Chapter 29
THE ROOM OF DOOM
Becca
Of all the cursed places in the world, the family room of a hospital A&E department has to be the most cursed of all. They might as well call it the Room of Doom.
Except, perhaps, for the general waiting room – a veritable plague incubator. If you get the family room upgrade, you know things are not good.
They don’t give you the ancient IKEA sofa with the well-loved throw over the back of it, the box of value tissues on the table and a bin big enough to hold countless empty coffee cups if everything is going to be a-okay.
Surprisingly, Laura isn’t the first person to arrive.
When the door opens shortly after I’ve been directed to the Room of Doom, I see Niamh, her expression sombre, and Adam, who has the look of a very traumatised twelve-year-old about him.
He might be twenty, and he might be a father, but in this moment I am looking at my little boy and his fear is evident.
‘Becca,’ Niamh says, looking at me in the same way she did the day my dad died, and my body immediately tenses. I’m not a huge fan of the look, if I’m being honest. It gives off the same vibe of ‘your life is rotting before your eyes’ as being directed to this shitty room does.
‘Mum,’ Adam chimes in and sits down beside me, immediately folding his six-foot frame into my arms for a hug as if he is small enough to still fit. ‘Is she… is she…?’ he says through his tears, unable to finish the sentence.
‘As far as I know she is still with us,’ I say, choking down the emotion that is threatening to suffocate me.
I don’t use the word ‘alive’ yet because it feels just a little too close to ‘dead’ for comfort and I don’t want to even acknowledge the possibility of that outcome.
So I have to do what countless other parents have done for their children over the years and be brave.
‘The doctor didn’t say too much except that they are working on her now.
They suspect it was a stroke,’ I tell him in a matter-of-fact manner, as if I’m not talking about my own mother and instead about some random person with whom I have no emotional connection.
Niamh sits down on one of two very uncomfortable-looking plastic chairs against the opposite wall and says nothing.
I’m grateful she is giving me space just to be there for Adam in this moment.
And space to just be me in my increasingly overwhelmed and liable-to-meltdown state.
(So NOW I can meltdown, it seems. Fat lot of use that is to me when I need to hold it together for the sake of my son.)
‘Saul is really worried about her,’ Adam says, his voice muffled as he continues to hug me. I’m absolutely in no rush to let him go. I need the hug as much as he does. I kiss his head and stroke his hair, much like I would’ve done when he was a little boy.
‘I know,’ I tell him. ‘I’ve let him know what’s happening and promised we’ll keep him updated. Wigan is with him.’
‘Wigan’s a sound lad,’ Adam says. ‘I know they like to party, but he’ll be there for Saul. He’ll make sure he’s okay.’
I nod, kissing my boy on the head again. That’s so very reassuring to hear.
Laura is next through the door, carrying four cups of coffee in one of those cardboard holders that look like a giant egg box.
‘I just brought what I could carry,’ she says. ‘Four cappuccinos. I can go and get more if anyone else arrives. I have some sugar sachets and stirrers in my pocket if anyone wants them.’
‘Thank you, darling. That’s so thoughtful of you.
Although I don’t think I could drink even if I wanted to,’ I say as she offers me a cup.
Despite my protestation, I take one and sip from it without even thinking.
It tastes of hot water and regret, and I grimace.
I won’t be drinking any more of that, but I will be enjoying the grounding heat of the cup in my hands.
There is some mumbling about the coffee, some small talk.
A mention of the choir and how Karl seems ‘absolutely fabulous’.
Laura asks Adam about the baby, and even though he is worried and stressed, his voice is warm and full of love when he talks about his daughter.
‘Jodie wanted to come with me, but we figured that the hospital wasn’t the best place for a baby,’ he says.
Laura tells him they made the right decision and there is a little more chat but all I can concentrate on is the door.
The door is my equivalent of Schrodinger’s box, and my mother is the cat.
At this moment she is both alive and dead and only the opening of the door by a doctor will confirm which it is.
I do not like this, I think. I do not like anything about it.
I do not like the Room of Doom. I do not like not knowing.
I do not like thinking about what the future will hold.
I definitely do not like this exceptionally uncomfortable sofa which probably should’ve been replaced a couple of years ago, or the coffee that I can’t seem to stop drinking even though it’s revolting.
When the door opens again, I feel as if my heart will stop.
The only person who should be here and who isn’t is Ruairi, but there is no way he will have made it down from Belfast so quickly, so it absolutely cannot be him.
This could be the moment I’m dreading. The arrival of the doctor.
I try to settle myself and I think I’m doing well until I see Conal walk in and not the doctor.
The resolve I have been trying so desperately to hang on to dissolves. My ability to be brave vanishes and without thinking I am on my feet and in his arms and allowing him to soothe me as I sob.
‘It’s okay,’ he says, holding me so close that the warmth of his body settles my shaking. ‘I’ve got you. We’ll just get through this one minute at a time. It’s okay. I promise you.’
There’s a long-held belief that in Disneyland, when a character hugs a child, they are not allowed to release the hug until the child does first. Conal O’Hagan could make a brilliant Disney prince I think because he does not let go of me until I eventually step back from him.
Just being held by him for those few minutes is enough to help me reset and steady myself.
Him being here, despite our ongoing tension, is enough to calm me. I might really, really love this man.
Laura fills her brother in on what has happened, saving me the trauma of having to describe the events of the last hour or so. Conal listens, nods and rubs my hand as we sit side by side. It’s strange but that shitty sofa doesn’t feel half as uncomfortable when Conal is sitting on it beside me.
‘This is the worst bit,’ he says. ‘The waiting. Once we know what is happening, we’ll be able to make a plan to deal with it. Right now, there’s too much to worry about and no way to do anything to control the outcome.’
He’s right, of course, and it’s exactly the advice I would give myself if a friend was going through this trauma. Things are always easier to deal with once you have the big picture. I’m just hoping the big picture in this scenario doesn’t involve planning a funeral.
I can cope with anything else. I’ll have to cope with it.
But I won’t care – as long as she is alive, and with us.
I’ll move into her house. Care for her. Move her into my house.
Move us both to an accessible bungalow. I’ll get carers.
I’ll care for her myself. Whatever it takes.
It’s the least I can do. I never thought I’d find myself praying for my mother to need round the clock care, but up against the alternative? I’ll take it and say thank you.
‘How long do you think it’ll be?’ Adam asks. ‘Before a doctor comes to talk to us? Do you think I should go to reception and ask for an update?’
He tries to stand up, but I grab his hand and motion to him to sit back down. ‘They’ll come to us when there is something we need to know. We have to assume that they are busy caring for her now and let them get on with their work.’
Adam drops his head in his hands. It hurts my soul to see him upset but there is no magic way to take away this worry. There is nothing I can say that can make this better and that’s probably the very worst thing about this whole shitty, sad situation.
We sit quietly for a bit before the small talk starts again. Conal asks about the Just Sing! experience, and we tell him.
‘Don’t suppose they sing any Coldplay? Or Biffy Clyro?’ he asks.
‘Don’t think that’s quite their genre,’ I say. ‘They seem to be more cheesy pop, which is absolutely fine with me.’
‘I admire your commitment to the cause,’ Conal says with a small smile and a much-needed hand squeeze. I love how this man is trying to make things normal when they are anything but.
A knock to the door halts any and all conversation as we all brace ourselves for what is coming. I almost feel sorry for Ruairi when he opens the door and we all visibly sag, and Niamh chimes in with a quick ‘Oh, it’s only you.’
‘Cheers,’ he says. ‘Am I to assume by that warm welcome that there is no news yet?’
‘We’re still waiting,’ I tell him, getting up and giving him a rather awkward hug.
Ruairi Burnside does not do hugs. Not big comforting ones anyway.
He’s always been a quick, awkward bump of the shoulders kind of a hugger, preferring a good handshake, but it would be odd beyond words to shake hands with my brother in these circumstances.
The Room of Doom has reached sub-tropical levels of hot and humid by this stage, the small window steamed up.
Ruairi takes off his coat, folds it over his arm and hovers awkwardly with nowhere to sit comfortably.
As child of the patient, his right to a seat is inarguable, so everyone – but me, of course – stands to offer him one.
‘I’m grand,’ he says. ‘Stay where you are. It’s good to stretch my legs after the drive down.’ We nod, mumble about the benefits of the new road from Belfast to Derry before the room falls quiet again.
‘Look,’ I say eventually. ‘We don’t know how long we’ll be here for. Niamh, Laura… Conal even… don’t think you have to stay. Niamh, you’re teaching in the morning. Laura, I assume you have lectures?’
Laura nods.
‘You should go home and rest. No point in all of us enduring this.’
‘We don’t mind being here,’ Niamh says. ‘It’s not endurance. It’s supporting our friend.’
‘And I appreciate that beyond words, but Adam is here. Ruairi too.’
‘And me,’ Conal says. ‘I’m not going anywhere. Laura, this is a big week for you, sis. You look done in as it is.’
‘Cheers, brother dear,’ Laura says, pulling a face at him.
‘You know I’m only looking out for you,’ Conal says.
He’s not wrong. Laura does look done in, and obviously I know the mess that has been running around her head these last few days. Waking up to yourself is actually exhausting, it seems. She could definitely use a good night’s sleep.
And Niamh has to stand in front of a classroom tomorrow and countless semi-feral teenagers all day.
She needs her rest. I love that they are both here for me.
I love that they both want to be here for me, but God only knows how long I will be sitting here.
Then I remember that Laura drove my car here, and her own is still parked outside McDonald’s.
‘Your car,’ I say. ‘Oh Laura, you drove me here.’
‘I can drop Laura home, or to pick her car up,’ Niamh says, ‘but only if you really, really don’t want us to stay because I think I speak for us both when I say we really don’t mind doing so.’
‘I love you both for it, but go and get some rest. I don’t know how much I’ll need you over the coming days…’ I don’t finish the sentence. There are too many variables right now and I don’t want to investigate any of them too closely.
Finally they agree to leave, but only when I promise to keep them updated regardless of what hour of the day or night it is.
As we hug, a part of me wants to be that sixteen-year-old girl again.
The hopeful, optimistic eejit who dreamed of living a wonderful, happy life and never really thought about all of the scary stuff that no adult can avoid.
Part of me wishes I could click my heels together (a pair of ankle boots from Next and not a ruby slipper in sight) and mutter that there really is no place in this whole world like home.
But instead of being a place, home would be people.
Three friends yet to go out into the world and take all it threw at us.