The Things You Didn't See(13)
Clive watches me the way he does the members of Team Talk. I’ve become his patient once again, and fear grips me. I won’t go back to the Bartlet. I won’t let that happen. The same thought that hounded me last night, that made me swallow those pills.
Clive reaches down to his black hinged bag and brings out a small brown bottle, rattling it towards me, like a tempting toy. He shakes two white capsules onto his palm. Two nubs of narcotic, one swallow is all it takes, and then I can relax, and later my sleep will be heavy and deep.
‘I’m going to try you on something different this time, Cass, because we know the trazodone disrupts your sleep. I’m going to monitor you closely, and you must tell me if you have any side effects.’
He uncurls my hand and places the pills on my palm, where I balance the weightless possibility of them. ‘What are they?’
‘Fluoxetine.’
I know about antidepressants and their names. I’ve become an expert thanks to Team Talk. ‘Prozac,’ I say.
‘It’s for the best, Cass. You’re in severe shock and there’s no shame in getting help. I’m going to give you something to calm you.’
Clive goes to the café counter and buys a bottle of water. He returns and hands me four pills. I swallow the drugs without thinking and sit quietly like a good girl, because I don’t want him to think I’m refusing treatment. Hard down the throat, sugar on the bitter pill, landing in my stomach when it’s too late. Too late to stop the capsule breaking apart and dissolving like sugar into my bloodstream, sweetening the pain, blurring the edges of my world which is suddenly so cruel. My hands are so shaky, he has to hold the bottle to my lips and I sip again, letting my tongue swim in the relief of the cold water, as my body sweats and my limbs shiver. I regret it when my mouth is empty, when the water washes away the acrid coating on my throat, and hits my stomach. I want this all to be just a bad dream.
When the rush comes, it’s familiar. Antidepressants make feelings – love and pain, nested like sick birds in the heart – become distant, separate. I know they’re inside, cawing, but I no longer need to nurture them. This is how the drugs work: I’m able to starve my own heart of feeling. This is how I was healed two years ago.
I want Daniel to comfort me. Why isn’t he here?
Dad returns, and the stench of cigarettes and despair is overwhelming. He looks blankly at Clive, though I know he must remember him – he was there for the family sessions at the Bartlet too. The three of us continue to wait for news. Finally, a nurse comes for us.
‘Mr Hawke, Miss Hawke? I’m Lauren, the ward sister in intensive care. Maya’s out of theatre and in her own room. She’s in an induced coma, her condition is still critical, but you’re able to sit with her. It’s best that the atmosphere is calm around her, as she may be able to hear. If you’d like to follow me?’
Clive stops me, a hand on my shoulder. ‘Do you want me to come with you, Cass?’
I hesitate, because I would, but it’s better if I seem to be coping. ‘No, I’m fine.’
‘Then I’ll say goodbye, but I’ll drop in on you tomorrow. Call me if you need me.’
Dad and I follow the quick-footed nurse across the car park to the Garrett Anderson Centre and upstairs to the intensive care unit. She opens the door and ushers us inside. The overheated hospital room is in semi-darkness, the blinds are pulled low.
Oh, Mum, there you are! Propped high on a narrow bed with tubes connecting you to machines, your head in a brace, your mouth and nose covered by a misted oxygen mask. There are dressings on your head and neck. Dad moves towards you without hesitating, his bad hand hanging limply at his side, all bluster and breeze. He’s a man who belongs in the open air, not in a small room. He leans so heavily over your poor body that the bed sways.
‘Maya! Oh God, Maya, wake up!’
I lean against a nearby chair, unable to move, watching him panic.
‘Please lower your voice, Mr Hawke.’ The nurse has her hand on his arm, touching the corduroy elbows of his crumpled work jacket. He has no other type of clothes, though he’d normally also wear a cap. It’s strange to see him bareheaded, and he must feel this too as he keeps running his left hand through his thinning hair.
‘It’s better if you speak calmly,’ the nurse says. ‘It’s possible Maya can hear us – when people wake from comas, they often say they could. So please talk to her, reassure her.’
Dad rubs his good hand over his face, then says, ‘But when is she going to wake up? Maya!’
He’s angry with the nurse, with you, with me. He’s a bull in a ring, not sure which way to direct his impotent rage. It’s all she can do to coax him into the seat beside the bed. He looks aghast at the array of machines, all connected to you by wires, at the tube coming from your mouth. You’re so absent, the idea that you can hear anything seems ridiculous.
‘What the fuck does all that beeping mean?’
The nurse gives Dad a broad smile that digs into her thick foundation, and I wonder if the make-up is a mask to help her perform around distressed people. ‘All her vital signs are being measured, Mr Hawke. The bullet caused a bleed on her brain, which the surgeon managed to cauterise, and she has a fractured skull. That’s why she’s in an induced coma. We’re also using ice packs to keep her body temperature low to slow her metabolism.’