Why not? The garage is liveable. When you come home you can do more to it, make it comfortable until we c
an build the house. I can make do, you know that.’ To me, this choice felt like hope and not failure.
‘But I don’t want you to.’ He frowned at me. ‘You deserve more. Besides, it’s too hard to travel into Liverpool every day.’
I only stared back, unflappable. ‘It’ll be fine. I’ll go in on the bus in the morning with the girls. They can either wait for me at the studio of an afternoon or do their homework with Anna and Peter until I can collect them. I know Claudia and Franz won’t mind. Or they can come home on their own. They’re old enough, after all. And it won’t be much longer until we have the money from the insurance for another car.’
‘It sounds like you’ve thought this through.’ He sat rigid against the pillows, as if he was made of glass and would shatter at any moment.
‘This feels right – all our hard work won’t have gone to waste.’
‘But we have no electricity or water out there. You can’t live like that. How would your mother ever cope?’
Erich was intent on dissuading me, sure that this was a silly fancy he could put to rest without too much trouble. But I knew it could work. I took his hand in mine. It felt stiff and unyielding.
‘I know you want to protect me and the children. I know you feel terribly guilty for putting us in this situation, but none of it’s your fault. Now we have to make the best of it and if that means we suffer a little discomfort while you’re suffering from your injuries in this hospital room, well, so be it.’ Erich opened his mouth to disagree but I didn’t let him get a word in, squeezing his hand as I continued. ‘It’ll only be for a while and won’t hurt any of us. Once you’re back on your feet, I know you’ll make it comfortable with all the amenities we need and then we can look at building the house. I’m sure we’ll have a lovely home then and maybe the children will appreciate it more for having to live through its building.’ I wanted to show him that I could look after our family too and make decisions that would benefit us all. Unfortunately, it required Erich to swallow his pride and let go of his guilt.
Suitcase of Dreams Page 13