While I Was Sleeping

by Dani Atkins

  They said it was the adrenalin pumping through me. They said that was why I was on such an incredible high and why I felt no pain. The nurses kept telling me to calm down, as though cheating death was something anyone could ever feel calm or nonchalant about. Maybe they were right. Maybe in a day or two it would hit me, and the pain and discomfort I’d been expecting from the surgery would track me down and catch up with me. But in the meantime all I could feel was euphoria.

  Phoning Ryan, hearing his voice when I hadn’t been certain I would ever do so again, had made me cry. But this time they were happy tears. While I waited for him to get to the hospital, I went through my phone directory, sending the same two-word message to practically everyone I knew: Still here. Some replies made me smile, others made me cry, but the one that touched me most deeply was unexpectedly the one from Maddie: Thank God. Hurry home, miracle girl, we need you.

  ‘No. Absolutely not. No way.’

  ‘I don’t see why not. I feel amazing.’

  ‘Mrs Turner . . . Chloe, you had major surgery yesterday morning. I can’t believe you are asking me if you can discharge yourself from hospital today.’

  I blew out a long stream of air through my pursed lips. She was tough, this ward sister. I’d known I was going to meet with resistance, but it hadn’t occurred to me anyone would be this unbending.

  ‘Obviously I’m not asking to be discharged. I do appreciate how serious my operation was.’

  I saw the sister begin to relax. ‘Oh, I apologise. I must have misunderstood what Nurse Price was saying. I thought she meant you wanted to leave the hospital today.’

  ‘I do,’ I said, delighted we were all finally on the same page. ‘But only for the afternoon. I promise to come back afterwards.’

  The sister shook her head with a now-I’ve-heard-it-all expression on her face. She’d be telling this story for years to come, I realised. I knew I had to try a different tack.

  ‘Do you have children, Sister?’

  She looked surprised by the question. ‘Yes I do, actually. A girl of ten, and a boy of seven.’

  I nodded, feeling slightly more encouraged. ‘Well, wouldn’t you do just about anything you could to make them happy?’

  ‘Yeeees,’ replied the woman standing between me and freedom.

  ‘Well, yesterday my little girl could have ended up without a mother. My operation could very easily have ended that way.’

  The sister wasn’t made of stone, for I thought I saw a small softening in her eyes. ‘I know. You’ve been very fortunate. Which is all the more reason why you shouldn’t even think about jeopardising your recovery by doing something as crazy as leaving the hospital for the afternoon.’

  ‘I know you only want what’s best for the patients on your ward. But you have to believe me that this is what is best for me. I need to see my daughter, and she needs to see me. Not in a hospital bed, not even downstairs in the foyer. She needs to look up, just like every other little kid in her class is going to do this afternoon, and see her mummy watching her from the edge of the sports field. Please don’t say no to me. Don’t make me break her heart.’

  For a second I thought I glimpsed the glitter of a tear in the corner of the older woman’s eye. She blinked rapidly, and it was gone. ‘A neurosurgical ward isn’t like a day spa. You can’t just pop in and pop out at will, you know.’ She was saying the words she had to say, but I could hear there was less conviction in them than before.

  ‘I take total responsibility for my actions. I’ll sign whatever disclaimer you need me to sign. But, please, let me go.’

  She shook her head as though she couldn’t believe anyone could act so irresponsibly, but she’d seen the determination in my eyes and heard the steel in my voice.

  ‘It’s always the mothers,’ she muttered mysteriously under her breath, before looking up to meet my eyes. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

  Maddie

  I stared at the two dresses, totally unable to decide between them. Which one said ‘school sports day’, I wondered: the blue one with the floaty skirt, or the red silk one with the deep V-neckline? The ringing of my phone on the dressing table offered a welcome delay in having to choose. Chloe of course would have had the perfect outfit already picked out, but then she was used to this kind of school event. Regardless how many times I’d stood at the school gates to collect Hope, I was still very much the outsider. In the pecking order I think I came in just above the au pairs.

  I padded across the bedroom in my underwear to answer the phone, not bothering to read the display before pressing Accept. Hearing her voice threw me in that spooky kind of way, when the person you’ve been thinking about suddenly gets in touch. And then, when the enormity of everything she’d been through in the last twenty-four hours hit me, I was thrown all over again that she was well enough to make phone calls. I thought that was the biggest surprise of the day. I was wrong.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ I asked.

  There was an undercurrent of urgency in her voice, as though she was anxious to quickly get through the opening pleasantries. ‘Exceptionally well, thanks.’

  ‘That’s amazing, I would have thought—’

  ‘Maddie,’ Chloe interrupted, as though she had no further time to waste on inconsequential matters. ‘It’s Hope’s school sports day today.’

  I sat down on the padded velvet stool before me and saw the wry smile appear on my face in the dressing-table mirror. I should have known this wasn’t a social call. She was checking up on me, making sure I hadn’t forgotten that I had promised to attend.

  ‘Yes, I know,’ I assured her. ‘In fact, I was just trying to decide—’

  Once again she cut me off. It was very un-Chloe. ‘Good. Well, I want to go.’

  ‘I’m sure you do,’ I said with understanding.

  There was audible relief in her voice. ‘I knew you’d be the right person to ask.’

  I took a pause and wondered what I’d missed. ‘Ask? Ask what?’

  ‘The school sports day this afternoon. I want you to take me there.’

  I played her words through my head a couple of times, trying to imagine an alternative interpretation that I simply hadn’t grasped. There was none.

  ‘You want me to take you to Hope’s school this afternoon?’ I said, pronouncing each word slowly and carefully, as though talking to a foreigner.

  ‘Yes. That’s why I’m calling.’

  ‘Are you crazy?’

  I heard her sigh of impatience all the way from her hospital bed. The hospital bed which I was pretty sure she shouldn’t even be thinking of leaving.

  ‘No. I’m deadly serious. Will you do it? Will you come and collect me?’

  She was moving on to practicalities, but I was still stumbling with the whole stupid concept. ‘Truly? Can you hear yourself? Do you know what you’re asking?’

  ‘I am making perfect sense,’ said Chloe, a frisson of irritation icing her voice, making her tone much cooler than it had been at the start of the call.

  ‘No you’re not,’ I refuted. ‘When they were messing around in your head, did they put a few bits in backwards or something, because this has to be just about the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard.’

  ‘I thought you, of all people, would understand.’

  I saw immediately what she was trying to do with that slightly hurt tone. She was trying to appeal to my softer side. Clearly she hadn’t yet realised that I didn’t have one. Not about this, anyway.

  ‘Why are you asking me, Chloe?’ I said, suddenly knowing exactly why. ‘Why aren’t you asking Ryan, because obviously he’s going to be going there today too?’

  There was a long moment of silence at the other end of the line.

  ‘You haven’t told him, have you?’ I pressed, feeling a bit like a prosecutor in a court of law. Albeit minus the funny wig and robes, and dressed only in a bra and briefs.

  ‘Ryan wouldn’t understand.’

  ‘Well, he definitely wouldn’t be alone
there. No one in their right mind would understand.’

  ‘And that’s why I knew you were the right person to ask.’

  ‘Wow. Your charm skills are going to need some work. Calling me crazy isn’t going to make me any more inclined to change my mind, you know.’

  ‘No. That wasn’t what I meant,’ said Chloe quickly, sounding not at all apologetic that she might have offended me. ‘What I meant was that, out of everyone, you would understand how important it is not to miss out on key moments in Hope’s life. Today is a big deal at her school. I’ve been there every other year for this event.’

  ‘You hadn’t just had brain surgery on those other occasions,’ I couldn’t resist pointing out.

  She went on smoothly, as though I hadn’t spoken: ‘Hope is a very smart little girl. Despite our best efforts at shielding her from the truth, she knows how sick I’ve been. She knows it was serious. To be there for her today would mean the world not just to me, but more importantly to her. Can you imagine her face the moment I walk in and she sees me?’

  ‘I can’t, actually. I’m too busy imagining Ryan’s.’

  ‘Let me worry about Ryan,’ Chloe said, pulling rank as his wife. Which of course was her right.

  ‘What does the hospital say?’ I asked, after she’d left just enough time for me to begin to waver.

  Afterwards I realised how neatly she skirted that question. ‘They’re happy for me to go if I sign a release. And I’ll be going straight back afterwards.’

  ‘This still sounds like a terrible idea. What if you collapse, or something?’

  ‘I won’t,’ Chloe said with an unshakeable assurance she had no right to give.

  Again there was a long pause. She was good at this, I had to admit. She knew I was dithering. To think, only five minutes earlier the biggest decision I’d had to make was which dress to wear.

  ‘Look, Maddie. I’m not asking for your approval here. I’m not asking you to condone this as a great idea. But I am going to do it. I can phone for a taxi if I have to. But I’m going to do this, with or without you.’ She paused before delivering, with superb timing, her closing thrust. ‘But it would be an awful lot easier doing it with you.’

  She was waiting for me. Sitting on the edge of her hospital bed, one eye fixed on the door, the other on the clock.

  ‘I was worried you’d changed your mind,’ was her greeting. I’d lost count of how many times I had done exactly that since our phone call a few hours earlier. And yet, despite all good sense, here I was, doing as she had asked.

  ‘I got hijacked by the ward sister on my way in,’ I explained, passing her the large carrier bag I had brought with me. ‘Plus it took me longer than I expected to find everything in your bedroom.’

  Chloe reached for the bag and peered inside. ‘Is it all here?’

  I nodded, still trying to shake off the memory of the disapproving expression on the ward sister’s face as she stopped me on my way to Chloe’s bedside. She hadn’t needed to tell me how stupid she thought this plan was; her flaring nostrils and tightly locked lips had spoken very eloquently for her.

  Chloe reached into the bag and began to shake the creases from the pretty flower-patterned dress that I’d found exactly where she said it would be in her wardrobe. As someone whose own closet was always in a permanent state of chaos, I couldn’t help but be impressed with Chloe’s organised bedroom. I found everything on the list of items she’d asked me to bring to the hospital. As well as a couple of things I’m fairly certain she hadn’t intended me to find.

  ‘Would you mind drawing the curtains around the bed?’ she asked, her fingers beginning to work on the knot of her robe. I pulled the brightly patterned drapes along the track until all that was left was a narrow gap in which I stood. Chloe had slipped the robe from her shoulders and was now fumbling blindly behind her back with the ties of the hospital gown. I hesitated for a second before stepping closer to the bed and twitching the curtain in place behind me.

  ‘Move your hands. I’ll do that,’ I instructed, reaching for the ties.

  She was playing Russian Roulette with this crazy scheme of hers and somehow, despite the fact I should have known better, I seemed to be committed to helping her load the gun.

  Chloe might have been putting on an incredibly brave face, but she was weaker than she was willing to admit. After I’d zipped up her dress and fastened the sandals onto her feet, she had needed to take a breather in the chair beside the bed.

  ‘Did you bring the straw hat?’ she asked, slightly breathless. A fine film of perspiration was glazing her upper lip and her colour was closer to my own than usual.

  ‘I did, but I think this might work better.’ From my own bag I pulled a length of gossamer fine material, like a magician performing an illusion. I’d been intending to drape the delicate scarf around my bare shoulders, but when I noticed how well it matched the colours in Chloe’s dress, I knew it could be put to a better purpose.

  I hadn’t been sure what to expect following Chloe’s surgery. My imagination had conjured up images ranging from a heavily bandaged Egyptian mummy, to a neatly turbaned sultan. So the remarkably small wound dressing at the back of her head had taken me a bit by surprise.

  ‘I think we could probably hide the entire dressing if we use this as a hairband,’ I suggested.

  There was something I couldn’t quite read in Chloe’s eyes as she obediently twisted in her chair and lifted the hair off the back of her neck. It was a vulnerable pose, exposing not just the edges of the stapled wound but also the neatly shaved section of her skull. I worked quickly but gently, anxious not to hurt her as I wound the scarf over the bandage and teased her hair in place to cover the bald patch. I knotted the scarf loosely at the side of her head and when I stood back to survey my handiwork, I had to admit it looked kind of cute.

  She studied the finished effect in the small mirror I held out for her, her eyes a little misty as they lifted to mine before giving me a small nod.

  ‘Thank you, Maddie. That looks great. Can we go now?’

  She needed my arm for support all the way to the lift, and I was already worrying about how far away I’d parked the car, as well as the walk to the school playing field at the other end of our journey. Walking past the ward sister’s office with its open door had been an uncomfortable ordeal. I was aware of her stopping whatever it was she’d been working on to watch our slow and careful progress down the length of the ward and out through its double doors. I glanced back once over my shoulder and saw her slowly shaking her head.

  As we waited for the lift to respond to its summons, Chloe leant back against the wall, her eyes closed as she caught her breath, while I looked at my watch and tried to calculate if we would get there on time. If we didn’t take too long getting back to the car, or get caught in traffic, we could still make it. Just. The lift bell pinged and once again I held out my arm to support Chloe, but before the aluminium doors slid open, we were stopped by a voice calling us from the direction of the ward.

  ‘Wait!’

  We both turned, wearing similar expressions of shock at the sight of the disapproving ward sister approaching us at a pace just short of a run. It’s not easy to sprint when pushing a wheelchair, even if it’s an empty one, but she was definitely giving it her best shot.

  ‘Here,’ she said, thrusting the wheelchair towards me. I grabbed hold of one handle. ‘Make sure you bring back the chair and my patient in one piece,’ she instructed. Her voice was terse and gruff, but the expression in her eyes told a different story.

  Neither of us said a word as Chloe carefully lowered herself onto the chair as the lift carried us down to the ground floor. But we were both smiling.

  I waited until I had negotiated my way out of the hospital’s complicated labyrinth of roads before raising the subject which I knew had the potential to destroy the present truce between us.

  ‘So, I read your letter.’

  I took my eyes briefly off the road to look at her. Chloe’s
hands had tightened in her lap at my words, but her gaze remained fixed on the view through the windscreen. Her back had stiffened, and I knew from her immobility how much my words had shocked her.

  ‘That was private,’ she said eventually, her voice tight and controlled.

  ‘It was addressed to me. How private could it be?’

  Her head turned to look at me. ‘You weren’t meant to read it.’

  ‘Why write it then?’

  I heard her deeply indrawn breath, as though summoning up all of her strength not to get angry. ‘You weren’t meant to read it yet. I only wrote it in case—’

  ‘I know why you wrote it.’

  ‘Then you should have left it where it was. Did you open the other letters too?’

  ‘No. Of course not,’ I said, genuinely offended that she thought my scruples were entirely non-existent. ‘Those weren’t mine to read. I left them in the drawer.’

  We travelled for almost another two miles before I spoke again.

  ‘I know the two of you were meant to be together. I know that when I’m gone everything will return to the way it was always meant to be. And that makes it easier to leave.’

  ‘You memorised the entire letter?’

  ‘Only the truly ridiculous bits. Oh wait, that would be all of it.’

  ‘None of it is ridiculous. It makes perfect sense.’

  I gave a small humourless laugh. ‘Ryan told me about this crazy notion of yours. That you’d come into his life because both he and Hope had needed someone after my accident, and that now I was back, your role was finished.’

  ‘It’s a theory.’

  ‘No it’s not. Well, not a valid or logical one. And even if it was right, you seem to have totally ignored one fairly inescapable truth.’

  I glanced over and saw her eyebrows had risen, waiting for my words. ‘I don’t love Ryan any more, and just as importantly, he no longer loves me.’

  ‘Yes he does,’ said Chloe quietly, and there was such pain in those words that something cold took hold of my heart and froze it. ‘He just doesn’t realise that he still does, that’s all.’

  That statement took three miles of driving before I felt capable of responding.