He reaches over to tuck a strand of my hair behind my ear and leaves his fingers on my jaw. “You have beautiful hair; it feels like silk, so soft.” He tilts his head and gives me an intense look. Seriously this guy’s got the perfect moves, I’m really enjoying myself and am so caught up in the mood and him that I can’t help but rest my head into his hand.
Connor signals to the waitress to come over so he can settle the bill, he refuses to let me pay. Standing up he takes my hand pulling me up and guides me out of the restaurant, his hand on the small of my back. It’s still quite mild so we go for a walk through the park before he takes me home. I lean into him and he guides us to a bench by the lake in the middle of the greenery. It’s such a beautiful evening I can’t help but feel that this is pretty damn close to perfect. Almost.
He sits down and puts me on his lap wrapping his arms around me, my back against his front. I lean my head back on his shoulder and we sit like this in silence for a long time.
I feel his warm breath on my neck followed by his lips. I close my eyes and revel in the warmth of Connor’s embrace. If I don’t think too much about it right now, I feel happy and content. His lips trail down my neck and across my bare shoulder. I’m not cold but the touch raises the small hairs on the back of my neck and I can feel the goose bumps following his trail of kisses. I moan involuntarily and try to turn so I can catch his lips. Just then my phone rings and I’m stunned to see it’s Declan. I ignore his call and turn my phone on silent. I don’t need to be distracted by him.
“Izzy…” Connor reluctantly starts to pull away from me. My hands are tied up in knots in his hair and I can’t help but close the gap between us and lick his bottom lip.
“Stop Izzy,” he groans. “Unless you’re ready to take this back to yours, we have got to stop.” He shakes his head at me so I grab his hand and pull him off the bench and we start walking back to my house. After all this is what I do best right? I think to myself cynically. Declan comes running out the front door as we walk up, he must’ve seen us coming.
“Izzy for fuck sake, I’ve been ringing you for the last half-hour, why aren’t you answering your bloody phone?” He looks at me strangely.
“Because I’m on a date Declan, and I was having a pretty fucking perfect time until five seconds ago,” I yell back at him. Connor squeezes my hand to calm me down. I’m fuming, I can actually feel my cheeks burning in embarrassment and I’m clenching my free hand into a fist at my side.
Declan’s face suddenly gets all soft and concerned and he takes my clenched hand, straightens my fingers out and starts stroking my palm with his thumb.
“Izzy sweetheart, I’m so sorry, it’s your Mum, she’s been taken to the hospital. They wouldn’t tell me any details because I’m not family,” he says with a mix of pity and concern written all over his face. I feel as if all the oxygen leaves my body and I can’t breathe.
“Izzy, let me take you to the hospital,” Connor says as he pulls me into his arms away from Declan.
Declan pulls me right back out again like I’m some kind of incapable soft toy. “Nah man you’ve been drinking…I’ll take her.”
I can literally feel the tension, which snaps me out of my shocked trance. “Connor it’s okay, I’ll go with Declan, he’s right, we’ve both been drinking. I’ll ring you in the morning, okay. Thank you for a lovely evening,” I say as I give him a quick kiss on the cheek and make to leave. Connor pulls me back and fiercely hugs me. I look into his eyes and burst into tears.
“He’s here with the car Izzy, promise me you’ll ring me, no matter what time it is okay, and if you need me to come to you I will, straight away, I promise.” He tucks a lock of my hair behind my ear and smiles at me sadly. I nod at him afraid to speak past the lump in my throat and start walking over to where Declan is parked and get into his car.
“What did they say Declan?” I whisper as the car pulls away from the curb. I look over at his profile, all serious and grim with the flashing streaks of street lamps in the dark night as we shoot past them, bouncing off his face. He doesn’t look back at me but moves his hand to rest on my thigh, gently squeezing it to reassure me.
“They rang and asked for you. Apparently, your Mum had a piece of paper in her back pocket that had ‘Izobel’s new number’ written down on it. They said she was in an accident but they wouldn’t say how it happened or how bad she is. I’m so sorry Izzy.”
The patch of thigh that has his hand resting on it feels like it’s on fire, whereas the rest of me feels, ice cold. I look out the window at the passing houses, some with their lights on and I’m guessing that in all of those homes, families are getting ready for bed or are already sleeping, curled around each other. As we get closer to the hospital I feel my pulse quicken with each mile and a cold sweat begins to break out all down my back. A familiar feeling of fear and panic sets in as I wonder what I’ll find when we get there.
“Izzy, we’re here sweetheart,” Declan breaks into my thoughts. He’s parked up in the multi storey car park which surprisingly is almost empty. What follows is like a dream sequence, I watch him get out of the car, I feel the cold where his hand left my thigh, he walks over to the ticket machine; sticks some coins in, gets his ticket and returns to me. I count; it took him twenty seconds, which is how long I’ve held my breath for.
“Izzy baby, come with me.” I feel his hand grasping mine and look up at him. He’s crouched at my side. “Come on sweetheart.” He looks at me with such concern I let him pull me out the car. He takes my hand and we walk in to find the hospital reception. I look down at our hands. Quite shocked at how small mine looks in his, my eyes follow a path up his arm, from the manly veined and sinewy muscles, up to the beginning of his tattoo just visible under the edge of his shirt sleeve. I end up looking at his face, his strong handsome face and notice that he mustn’t have shaved today, he has the signs of dark shadows along his jawline. I reach up with my other hand to feel whether they’re soft or rough, but Declan’s so bloody tall I can barely reach him. He looks down at me with a half-smile that makes me feel even weaker at the knees than I already do.
“Yeah...I couldn’t be arsed to shave today.”
“I think I like it,” I say back to him with a small smile.
His eyes look at my mouth as I say it. Shit, I must stop this, my thoughts go back to Mum, the reason I’m here. We walk through the doors and suddenly the smell hits me like a freight train. The smell of hospital and death. I’m right back to eighteen months ago. The day my brother died. The smell is exactly the same, different hospital, identical smell. I have no idea what it is that makes this smell. I know it stays on your clothes and on your skin though. The stale and harsh air stays in your body until you’ve replaced it with enough clean breaths later. We walk up to the front desk, but I’ve lost my voice, I can’t get to it, it refuses to come, the memories of that night assaulting me, brought on by the smell. I can’t help but think the worst and my anxiety is taking over with black spots seeping into my vision. I look up at Declan pleading with my eyes for him to find my Mum. I vaguely hear him asking all the right questions and feel him pulling me in the direction of the A&E department.
“Izzy, I have no idea what we’re going to find but they said she’s still in A&E, they might not let me come into her cubicle with you.” He’s pulling me along following the signs in the long hallways.
“Don’t leave me Declan…please don’t leave me,” I whisper, my voice barely audible, the noise in A&E is deafening as we approach the receptionist in her round glass office in the middle of the madness. As soon as she looks up at me I find my voice again from deep down. I can do this, I repeat over and over again in my head as I attempt to clear my throat of the growing lump of emotion.
“My name is Izobel…Izobel Jerome, my Mum Elizabeth Jerome is here as a patient somewhere. I don’t know what’s happened but my…umm…” I hesitate, what is he? “….house mate Declan here received a phone call earlier tonight.” I’m suddenly waffling a
nd when I look up at Declan, I see he’s looking at me like he’s desperate to say something. He looks angry and his grip on my hand is slowly crushing my fingers.
“Please can you go sit down in the family waiting room through the door on your left, I’ll buzz you in and let the duty nurse know that you’re here,” she replies in a bored monotone voice.
I always did wonder where they find the receptionists in places like this. Were they always devoid of emotions or did the sickness and irate concerned family members desensitise them over time? As Declan and I go through the door we enter a huge room and find two available seats. I look around the sterile and drab room. It looks like a before picture in a house restoration programme, straight out of the eighties’ with dirty pink walls, pastel paintings of flowers and non-descript brown wood furniture. There are water marks staining the walls in the corners where they meet the ceiling. A TV show is blasting in one corner and I look to see if I recognize it and find that I do. It’s that weekly show that makes fun of people hurting themselves and doing stupid stuff. I’m guessing this is supposed to make family and friends feel better for a while, watching to forget the reason that brought them to this room in the first place. The TV rests on a tall carrier with wheels. A family has wheeled it over so they can watch it, their two young children giggling, captivated, whilst their parents send each other worried looks. There’s a water station that slowly drips, continuously forming a chalky stain that runs down the side making it look dirty and unappetising. The door suddenly opens and everyone’s attention follows. A nurse comes in with a clipboard, she looks hassled and tired. I wonder where she is in her shift.
“Izobel Jerome,” she calls searching the room of anxious faces, looking for recognition.
“Yes Nurse,” I reply, standing up and walking over to her apprehensively, my feet dragging wanting to prolong this if it’s bad news.
“If you could please follow me,” she says as she walks down the hallway, her rubber clogs squeaking with each step. She takes us to a cubicle, but doesn’t open the cloth divider; instead she turns to me and Declan. I brace myself as Declan draws me into his arms.
“So Izobel, your mother has several contusions on the right hand side of her face, there is also some traumatic injury to the soft tissue on her left side, as well as ecchymosis in her mouth.”
“Wha….what does that mean, in her mouth? I don’t understand what that is?” I shakily interrupt her with every ounce of the fear I’m feeling marking my words.
“Well, in the most generic sense it means that she has haemorrhaging in her mouth from ruptured blood vessels,” the nurse explains understanding my fear. “Now, these injuries are quite severe so I have to warn you, the police will be showing up shortly to take a statement from your mother, and most likely you too.” She looks at me sympathetically and I feel my legs turn into jelly. Just as I think I might collapse I feel Declan’s arms tightening around me.
“I’ve got you,” Declan whispers in my ear. “Just breathe Iz, I’m here and I’m not leaving you.”
The nurse slowly pulls the curtain back and I see Mum. I gasp at the state of her bruised face. She looks so tiny and fragile in that big bed. She looks like me. But an old beaten up version of me. A version of me from a few years ago, though this time he must’ve really lost it. This time I doubt even Mum can explain the bruises away with accident tales.
“She’s sleeping at the moment. We’ve ruled out the possibility of damage to the brain and related tissues. As far as the tests showed there’s no traumatic brain injury. However, we’ll be keeping her in for observation for the next twenty-four hours and she’ll be moved as soon as we have a bed ready upstairs.”
“Can I sit with her until you do?” I ask the nurse. Edging closer to the bed, I can see Mum’s foot peeking out from the bed sheet she has covering her. She’s wearing her white trainer socks. For some reason they make her look even more fragile than she already does; makes her look innocent and young.
“Yes, you can stay with her, as you’ll need to answer a few questions soon.” As the nurse walks past me to leave, she squeezes my arm gently. I stand in silence just trying to get my head around what’s before me.
“You don’t have to stay with me Declan,” I whisper, so I don’t wake up Mum.
“I told you I wouldn’t leave you Izzy, I’m staying as long as you want me to.” His tone is firm, yet he doesn’t move any closer. He’s trying to keep a respectful distance. I move a chair over next to the bed and sit down looking for Mum’s hand under the cover. When I find it, I gently put it in mine. Mum’s hands have always been soft as silk. It’s one of the things I’ve always admired. She has the softest youthful looking skin without a single blemish or dis-colouration. Well normally.
“Mum, it’s Izobel, I’m here, you’re not alone, and you’re safe now,” I whisper to her, as I feel the tears coming. I’ve always been the master of silent crying, the wet tracks being the only evidence. I was taught from an early age that crying and excessive display of feelings could have dire consequences. Zack and I quickly learnt the importance of hurting in silence.
“Izzy sweetheart, the police are going to be here soon. Do you have any idea who could have done this to your Mum?” Declan sounds so pissed off and out of the corner of my eye I can see his hands clenching at his sides as if he himself wants to hit something or someone.
“Oh Declan, it’s such a long story, one I can’t tell you right now, maybe someday…maybe never,” I say as I nervously un-tuck the hair from behind my ears trying to hide my face, the guilt and the shame clearly showing. I have no idea what to say to the police when they get here.
“Ms. Jerome?” I nearly jump out of my seat when I hear and see two police officers enter Mum’s cubicle. They introduce themselves as PC Moore and PC Stevens.
“Yes, yes that’s me…can you please tell me what happened to Mum and how she came to be here…please?” I look at the two officers who have made themselves comfortable, one taking out a notebook and pen noting things down already.
“Well we were hoping you could shed some light on your Mum’s situation. We got a call from a neighbour, a Mrs Gardner who reported a disturbance at your Mum’s address. When an officer turned up, the front door was locked, so he walked round the back to check through the windows and saw your Mum lying on the floor in the living room. An ambulance was called and the rest I’ve been informed you’re aware of.” He stops talking and looks at me waiting for me to say something. What…well I’m not sure I can or even want to.
Mum stirs in her sleep and I stroke her hand, as I shudder. I feel so uncomfortable and I can feel Declan next to me, his hand resting on my chair as if he’s ready to grab on to me any second now. Waiting for me to fall or go crazy…something.
The officer looks at me. He has such a kind face, he looks as if he’s in his mid-thirties, short cropped black hair with scattered grey in it. His partner is texting something on her phone; she hasn’t looked at me once. She seems very young, probably not far from my age I reckon. As if she feels me looking, her head snaps up, but looking at Declan not me. I shake my head at the obviousness of her actions as she starts flirting with him through her movements rather than words.
“Declan would you mind getting me a coffee?” I ask him. I need him out of here in case we get on to the subject of my Dad and no way do I want Declan in here for that. I still don’t want anyone knowing the other me, my other life. My secrets and shame. The female police officer probably thinks I feel threatened by the way she suddenly blushes and starts to look really busy on her phone again.
“Sure thing Izzy, anyone else want a coffee?” Declan asks, as he stands up. The officers both mumble no thanks and I look and wait as Declan leaves.
“Now Izobel, we haven’t been able to contact your Dad, we contacted his PA but the details were hazy as to his whereabouts. She mentioned a business trip to the States?” He looks into his notes, his forehead getting that tense pattern of wanting to broach somet
hing in the best possible way.
Before anyone gets a chance to say anything else Mum wakes up. Her croaky voice calling for me. “Izobel darling…” I leap out of my chair and throw myself on her forgetting her bruises and her hurt until I hear her wince.
“Oh Mum…I’m sorry, I am so so sorry.” I burst out crying yet again.
“It’s okay Izobel, I’m okay,” she whispers, stroking my hair like only a mother knows how to do to calm down her distraught child.
“Mrs Jerome, I’m PC Moore,” the kind looking officer says. “Do you remember what happened to you, how you came to be in this condition?”
Mum shakes her head as much as she’s able to with the pain. “Not really no, I was cleaning the floors and I must have slipped in the water, hit my head on the sideboard and fallen awkwardly.” She’s such an accomplished liar when it comes to Dad and the pain he inflicts on us; on her. I can’t look at the officers; instead I focus on picking at the loose thread in Mum’s blanket, repeating in my head the wish that she’ll put an end to this once and for all. A wish I have internally repeated as far back in my childhood as I can remember. But it’s a double edged sword, because at the same time I can’t imagine the struggle and the heart ache of our life coming out in the open, if she does, which inevitably will happen.
PC Moore looks sceptical, he doesn’t believe her, it’s written all over his face. He looks over at me and I quickly look down at Mum’s hand which is now firmly gripping mine, letting me know how she wants this to play out with just a squeeze.
“Well….” he sighs with a frazzled look on his face as if he sees this every day, an aftermath of domestic violence with a victim unwilling to tell the truth. “We’ll have to leave it at that then Mrs. Jerome, but, I will leave you with some contact information and some leaflets.”
“Thank you officer,” Mum replies in a tired voice. “But that won’t be necessary.”
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