by Dale, Lindy
She’ll be worse than distraught if I get hold of her. Nobody should be driving at speeds so fast they send someone else’s body flying through traffic on impact.
The doctor continues, “Nicholas has extensive internal injuries. We’ve operated to control the bleeding around the heart and lungs but the next twenty-four hours are crucial. He’s lost a lot of blood, so we’re giving him a transfusion. He also has multiple lacerations to his head and body. I’m concerned about brain trauma. Prepare yourself, he’s pretty banged up. Try not to look too surprised. We don’t want to alarm him.”
I nod slowly. This can’t be happening. It can’t.
“Will he be okay?”
“As I said, the next twenty-four hours are crucial but…”
I swallow. Bile rises in my throat. I cannot lose Nicholas.
There’s one visitor allowed on the ward at a time, so Emily waits in the waiting room while the doctor wheels me through a heavy set of double doors and past a nurses station. As we wheel along the row of cubicles, each with its own bed, the curtains separating them billow behind us. They’re that awful cabbage green colour they make curtains in hospitals, and for some reason I find myself wondering why they couldn’t have made them a prettier shade. Nicholas likes blue. Why can’t the curtains be blue?
God, this place is awful. It’s depressing. I have to get Nicholas out of here.
The doctor pauses at the end of the row. There’s a bed and I can see Nicholas’ feet under the white cover of the blanket. He’s very still. A huge desk masks the rest of him from my view. A nurse, wearing baggy green scrubs, is writing something on the chart. She looks over at me and smiles. “I’ll give you two some space. Do you want me to take the baby?”
Stupid question. I hug the baby to me.
“It’s fine. He wants to meet his daddy.” Slowly, I raise myself from the chair.
The doctor whispers, “I know you want to talk to him, Sadie, but take it easy. He needs rest. A lot of it.”
“Okay.” I nod again and walk slowly toward the head of the bed where I collapse into a chair. The act of walking is tiring so soon after giving birth, it seems.
Then we are alone. Well, apart from the beeping and weeping and the quiet shuffling of the nurses.
I place my hand on Nicholas’ forehead, smoothing his brow. I study his face. It’s black and blue near his temple and they’ve shaved off some of his hair to stitch up one of the lacerations. His lip is swollen. I want to kiss it better but I fear I’ll hurt him.
Oh Nicholas, my darling Nicholas.
His eyelids flutter and open. “Sadie?”
“It’s me. Shhh. Rest. The doctor says you have to rest.” I lean a little closer and take his hand in mine. Gently, I lift it to the bump on my chest, placing it on the baby’s head. “It’s our baby, Nicholas. He came early but he’s here and he wants to say hi to his daddy.”
“Show me.”
I unstrap the baby from my chest and place him gently in the crook of Nicholas’ arm. I cover them both with the blanket. Oh, to be there right now. In the bed with him. If only we could go back to yesterday morning where we were cuddled up in bed with me in that very same position. “You okay? It’s not hurting?” I ask.
“Not at all.” Nicholas looks down at his son and his eyes fill with tears. “He’s beautiful.”
“He’s like you. So,” I say as brightly as I can, “I’ve been thinking about names.”
Nicholas turns his head to face me and as I entertain him with all the silly names Emily and I came up with during my labour, I see him smile. A little. It’s his Nicholas smile, the one I love.
“Was it hard?” he asks.
“What? Choosing names?”
“The labour, you dope.”
“Brutal. I swore like a bitch.”
“I’m sorry I wasn’t there.”
“It’s okay. You were tied up at the time. And Emily distracted me by attempting the breathing thing. Hashtag no freaking idea.” I kiss the corner of his lips. I feel their warmth and softness. I feel every inch of love he has for me pouring from them. “Is it cool if we call the baby Joel for his middle name?”
He squeezes my hand. “Sounds like a plan. He is both of our best friends. We can’t let wonder boy get offended thinking we’ve forgotten him.”
“And I want to name the baby after you. Without the Clayton part, so he’ll be Nicholas Joel Lawson. We can call him Nicky or Nick.”
He squeezes my hand again. I see pain in his eyes as he attempts to swallow. “Sadie?”
“Yes?”
“I’m sorry for what I said. I didn’t mean any of it. It’s not your fault.”
I put a finger to his lips. “I know. I’m sorry, too.”
“If something happens, I want you to go with Joel. He loves you. He always loved you. He’ll look after you.”
“Nothing is going to happen. Apart from the fact that you’re going to get well and we’re going to get married. You promised you’d never leave me.”
“I’m trying hard to keep that promise.”
“I love you, Nicholas.”
He sucks in a ragged breath. I can see he’s tiring. “I… I loved you… from the first moment… I laid eyes on you. I… never wanted… anyone… the way… I want you.”
“Rest,” I whisper.
“I could never… love anyone else… Come here…” I lean forward over his body. My lips are so close to his I can feel the heat from them.
“Closer,” he whispers.
Then he kisses me full on the mouth. I know it hurts him. I can see the agony on his face when we separate, but I feel the love too, a tremendous love that I’ll never let go of.
We sit for a while after that. I take the baby and reposition him on my chest to keep him warm. I hold Nicholas’ hand while he dozes. I kiss his eyelids in turn and smooth his hair from his brow. I run my finger along his cuts, willing them to heal. And I pray. I’ve never been one for praying, so I hope God understands.
In the time that follows, I whisper everything I ever wanted to say. I tell Nicholas how much I love him. I tell him about the blinding desire I feel for him, how he made me physically quiver the first time he kissed me. I tell him how hard it was for me to leave that time at the lighthouse and then how hard it was to begin our relationship again, knowing that one day I’d hurt him. I never dreamt I’d hurt him like this, though. I tell him how I almost fainted that day in the office when I found out he was my boss, how damn hot he looked. The tears streak down my face as I remind him about the day we held hands in public for the first time, when I found out I was pregnant and when he asked me to marry him. And as I sit and talk hours drag on and I feel his hand go cold in mine. I know it’s over.
Nicholas is gone.
CHAPTER EIGHT
In the days following the death of Nicholas, I fall into a despair like none I could ever have imagined. It’s brought upon not merely by his passing but by the fact that early on the first day I receive an enormous bouquet of flowers ⎯ peony roses, lilies and white lilac ⎯ all my favourites. I turn the card between my fingers. I don’t need to open it to know the flowers are from Nicholas. The police told me that on the night of the accident, he’d been running across the road from the florist. The driver didn’t have her headlights on. He must have been distracted.
I can’t blame the nurses for what happens next. They don’t know who the flowers are from. They don’t realise it’s a card from my dead lover that reads, I’ll never leave. I’ll love you forever and that reading those words will send me into a frenzy of screaming and howling. My lashing out at the nurse and kicking her leads to sedation. They’re saying I’m a danger to myself but I’m protecting what’s mine. Them trying to remove that bouquet from my room is not the wisest of moves. I need every bit of Nicholas I can have now he’s gone. They should know that.
And now I am numb.
I have no will to live.
I have neither Nicholas nor Joel. I have nothing.
> I want to die.
I lie in the bed staring at a black dot on the roof, wondering how it got there. Feeling macabre, I decide it’s a splodge of blood, escaped when someone burst a vein. I do not talk or eat or sleep. I put on Nicholas’ t-shirt, that somehow got packed in my jumble of things and I replay the last voice message he sent me over and over, committing each word to memory. Finally, the battery on my phone dies and because I didn’t have the foresight to bring my charger, I can’t listen anymore. But I’m so afraid if I don’t keep listening I’ll forget how he sounded. I’m scared his smell will fade and I’ll be left with nothing but an old t-shirt. The hole around me gets bigger the more I contemplate the thought and I sink deeper and deeper into the quicksand.
I don’t want to climb out.
I want to die.
On the second day, Emily arrives with a clean change of clothes, so I can at least get out of bed while the nurses change the sheets. Not that I care about sheets. Or clothes. She bustles me into the bathroom making one-sided conversation. I don’t complain when she undresses me because there are no words left in me. Even when she turns on the shower and washes my naked body, I say nothing. Somewhere in my head, my brain registers that this is odd, that I should be appalled that my friend is bathing me but I’m not. It’s not until she sits me on the old lady shower chair and begins to wash my hair that the tears come. Rivers of tears, enough to fill a dam. They send shudders of pain coursing through my body but they do not release the grief. And of all the memories that could make me cry it’s the one of Joel washing my hair that first morning I moved into the house with him and Nicholas that sets me off.
After I’m dressed and Emily has done my hair in a side braid, an orderly brings me a tray.
Geez, is it lunch time already? Surely, the hours can’t pass so quickly when I am alone.
I stare down at the tray. There’s a roast with gravy. I love roasts. There’s apple crumble and a milkshake. I didn’t order this. I didn’t order anything because I don’t want anything.
I want Nicholas.
“You have to eat something,” Emily pleads. “For the baby.”
I know her tricks. She’s taken the lid off the lunch hoping the smell of roast lamb will entice me to eat. What she doesn’t realise is that my sense of smell has shut down. The only scent allowed to fill my nostrils is the ever decreasing scent of Nicholas from his t-shirt, the one that’s under my pillow. I push the tray aside and go back to staring at the ceiling. Hopefully, if I ignore Emily long enough she’ll leave and I can die in peace.
Then Valerie brings baby Nicky for his feed and bath. He’s been in the nursery since Nicholas passed. I cannot bear to look at him. I cannot bear to think that he and I are the cause of Nicholas’ death. I roll away, facing the window.
“Take him away.” These are the first words to leave my lips.
“But he needs you, Sadie,” Emily says. “He needs his mummy and you need him. Just hold him. Please.”
“No.” I get up from the bed and go back to the bathroom, shutting the door behind me. On the other side, I hear them discussing me.
“She needs more time.”
“The doctor has called a grief counsellor.”
“What’s the point in a counsellor if she won’t engage?”
Exactly. What’s the point of anything?
I wait in the toilet until I hear them leave. Then I go back to the bed and continue my examination of the ceiling. It’s the one thing in my life that will be there when I wake up.
The third, fourth and fifth days are much the same. Emily comes. Emily goes. The nurses try to make me eat or bathe the baby or feed the baby but I’m tired. I don’t want a baby. I want to sleep because when I sleep I can be with Nicholas. If I die I can be with Nicholas.
On the sixth day I have a visitor. It’s Mr Lawson.
Not my Mr Lawson.
The other Mr Lawson.
He pulls up a chair to the side of the bed. I stare at him for a minute, imagining he’s Nicholas, they look so alike. It doesn’t make me feel any better because I don’t feel anything at all. I am devoid of feeling. It’s easier that way. I stare at him some more and I think of the relationship Mr Lawson never got to have with my mother. I’ll never have a relationship either. I wish he’d go away.
“Hello Sadie.” There are shadows under Mr Lawson’s eyes. He looks ragged and unkempt, the way Nicholas looks when he’s been working all night. It’s sad. Very sad.
“The funeral is tomorrow,” he tells me. “I’ve ordered a car for you. Emily has offered to bring you a dress.”
Shouldn’t be a bother for her. She has a whole wardrobe filled with black dresses. The grief has unleashed the cynic in me. I like the cynic. She’s a bitch in the way I never am.
“You needn’t bother. I’m not going.” I roll away, showing them both my back. I pretend I am asleep.
They sit in awkward silence and then, after about ten minutes, Mr Lawson stands to leave. As he does a nurse and doctor enter the room and the little cohort moves to the other side of the curtain.
Clearly, to discuss me.
I might be choosing not to converse but I am not deaf or stupid.
“What medication is she on?” Mr Lawson asks. I have no idea when he got to be my keeper. He’s not my father-in-law, he never will be. What right does he have to control when I die?
“Valium.”
“Is that wise?”
“She has been somewhat aggressive toward staff.”
“But she’s not eating or speaking?”
“No. We’ve tried everything. We may have to run an IV drip to stop dehydration.”
“What about the child?”
“Sadie experienced a deeply traumatic episode. She’s rejecting everything and everyone around her. She feels somehow responsible for Nicholas’ death and I believe she’s blaming the baby, too. She thinks if she hadn’t gone into labour, your son would not have been run over buying flowers.”
“That’s ridiculous. Nobody blames her.”
“She blames herself. The brain does strange things when a person experiences trauma.”
“The girl is mentally unstable. Her mother was much the same. Committed suicide a couple of years back— ”
If my mother were unstable it was only because of what he did to her.
They lower their voices and I strain to listen. I can’t believe they have the cheek to talk about me like I’m not here. They’re talking about changing medications, upping doses, psychiatrists and involuntary commitment. Surely, they can’t do that? Don’t they need my permission to put me in a mental health unit? I do not need to be in a mental health unit.
“—I’m going to apply for temporary custody of the baby. Sadie is in no position to care for a child at the moment. I can’t stand by and see my grandchild neglected when I have the resources to do something about it. It’s what Nicholas would have wanted.”
I sit up in bed. How on Earth does he have any idea what Nicholas wanted? I am Nicholas’ fiancee. Baby Nicky is our baby and nobody is going to take him away from me. Sure, I might have been a bit cuckoo the last few days— okay, a lot cuckoo—but that baby is mine. Mine and Nicholas’. I will not let anyone take him.
Engulfed in a rage so strong I fear I may self-combust, I swing the curtain back. For the first time in almost a week, a wave of clarity washes over me. My head is no longer fuzzy from the valium. My body is tingling as if I’m waking from the most awful nightmare, only I know it’s real. I don’t want to kill myself. I want to go home with baby Nicky and plan the life that Nicholas and I dreamed of. I want to show my baby the brilliant things his father did and built. I want to tell him stories every night and watch the first time he kicks a goal at footy. I want my life back. And yes, I’ll miss Nicholas every day, but I’ll get through it like I did when Mum died. I’ll have the life I wanted. Slamming my suitcase shut, I perch myself on the end of the bed. The people on the other side of the curtain jump in surprise.
> “Get out!” I yell. “All of you, get out. And bring me my baby. Now!”
“Sadie.”
I walk to the wardrobe. I take out my suitcase and begin to pack my things.
“Where are you going?” Mr Lawson asks.
“As far away from you as possible. That baby is mine. He’s the one part I have left of Nicholas and you will not have him.”
“Calm down, Sadie,” the doctor says.
“NO! I will not calm down. I am not some freaking nutcase, I’ve lost the man I love most in the world and you’re talking about taking the only piece of him I have left. I’m discharging myself and my baby now.”
They take a step away. I think they’re worried I’ll throw something. But I won’t. I’ve just experienced my first bout of maternal instinct, that’s all. With adrenalin hyping me to the max, and every thought and sensation heightened so I finally see clearly, I will protect my baby to the death.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” the doctor says.
“Why? Am I under arrest? Am I being forcibly committed to a mental unit.”
Because they’re behaving like it.
“No.”
“Is the baby healthy enough to leave?”
“Yes. He’ll need weekly checks for the first two months until you reach your due date but your paediatrician can do that.”
“Then I’m leaving. As soon as Emily gets the car, I’m leaving.”
I can’t believe I’m making my escape from prison in Alex’s car— of all the people.
*****
The BMW has soft leather seats. I sink into them, my little bundle of Nicholas snuggled to my chest. He’s snuffling like he’s trying to talk to us. It’s very cute. A long time ago I remember reading about how stress is alleviated by a hug and thinking how Nicholas and Joel could do that to me. I wish they were here now to alleviate my worries, to make me see everything is gonna be alright. I feel drained and exhilarated and very, very emotional. I am about to spend my life alone.
The cars pass us by out the window and I press my lips together, holding back the tears. It’s okay to cry, I guess, but not here. Not now. I’ll cry when I’m alone.