by Ber Carroll
Chapter 33
On Sunday Katie was determined to be more upbeat. Shit happened. She had lost Jim, smashed her leg, but life went on. She had many blessings to count: a wonderful family, great friends and a promising career. She was done with the dark, dogged despair – she was going to force herself to be positive.
Frankie came in mid-morning and she was happy to see him.
‘Where’s Mum?’
‘At mass,’ he replied.
She thought she must have misheard. ‘Mass?’
‘Yes.’ Newspaper under his arm, he ambled over to the armchair. ‘She prayed a lot when you were unconscious. She said it gave her strength.’
‘But I didn’t think Mum did the whole religion thing . . .’
‘She was always very spiritual,’ Frankie told her as he spread the newspaper out across his knees, ‘but her father’s extremism and the cruelty of the sisters in the home pushed her away from the Church . . . It took your accident to push her back.’
Katie thought he would start reading the newspaper but he kept looking at her.
‘It seems that your mother’s prayers have been answered on all fronts,’ he said slowly. ‘We’ve heard from the home. They’ve made contact with Ellen and she’s interested in a reunion.’
Katie sat up straighter in the bed. Ellen was the big unknown – she felt nervous even hearing her name mentioned.
Frankie was nervous too; apprehension cloaked his whole face. ‘Ellen’s been having counselling too – that’s why it’s taken a while . . .’
‘When? Where?’
‘Tuesday – at the home. They say a neutral place is best and there will be counsellors on hand if it doesn’t go well . . .’
‘How’s Mum?’
Frankie shrugged as if the answer was obvious. ‘She’s a knot of nerves. We’re both trying to keep our expectations low.’
‘Did they say anything about Ellen? Is she –’
Frankie cut her off. ‘They said nothing other than the time and place of the reunion.’
He raised the newspaper with a certain amount of defensiveness and began to read. Katie felt fiercely protective of him and Rose and hoped for all their sakes that Ellen would not be vengeful or have serious problems.
The next forty-eight hours were the slowest of Katie’s entire life. On the day of the reunion, she couldn’t stop herself from second-guessing every move that Rose and Frankie made.
7 am: Getting into their rented Toyota Corolla to start the drive down to Cork.
9 am: Halfway there, having a quick cup of tea to break the journey.
11 am: Driving through Cork’s busy streets.
12 noon: Seeing Ellen, the baby they had left behind, now a grown woman. Finding out her life story. Telling her theirs. Crying? Hugging? Forgiving?
3 pm: Heading back up the main Dublin Road, maybe talking, maybe not.
7pm: Home.
Katie had made Frankie promise to come straight to the hospital. In the end it was after eight when they arrived. Their faces were tired, a little on the pale side, but other than that they seemed all right.
‘Well?’ she asked.
‘We met her,’ was Rose’s frustratingly simple response.
‘What was she like?’
‘She was nice.’
‘Mum!’ Katie exclaimed in exasperation.
‘Give me a minute to catch my breath, Katie!’ Rose wearily rubbed her forehead. ‘It’s been a long day.’
‘Sorry.’
Frankie pulled up one of the straight-backed chairs and Rose sank into it. Then she unzipped her bag and took out a photograph.
‘Ellen gave me this. Her husband’s name is Paul, they’ve been married eleven years. James is nine – football mad. Ciara is five – she’s just started school.’
Katie looked down at the family photograph with the cheeky-looking boy, cute button-nosed girl and two smiling adults. The man, Paul, had a receding hairline and an intelligent face. His arm was draped around his wife’s, Ellen’s, shoulders.
‘She does look like me,’ Katie said as she studied her sister’s short dark hair and sky-blue eyes.
‘I told her that,’ said Rose, a proud smile forming on her lips. ‘It’s only the hairstyle that’s different.’
Katie searched Ellen’s face for clues to her personality. ‘Was she angry that you left her behind in the orphanage?’
Rose looked utterly relieved to be able to answer in the negative. ‘No, not at all. She was adopted when she was five months old and all her memories are of a happy family environment.’
‘Did she know she was adopted?’
Rose nodded. ‘Her adoptive parents told her when she was twelve.’
‘Did she understand why you had to give her up?’
Frankie answered, ‘She didn’t think about it until she had children of her own.’ He was still standing, his hands awkwardly shoved in his trouser pockets. ‘Shortly after James was born she saw an RTÉ documentary about unmarried mothers in the fifties and sixties. There was a lot of public outrage afterwards about how badly the girls were treated in the homes. Ellen discussed it with her adoptive parents and they gave her every support when she said she wanted to try to find her birth mother. She wrote to the home but, not surprisingly, they weren’t able to trace Rose. She was disappointed at the time, but she put it behind her and got on with her life.’
‘She sounds very practical. Didn’t she show any emotion?’
‘She cried a little,’ said Rose. ‘But for the most part she was quite self-possessed.’
‘Did you cry?’
‘Yes. Yes, I did.’
Ellen clearly bore no animosity, and by all accounts the reunion had gone as well as could be expected. For some strange reason it felt like an anticlimax to Katie.
‘When will I see her?’
‘I don’t know if you will,’ shrugged Frankie. ‘On the counsellors’ recommendation, we didn’t exchange addresses or phone numbers. We’re all having a cooling-off period, as it were.’
The notion of ‘cooling off’ after forty wasted years was completely baffling to Katie.
‘Why?’
‘So that we take it slow.’ From the tone of Frankie’s voice, it seemed that he agreed fully with the recommendation. ‘We can arrange a second meeting through the home – and because we’re not in direct contact, there’s no pressure on Ellen to agree. It’s not our intention to force our family on her. She has her own life and it wouldn’t be fair to invade it.’
‘But what if she wants to be part of our family?’ asked Katie.
‘Then we’d be delighted to have her,’ he replied softly, and Rose nodded in agreement.
Chapter 34
A huge rush of blood surged into Katie’s leg and it felt like it was about to explode. She looked at the swollen, mottled skin and burst into tears.
‘Now, now,’ said Maura, squeezing her shoulders, ‘this is a happy occasion, not sad.’
Coming out of traction was a huge milestone. The last few weeks had dragged and Katie had been desperate to get up and out of bed, and impatient to start living her life again. But instead of feeling jubilant, she was dizzy and disoriented and sore.
‘My leg will never be the same again.’
‘Of course it will. You’ll be dancing a jig in no time.’
Fond as she was of Maura, Katie thought that if she heard her talk about dancing a jig one more time she would throttle her.
For the following few days, Jane, the physio, continued to visit her in the room. Katie started to realise what she’d meant when she’d said that the hard work would start once she came out of traction.
‘This machine is called a CPM,’ she said, putting the contraption on the bed. ‘The letters stand for Continuous Passive Motion. Now, we strap your leg in like this, then I select the range of movement – start small – and off it goes, up and down, nice and slow.’
More like nice and excruciating.
After that first enc
ounter with the CPM machine, Katie made sure that she took her painkillers before Jane’s visits.
Four days later, Jane announced that Katie was ready for her first visit to the gymnasium. This involved a ride in a wheelchair, and while the orderly pushed the chair down the long corridors, Katie smiled self-consciously at the people they met along the way. She knew she was incapable of walking, but it still felt like the height of laziness to be pushed around by someone else.
In the gymnasium Katie saw the real Jane at work.
‘Now, flex back this way, slowly.’
‘I don’t think my leg is ready for what you’re doing to it,’ Katie told her through gritted teeth.
‘Your leg just wants an easy life – don’t we all?’
When she finished with the movement exercises, she helped Katie across to the parallel bars.
‘This is hopeless,’ said Katie when she couldn’t bear any weight at all. Tears of frustration pricked her eyes.
‘Nothing is hopeless. Just think of how far you’ve come on since last week.’
‘I was still in traction last week.’
‘Exactly.’
Katie thought the session would never reach an end. Jane kept on massaging, pushing, hurting. Finally, when Katie had gone way past her pain threshold and was once more on the verge of tears, the orderly showed up with her chair.
‘Jane says you have to get into bed without my help,’ he announced when they were back in her room.
‘So you’re in cahoots with her,’ Katie complained and mustered up the last of her strength to pull herself out of the chair. She sat on the bed and, using one of Jane’s demonstrated techniques, slid her good leg under the injured one and lifted it up onto the mattress.
‘Well done,’ said the orderly and then added, as if it was something to look forward to, ‘See you same time tomorrow.’
In the long week that followed, Katie was bombarded with unqualified advice regarding her recovery.
‘Swimming is meant to be a great way to improve mobility,’ Mags commented on one of her regular visits.
‘I’m eons away from getting into a pool,’ Katie informed her crossly.
Mags had the grace to look a little sheepish. ‘Maybe it’s something to keep in mind for later on, then. By the way, the clinic is moving to new premises – same street, but lots of space – you’ll have to come and visit when you get out of here.’
Shortly afterwards, Stephen sent an email suggesting that she join a gym.
I can only just about get in and out of bed, she typed back. A workout, even a light one, is a long way off. But it sounds like a good idea for you. I thought you looked a little podgy when you were here – you shouldn’t let yourself go just because you’re in love.
He sent a characteristic smart-assed response and the gym wasn’t mentioned again.
Liz was the next to jump on the bandwagon.
‘I got this stuff from a naturopath in Cork,’ she said, unscrewing the top of a clinical-looking tub. ‘It returns vitality to the skin.’
She massaged the thick cream onto Katie’s leg.
‘There,’ she said with immense satisfaction. ‘It will look as good as the other one in no time.’
When Katie developed an allergic rash to the cream, Liz was outraged.
‘But it’s meant to be all natural ingredients, or so the woman told me . . .’
Annie sent a letter and some photographs of Zack taking his first steps.
This will be you soon, Katie, she wrote on the back.
Zack beamed at the camera, and looked ready to fall flat on his face any second. Katie had to laugh.
It seemed that Carmel was the only one who had any sound advice to offer.
‘Just listen to the physiotherapist,’ she said at the outset. ‘Do everything she tells you – plus more.’
Katie liked talking to Carmel because she was the only one who had any idea of what she was going through. She took her advice and practised Jane’s exercises over and over in her room.
She did her best to stay focused on the here and now but couldn’t stop her thoughts from veering occasionally to Sydney, where the High Potential team were settling back into their old jobs.
Will anyone wonder where I am? Will they care? What about Isabelle? Has she stayed on in Barcelona? David will be ecstatic to be back on familiar ground, and I bet Oliver had to drag Crystelle home. Jim and Carole . . . no, I don’t want to go there.
Katie tried to imagine herself back in Sydney, picking up the reins of her old job. But she could hardly picture herself sitting at her desk, never mind competing for a partnership. Since the accident, all her energies had been concentrated on one immediate goal: to be able to walk again. Being a partner by the time she was thirty-two seemed rather trivial by comparison.
The phone rang on Thursday night. Katie expected that it would be Carmel, who called every few days. She answered with a breezy hello but tensed up straightaway when she heard Neil’s voice.
‘I hear your recovery is going well,’ he remarked.
She forced a false brightness into her tone. ‘Yes. I’m out of traction and the physiotherapy has started in earnest. It’s slow and painful, but I’m managing to bear some weight now –’
Neil cut in before she was finished, making it clear that he was uninterested in any kind of detail. ‘I’ve told the others that you’ve been detained on some urgent business and won’t be joining us until the final conference in Fiji.’
The conference in Fiji was in December, only six weeks away, and Katie had no idea if she would be able to travel by then.
‘Why didn’t you tell them that I’d been in an accident?’ she asked. ‘Why the need for all this cover-up?’
His reply was as controlled and measured as ever. ‘Isabelle and David have pulled out of the programme. I don’t want everybody thinking that you’re out of the race too.’
Katie had an inkling about Isabelle but David was a total surprise. He had wanted the partnership more than anybody else.
‘Why did David pull out?’
‘He fell apart,’ Neil answered in a scathing tone of voice. ‘Angela contacted the Edinburgh office after he missed the last conference call. She found out that he hadn’t been in work that week – nobody knew where he was. She was concerned so she asked them to drop by his apartment. It transpired that he’d had some kind of nervous breakdown and was too frightened to go outside.’
‘Why? What caused it?’
‘It seems that Edinburgh was too far out of his comfort zone and he simply couldn’t cope.’
Guilt punched Katie in the chest.
I didn’t contact him once over the last few months. Edinburgh is so close to Dublin – I should have gone there. A friendly face might have made all the difference . . .
‘Where is he now?’
‘Back in Australia – getting therapy.’
David didn’t deserve this to happen to him; he had worked too hard. Now his career at MFJ was over. It wasn’t the sort of organisation to accommodate psychiatric problems, no matter how minor. All his slogging had been for nothing.
‘You’re still a front runner for a partnership, Katie,’ said Neil. ‘I don’t want any doubt with the team or with the selection committee. Angela Bardman knows of the accident only because you’ve missed some of the coursework. The others don’t need to know until they can see for themselves that you are well over your injuries.’
She was very disturbed when she hung up the phone. Why hadn’t Neil concocted a cover-up for David to protect his place on the programme? Why did he give her special treatment?
What does Neil see in me?
The question had always been lurking at the back of her mind. She would have liked to think it was down to talent, but she was not so sure. This cover-up, completely unnecessary in her mind, made Neil seem obsessed, and it made her very uneasy indeed.
Chapter 35
‘That’s good,’ said Jane encouragingly as Katie took a rigi
d step. ‘Just another now . . .’
Katie smiled with satisfaction and forced another step from her reluctant leg. After three weeks of intensive therapy, pain was no longer a deterrent: it was her motivation. She’d put every ounce of her considerable determination into her recovery. She’d practised alone in her room. She’d practised alone in the gym. She’d read Jane’s reference books and other books about getting back on your feet.
Katie used the rails to rest for a moment.
‘I think we might let you go home soon,’ said Jane.
Katie did a double-take. ‘Really?’ She was hesitant only because she had learnt not to press Jane for time frames regarding her recovery.
‘I think you’re ready.’
‘Great.’ Katie grinned delightedly. ‘My parents will be thrilled.’
‘Don’t go planning your return flight to Sydney just yet,’ Jane warned. ‘You’ll still have to come in to outpatients every second day for therapy. Now, back to work.’
Katie took her hands off the rails and managed a few more heavy steps under Jane’s critical eye.
‘To be honest, I didn’t expect you to have this much functionality by now. The bone had so many breaks, and the tissue damage was so severe . . .’
Katie had no idea that Jane had harboured doubts. Ironically, it was her unfailing certainty that had helped Katie transcend the pain.
‘But you’ve exceeded even my most optimistic expectations,’ Jane continued.
Katie knew her well enough by now to tell that she was pleased. Maybe even a little proud.
Katie’s apartment seemed vast in comparison to the hospital room. She used her crutches to limp from room to room: kitchenette, bathroom, bedroom and living room. It felt both familiar and strange.
‘Well, here you are,’ said Rose, arms wide.
‘And here you are,’ Katie replied.
Rose was the strangeness. Standing in the middle of the apartment, in the middle of Dublin. The hospital room could have been in any old city and hadn’t authenticated that her mother was actually here in Dublin.
Katie noticed the flower arrangement on the coffee table.
‘Thanks, Mum.’
But the scent of the flowers reminded her of the hospital. She yearned for a different kind of smell. She hopped over to the window.