Chapter 11
ELEVEN
REID
As I make my way to where my children are waiting for me in this section of this hospital, I prepare myself for what is sure to be another test of my parenting skills.
Arthur and Ruby have been through hell over these past nine months and what they need more than anything is some stability.
But that’s not always possible and what I am about to tell them now is sure to upend their lives even more.
They’re brave kids, but they are still so young, especially when it comes to dealing with news that carries any kind of weight.
They’ve already had to process so much bad news over the past few months, bad news about their mother, that I almost wish I had no news to give them at all today.
I almost wish it could just be a standard, boring day in which the kids go to school, do their homework and watch television.
But it’s not going to be that. Instead, it’s going to be a day none of us is ever going to forget, and as I see my children sitting on the plastic chairs in the waiting room where I left them only a few minutes ago, I swallow hard before delivering the next piece of news that will change their lives forever.
‘Arthur. Ruby. Are you ready to go and meet your little brother?’
My question is met with two very different expressions.
My son looks eager, possibly because he is thrilled that there will be another boy in the family, although it will be a while before he can wrestle and play fight with him.
As for my daughter, she looks pensive, although it’s very much the way she has looked ever since Sadie’s accident.
‘How tall is he?’ Arthur asks, making me smile.
‘Oh, not very tall yet,’ I reply. ‘He’s only just been born. He needs time to grow.’
‘As long as he’s not taller than me,’ Arthur decides, and at least if he is, it will be many years before I have to deal with that particular challenge.
‘Ruby? Are you excited to meet your baby brother?’ I ask my quiet little girl, the one who never used to be quiet but has withdrawn more and more into herself since her mother’s accident.
‘Yeah,’ she replies unconvincingly.
‘Come on. You can show him the present you bought him,’ I say, reminding her that there is a brown teddy bear in the little shopping bag sitting beside her feet.
It’s a bear that Ruby helped me pick out when I suggested we look for something to gift to the new arrival, and she seemed happy to do so at the time.
But now she looks more reserved again, although her brother is eager to get going.
‘I can give him the football I bought him,’ Arthur says, not needing a reminder of the ball he has in his own shopping bag.
Bless him, Arthur has been talking non-stop about all the games of football he and his brother are going to be having in the back garden, although again, it might be a little time before they actually occur.
But I won’t do anything to dampen his spirits, and certainly not when they have already been dampened enough lately.
‘Come on. Let’s go,’ I say as I pick up Ruby’s shopping bag and hold my hand out to her.
She tentatively takes it while her brother grabs his bag and rushes ahead, even though he doesn’t know which way we need to go because they haven’t seen Luna since she came in here yesterday.
That was when she was admitted after her contractions had started to become frequent, and while I was confident that everything would go well, I still kept the children away until I was sure that the baby was born and healthy.
Any more awful news would surely crush them, so I had to be absolutely sure that this would be a positive experience for them.
As we head deeper into the maternity ward, I am hopeful that it will be.
‘Okay, I need you to try and keep your voices down when we go into the room,’ I advise my children. ‘Any loud noises might frighten the baby, plus Luna is very tired, so we don’t want to give her a headache.’
‘Can the baby talk yet?’ Arthur asks, and I have to laugh.
‘Not yet. One day soon.’
‘What’s his name?’
‘That’s a good question. Why don’t we go and find him and then Luna and I can tell you.’
Arthur impatiently jumps up and down, causing the football to bounce around in his bag, as we keep moving.
His demeanour is in sharp contrast to his sister, who is still silent, holding my hand and walking alongside me, but offering nothing.
I miss the little girl she was before her mother’s accident.
But I’m glad she is not faring any worse than she already is.
‘Okay, here we are. Get ready to say hello,’ I tell my children, realising this is a momentous moment in my family’s life. A new addition. Another child. More love but more drama. I guess it’s too late to go back now.
‘Here he is,’ I say as Arthur and Ruby walk in with me and see their brother for the first time. Or at least they see the tiny part of him that is not bundled up in his first outfit and his blanket.
I smile at Luna, who beams at me, Arthur and Ruby and then at the child she is cradling in her arms. My darling partner looks exhausted but thrilled, drained but delighted with this new chapter for us, and I couldn’t be more proud or thankful for her.
‘Hi,’ Arthur says as he confidently approaches the bed and waves at the baby, who is currently fast asleep. ‘Why won’t he open his eyes?’
‘He’s just resting,’ Luna tells him.
‘Can we wake him up?’
‘He’ll wake up in a moment, I’m sure.’
I smile as it starts to dawn on Arthur that his brother won’t be the feisty, fighting, football fanatic that he envisioned just yet. Then I look down at Ruby, who is still holding my hand and still looking unsure.
‘Are you going to say hello?’ I ask her.
She shakes her head.
‘Why not?’
‘Because I’m sad.’
‘Why are you sad?’
‘Because I want Mummy.’
I share an awkward glance with Luna, although it’s nothing the two of us haven’t heard before.
Ruby has spent most of the time since Sadie’s accident saying that she wants her mummy, she misses her mummy, or that she doesn’t want to do something unless her mummy is doing it too.
That’s obviously been difficult for us all to have to listen to for so many months, but not as difficult as it has been for poor Ruby as she struggles to process life right now.
‘I have an idea,’ I say. ‘How about we tell you what your little brother’s name is going to be?’
‘Yeah!’ Arthur cries, excited to hear it.
Luna and I share a smile, pleased that we are about to share the details of the name that the two of us finally settled on after much debate and discussion.
‘Shall you say it, or shall I?’ Luna asks me.
‘I think you should do the honours,’ I reply, figuring this gesture is the least I could do after what Luna’s body has just been through in childbirth.
‘We have decided to call him Jude,’ Luna says, which instantly causes Arthur to frown.
‘June?’ he asks.
‘No, Jude. With a D,’ Luna clarifies.
‘Is it a girl’s name?’
‘No, it’s not,’ she tells him whilst I laugh. My now eldest son is getting funnier by the day, although the funniest part of it all is that he isn’t even trying to be.
‘Can he be called something else?’ Arthur wonders.
‘I think we’ll stick with our first choice,’ I say with a smile as Luna looks down at our sleeping son in her arms.
‘What do you think, Ruby?’ I ask my daughter. ‘Do you like your brother’s name?’
She shrugs. Then she lets go of my hand and walks out of the room.
‘I’ll go and check on her,’ I say to Luna, who understands.
I expect to find Ruby languishing in the corridor, but when she sees that I have followed her, she starts running.
‘Hey!’ I call after her, but she doesn’t turn back and I have no choice but to give chase, aware that it would be very easy to lose her in this myriad of corridors inside this huge hospital.
‘Ruby! Slow down!’ I shout as I keep chasing my daughter, but she has the advantage of surprise and speed on her side, her boundless youth and energy making her a tricky target to catch up to.
But I am able to keep her in sight, and after a few twists and turns down various corridors, I realise where she is going.
I probably should have guessed sooner. Now that I know, I can’t really be mad at her for running.
When I catch up to her, she has already reached her destination.
It’s a new ward, the opposite kind to the one we have just left.
On the ward where Arthur is visiting Luna and Jude, it is a place where newborn people come into the world.
But here, on this ward, it is a place where long-term injured people are treated.
There are no balloons, teddy bears and new names here.
Just weary nurses and doctors trudging through another day.
This is the ward where patients with a poor prognosis are treated.
A ward for people in a coma.
A ward for people like my ex-wife.
‘I want to talk to Mummy,’ Ruby says as she goes for the door beyond which lies Sadie, hooked up to all her machines that are the only things keeping her alive.
‘It’s not visiting time. We’re not allowed in here yet,’ I say before I see a nurse I recognise from my many trips here over the past nine months.
‘Be quick. Five minutes. I won’t tell anybody,’ the nurse says before miming the ‘my lips are sealed’ sign that confirms we are okay to go and see Sadie, briefly, if we want to.
Ruby doesn’t need offering twice and pushes through the door, so I quickly follow her.
As I do, I see the same sad sight that always greets me when I come in here.
I see the items that my children have left here, on the recommendation of the doctors, because they might provide the sensory stimulation that could help with the patient’s recovery.
There are a couple of Sadie’s favourite clothes, a hoody and a T-shirt, as well as some books she used to read to the children at bedtime.
There are family photos too, or at least ones of just her and the kids, but I was hardly going to nit-pick and demand that I feature in any of them after recent events.
And there are the headphones plugged in, though not being used now, the ones the nurses put over Sadie’s ears at some point each day to play the songs that we selected, songs that we hope will speak a memory or reactivate something in her dormant brain.
None of it has worked so far. But none of us are giving up.
My ex looks like a shadow of her former self. She is unconscious, skinnier than before her accident, paler and with less hair after it was shaved during an operation and kept trimmed short ever since. But she is still Sadie and, to Ruby, she is still Mummy.
‘Are you going to wake up today?’ my daughter asks Sadie as she leans in and gently places her head on the patient’s stomach.
My heart breaks every time I am in here with one of my children, although these days, it’s mainly Ruby.
Arthur used to come in here and cry a lot in the early months, but now he prefers to stay away, only visiting once a week at most. He says it makes him sad, and I can’t argue with that because I have to be very mindful of his mental health.
But Ruby would spend all day in here if she could, although that could be just as detrimental to her mental health as her brother’s preference for avoidance.
So it’s a fine balancing act, and that’s just this part of my life.
There’s the fact that I am a new dad again and will very soon be taking home a little baby who needs around-the-clock attention as he navigates his first few days and weeks of life.
Oh, and I have to go to work too once my paternity leave is up.
Can’t forget about that. Then, last but certainly not least, there’s the small matter of the new house we have bought.
The one that Luna decided was the perfect place for the next chapter of our family.
It’s a house that is thirty miles further away from here, a distance that my current partner deemed satisfactory in terms of its proximity to my previous partner.
Although Luna chose to keep her maternity care via our old hospital, because it has such a good reputation.
Luna pushed for the house move and I couldn’t argue.
Not after she was attacked in our previous home.
The truth is, I was ready for a fresh start too.
The only tricky thing is that I’ll still have to come back here to visit Sadie, along with Ruby, and possibly Arthur if he still wants to keep coming.
But Luna won’t be making the trip. I don’t expect her to because why visit the woman who assaulted you and put you through hell?
All Luna wants to do now is get home to our brand-new house and get comfortable with our brand-new baby.
These past few months might have been awful in a lot of ways, but they have culminated in a precious little life being born.
Luna was right in what she said to me before we departed for the hospital yesterday as her contractions grew stronger.
‘It’s time to forget about the past and truly focus on the future,’ she said as I helped her into the car.
I agreed.
Focusing on the future sounds good.
Because surely it can’t be worse than what’s happened in my past?