Chapter 12
TWELVE
LUNA
They say things come in threes and I have to agree.
I have a new house.
I have my baby.
And now, thanks to the gift that Reid just presented me with, I have a sparkling ring on my finger.
‘They call it a push ring,’ he told me after I opened the box and saw the shiny item of jewellery inside. ‘You know, because you pushed the baby out.’
‘I get it,’ I replied with a laugh. ‘No need to go into details.’
I tried the ring on and found it to be a perfect fit.
‘Thank you. It’s gorgeous,’ I said, marvelling at my man’s romantic – and expensive – gesture.
‘I just wanted to get you something to mark the start of Jude’s life,’ Reid explained.
‘And also to say thank you for being amazing during the pregnancy. I know it wasn’t the easiest of rides, and the morning sickness turned out to be the simplest part of the whole thing, but you did it and you never complained. ’
‘I might have complained once or twice,’ I reminded him, and we both laughed at the occasional times my hormones had caused me to lose my temper over something silly and insignificant.
But on the whole, Reid was right. I had done a good job during pregnancy, particularly when the whole Sadie saga was factored in.
As I sit here in the lounge area of our new house, with Jude sleeping in his Moses basket beside me, it’s crazy to think that there was a time when I was terrified that he wasn’t even going to make it to his twelve-week scan.
Not after Sadie had slashed at me with a knife and caused me all that stress.
But here he is, my healthy baby boy, growing and thriving after only a couple of weeks in this world, and I am confident that will only continue.
But what about me? Will I continue to thrive as a mother, or is it all going to be taken away from me at any moment?
Unfortunately, that’s the uncertainty I have been learning to live with because Sadie is still refusing to die.
A coma is a complicated thing. Every patient unfortunate enough to suffer a coma has a different experience.
It’s impossible to predict from one case to the next.
That’s why it’s been pointless for me to spend as much time as I have reading and learning about coma patients and what they may be like if they wake up.
I’ve read countless articles, and watched numerous YouTube videos, all by people who have either been in a coma themselves or had experience of it with a loved one.
I’ve been seeking some solace in all my research, but it has been hard to come by.
That’s because every account is different. Every story has an alternative ending.
Some say that they remember nothing from being in the coma, but everything before it, while others say they recall the coma but not what caused them to be in it.
I’m obviously in the camp of hoping that Sadie will retain no memory of what happened before her coma began, but it seems there is no way to know for sure unless she actually wakes up and puts her memory to use.
I’ve read all sorts of crazy stories, from English patients who woke up and were suddenly able to speak fluent Mandarin, to those who had previously had no musical skill at all yet since making a full recovery could play classical piano to an expert level.
All very bizarre, and no doubt fascinating to the medical minds of the world.
But all I want to know is if I’m going to be arrested if Sadie wakes up and remembers that I’m guilty of so much.
However, one useful thing did come from all my research.
A very high proportion of those who had experienced being in a coma reported that they could hear the voices of those people in the room around them.
Loved ones talking to them. Trying to wake them up or simply chatting as a way to stay connected.
I’d have thought that being unconscious meant hearing nothing, but it seems there is a chance a person in a coma hears a lot of things, if not everything.
That was very useful to know, as it informed my decision not to go anywhere near Sadie in her current condition.
I didn’t want her to hear my voice and recognise it.
For it to stir something inside her that might help her wake up or for it to jog her memory of the night of her accident.
I’ve decided to stay well away from that hospital room, just to be on the safe side, and it’s been easy to do because nobody expects me to visit the woman who allegedly tried to kill me.
But while I’ve been absent, Reid, Arthur and Ruby have not.
I understand that he has a duty to try and take the children to see their mother.
He can’t just pretend she no longer exists, and certainly not when poor Ruby is so distraught over missing her mummy.
So he visits Sadie often, though he tells me he doesn’t say anything to her.
Unlike her parents, who I believe are by Sadie’s bedside every day, trying all sorts of things to wake her up, from reading her favourite stories as a child to playing her episodes of her favourite TV shows and hoping something somewhere sparks her brain back into life.
I look at Jude and I just want to marinate in motherhood and baby bliss.
I wish I didn’t have the spectre of Sadie hanging over us.
I also wish I had the guts to sneak into her hospital room and kill her, but it’s too risky.
It might also be unnecessary. It’s been nine months and Sadie has made no progress.
Whatever hope the doctors and nurses, and Sadie’s parents, had in the early days after her accident has dimmed and now everybody is accepting the grim reality.
She may never wake and there may come a time when it’s more humane to let her slip away.
Being a mother myself now, I can never imagine a time when I would willingly make the decision to cut short Jude’s life if he was in a coma, so I don’t doubt that Sadie’s mother will keep on fighting and praying for as long as possible.
But fighting and praying aren’t much good if the patient won’t wake up, and Sadie is not showing any signs of doing that. She stays as she is. So I stay as I am.
I remain here.
And what a nice place it is to be.
This wonderful house where Jude is spending the first part of his life is the home Reid and I decided to buy after visiting several other properties in the area.
This one ticked all the boxes. A spacious kitchen, big back garden, upstairs and downstairs bathrooms and enough bedrooms for all the children to have their own space, whilst the master room has the space for all my clothes – including my new maternity outfits.
This house is slightly bigger than the one Reid originally bought with Sadie, which it has to be because we have an extra child in our family, but most importantly, it is in a different postcode.
I was successful in convincing Reid that we needed a fresh start somewhere away from the life he had with his ex and all the horrible history that occurred there.
Reid wasn’t thrilled about the idea of having the children change schools, but I told him that it would be character-building for them and they could make new friends here whilst maintaining older friendships at the same time.
Arthur and Ruby weren’t happy at the idea of moving until I promised them both big bedrooms of their own, far bigger than the ones they already had.
It’s amazing how easy it is to swap children’s opinions when you promise them more space for toys.
Reid decided to try and get a new job nearer to this new house and he has been successful in that, starting a new solicitor role at a company and even managing to get a small pay rise along the way.
As for me, any job hunting is on the back burner as I focus on adapting to being a new mum, but we’re fine financially, even after this sizeable expenditure that I’m currently sitting in.
I felt that moving house was a big part of disconnecting Reid from his old life with Sadie but also disconnecting me from my past and what I had to do to get this family.
I’ve now put a bigger distance between myself and all the people I had to hurt to get my goal.
My days as a delivery driver feel like an awfully long time ago now and that’s exactly how I want them to feel.
My days as a fabulous family-focused mother are all ahead of me.
I also hope my days of being a wife are ahead of me too, and if only the ring Reid had gifted to me had been a marker of matrimony instead.
But hopefully it’s only a matter of time until he pops the question.
Surely he will. We have done everything else there is for a couple to do.
The only thing remaining for us to tick off is to get married.
But that can wait. The older Jude is, the better because he’ll look cuter in the photos if he’s a proper little boy in a suit rather than just a sleeping baby in a ’gro.
But make no mistake, I have plenty of plans for my future wedding and, as I’ve proven, my plans usually work out.
‘I hope you enjoy your life,’ I say to the sleeping Jude beside me. ‘Your mother has worked very hard to get it for you.’
It’s a shame that my son can never know the full extent of what I did to put him in this place where he is surrounded by family, money and comfort. It would be a lesson in dedication and obsession, if nothing else. But it’s best if he has no clue.
Just like it’s best if Sadie has no clue either.
She can stay sleeping forever for all I care.
And she can leave me to enjoy the family I stole from her.