After the End(45)

There’s half a second of silence as the defib delivers, punctuated only by crying from Nikki, and guttural breaths from Connor. The room’s full of people, it’s hot and airless, and Leila’s about to go again, when there’s an imperceptible tremor from the boy beneath her hands. Leila’s own pulse throbs in her ears.

“Heartbeat,” she says, as the briefest of gaps reappear between the beeps. And gradually, the gaps become longer, and the beeps become more regular, and—“Heartbeat,” Leila says again, because saying it out loud helps to get everything back to normal.

She looks at the Slaters and gives a smile that fools no one. “Giving us all a bit of a scare, there. Cheeky monkey. I bet he keeps you on your toes, this one.”

“Oh, he does—he does!” Relief makes Nikki giddy. “He’s always been cheeky.”

“We’re going to have to ventilate him,” Leila tells her. “He’ll be sedated—he won’t feel anything—but it’s tough for parents to see, and it would help us to have some space to work . . .”

“We’ll wait outside, won’t we, Connor?”

Liam’s dad is rooted to the spot, staring at his boy with a face chalk white. Not saying a word.

It’s afterward he speaks, when Liam is stable and the ward is back to normal. Leila is running on empty, returning from the canteen, where she bought a doughnut she ate in the queue, and a black coffee she drank on the way back to the ward. Connor is standing in the corridor, staring at the defibrillator. No, not at the defib, but at the piece of laminated card one of the nurses has stuck to the wall beside it, while they try to convince Finance it’s worthy of something more permanent.

KINDLY DONATED BY FRIENDS OF PICU, WITH THANKS TO TOM AND ALISTAIR BRADFORD, AND THEIR DAUGHTER, DARCY.

Leila keeps her eyes on the corridor in front of her, respecting whatever moment he’s having, but as she passes, he calls after her.

“Dr. Khalili?”

The pronunciation is perfect.

Leila stops. Turns. Connor Slater is waging a war with himself. His fists clench and unclench by his sides, the movement bulging his upper arms and tensing the tendons either side of his neck. His eyes are unfocused, and he blinks hard, but there’s no stopping the tears, this time, and they fall onto his stomach. He makes no move to wipe them away, but scowls angrily, as though it were someone else wetting his cheeks, someone else weeping openly in a hospital corridor.

Leila waits for him to say whatever it is he’s struggling so hard to put into words.

In the end, the ones he chooses are simple. And the only ones needed.

“Thank you, Doctor.”

They lock eyes and his gaze tells Leila everything else he wants to say but can’t. Maybe he’ll find the words some other time, maybe he won’t. It doesn’t matter. Leila doubts there will be any more bigoted outbursts. She doubts there will be any more problems understanding her accent.

“That’s what we’re here for, Mr. Slater.”



* * *





Leila is about to go home when the medical director calls.

“My office. Now.”

Leila sighs. It has been another busy night, and she longs for bed, and tea, and one of the Madar biscuits Habibeh brought from home. Unease pricks her spine. Has Emmett heard about yesterday’s dawn excursion?

Leila left Pip and Dylan for as long as she dared, till the sky’s orange flames disappeared, leaving no trace that they had ever even existed. Then, anxious to return Dylan to PICU before anyone saw them, she touched Pip gently on the shoulder.

Dylan is fine, she reminds herself now. If Emmett was going to take issue with her unorthodox decision, it would not be on the grounds that she had put a patient at risk. He had suffered no ill effects from the outing, in fact he had been stable for twenty-four hours, with no seizures and no tachycardia.

She crosses the car park toward the central building that houses the hospital’s administrative and managerial functions. She thinks nothing of the first photographer she sees; it’s not unusual to see journalists around the children’s hospital, often here at the behest of parents campaigning to raise funds or awareness for the work done by the team here.

Occasionally, though, the press come because of a finger of suspicion—unfounded or otherwise—that points at negligence or malpractice, and so when Leila sees the second photographer, leaning against a wall, chatting idly to a puffa-jacketed companion, she changes her path and walks the other side of the paved square where they are standing. Her unease builds, and it is then that she connects the two photographers with her summons to the medical director’s office.

“It’s all over Twitter.” Emmett swivels his screen so Leila can see the thousands of tweets that have resulted in the nationwide trending of the hashtag #DylanAdams. Other hashtags follow in its wake, delivering the public’s verdict in a few cursory words. #FightForDylan, #JusticeForDylanAdams, #RightToDie. Even as Leila watches, the screen updates. Twenty-seven new tweets. Fifty-nine new tweets. Seventy-two new tweets. So many opinions; so few facts.

“The journalists started showing up an hour ago. There’s another lot camped out at the Adamses’ house.”

“Are they OK?”

“Mrs. Adams is extremely upset.”

Leila recalls the end of her shift yesterday morning, how peaceful Pip looked. She grabbed Leila’s hands and said Thank you, thank you so much, then she took her seat next to Dylan’s cot and gazed at him, her face more tranquil than Leila had seen it in a long time. She imagined Pip accosted by journalists, shouting for a comment, offering an exclusive.