Chapter 25
TWENTY-FIVE
REID
Being around an ex can always be awkward.
But being around an ex with memory loss?
Even more so. I’m not sure what to say or how to behave.
I feel I have to tiptoe through whatever conversation I start with Sadie since the doctor told us she is suffering from amnesia surrounding the events that led to her being in this hospital.
I also know that I am going to have to talk to her about it soon.
That’s because the fact that she broke into my house and attacked my partner cannot go unanswered.
For now, I am patiently waiting as I watch my children enjoy having their mother back with them.
Arthur and Ruby are perched on Sadie’s bed, the pair of them sitting as close as they can to the patient and chattering away to her as if she hasn’t just woken up from a coma and needs some quiet and peace to come around.
But try telling two excitable children to be quiet and see how far it gets you.
That’s why I haven’t bothered and Sadie’s parents haven’t bothered either.
They are sitting in the chairs by the bed, smiling at their grandchildren interacting with their daughter, and for one brief moment, it’s nice to see all the family looking happy.
But it really is a brief moment when I remember that I am standing on the periphery of this scene, and that’s because I brought Luna into the family and she is currently elsewhere in this hospital.
I’m holding Jude and have been ever since I came in here.
Not for the first time, I notice Sadie looking at the little boy in my arms, and even though I have already told her who he is, she still seems unsure.
Sadie went into her coma before Jude was born, so this has been the first time she has seen or met my son, the step-sibling to the two children we share together.
That’s why I can forgive her being a little hesitant or just plain awkward around him.
I don’t want the awkwardness to last, though, as neither Luna nor I should feel uneasy about having brought this beautiful little boy into the world.
We haven’t done anything wrong, unlike the woman lying in the bed looking over at me and my son.
I really want to talk to Sadie about what happened between her and Luna and I know I’m not the only one.
The police will want to talk to her too, now that she is awake.
But thanks to the doctors and nurses caring for Sadie, I will get the first chance to discuss the topic with her.
The police are being kept away until she has had more time to recover.
‘Five more minutes, guys, and then I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to leave so Sadie can get some rest,’ the doctor says, poking his head around the door and giving us all a warning that this visit cannot continue endlessly.
‘I want to stay,’ Ruby says, throwing her arms around her mother and hugging her tightly.
Sadie hugs her back while Arthur suggests having a sleepover in here, an idea that causes us all to laugh before I have to dismiss the notion.
I stand back and give the kids a few more minutes with their mother, figuring I’ll have to wait until later to try and broach the difficult topic of Luna with Sadie in private.
But just after Arthur, Ruby, and her parents have said goodbye to her, Sadie asks to speak with me alone.
Sadie’s father does not look too happy about that, but I ignore him, as I have got into the habit of trying to do, and linger in the room while Sadie’s mum leads her reluctant grandchildren out.
Eventually, and for one minute only before the doctor comes and tells me to get out too, I am alone with my ex-wife. Or at least as alone as we can be when Jude is still between us.
‘Thank you,’ Sadie says as I sit down in one of the recently vacated chairs.
‘What for?’ I ask as Jude jiggles and wriggles on my lap.
‘For looking after Arthur and Ruby while I’ve been in here.’
‘I’m their father. Of course I looked after them.’
‘I know that, but it can’t have been easy doing it on your own.’
‘I wasn’t on my own. Luna was with me.’
Sadie doesn’t say anything to that, but while we’re on the topic of my partner, I might as well mention the elephant in the room.
‘The doctor tells me that you can’t remember what happened before you came here,’ I say, and Sadie shakes her head sadly. ‘What is the last thing you remember?’
‘I’m not sure,’ my ex replies, looking strained as she tries to recall the past. ‘I remember being in my bedroom at the flat I share with Mum and Dad. But I can’t recall the exact date or time that was.’
‘That’s it?’ I ask.
‘Yeah.’
I let out a sigh. As much as Sadie deserves to be punished for what she did to Luna, it feels impossible to castigate a woman who has no memory of doing the thing I want to punish her for.
‘Please tell me what happened,’ Sadie asks me suddenly. ‘I need to know and nobody will tell me.’
There’s a good reason no one has told her yet.
They are all worried that the shock of hearing it will affect her recovery.
But Sadie is pleading with me, and the doctor hasn’t yet reappeared to tell me to get out, so maybe I should just get this over with, and it might be better coming from me than anybody else.
‘You broke into our house,’ I say as delicately as I can. ‘The house you used to live in, but the house I then shared with Luna and the children. You broke in, late at night while we were all in bed, and when Luna went downstairs to check on the noise, you attacked her with a knife.’
Sadie’s horrified reaction is what I would expect from somebody who has just been told that they did a terrible thing that they can’t remember doing.
This is almost like when I was younger and got really drunk, waking up the next day with a bad hangover and my friends eager to inform me about all the mischief I got up to in my inebriated state.
But this is much more serious than someone drinking too much and running around the streets with a traffic cone on their head.
This is about real criminal acts, acts that could have taken a life if Luna’s knife wound had been worse or if Sadie hadn’t been nullified by slipping and banging her head in the hallway.
‘You really don’t remember doing it?’ I ask then. ‘Or why you did it?’
Sadie shakes her head and now looks on the verge of tears.
‘Oh my god,’ she says, starting to cry and leaving me awkwardly in a type of no-man’s land, sitting beside my ex but unsure if I should try and comfort her because she did attack my girlfriend and it wouldn’t be the best look to forgive her too easily.
Jude seems to sense that someone is upset because he starts to cry too, and the sound of his distress stops Sadie’s for a second.
‘I can’t believe you have another baby,’ she says to me. ‘I thought you only ever wanted two.’
This might just be as awkward a topic to discuss as the previous one, but before I can answer, Sadie goes back to crying.
‘No wonder we didn’t last. You must hate me. I’m such an awful person,’ she says and now she really looks upset.
As I feared, it was a bad idea to tell her this so soon after she has woken up.
Her brain is still very much recovering.
It doesn’t yet mean she is in any fit state to face the consequences of her actions.
But I’ve told her the truth now, every bitter and twisted part of it, and she had to find out at some point.
I don’t know what to do now, but it feels bad to leave her like this.
I’m hoping the doctor might come in and tell me to leave. At least that will give me a way out, but there is still no sign of him, so I guess I’m stuck here for a little while longer. At least that’s what I think until I hear a deafening sound ringing through the hospital.
It’s a siren and it’s very loud.
But what does it mean?
‘Is that a fire alarm?’ Sadie asks me, wiping her eyes. Jude falls quiet, entranced by the noise he can hear just as well as the adults can.
‘I’m not sure,’ I say, standing up and heading for the door to check outside, because if it is a fire alarm, I guess we need to evacuate.
I see several nurses in the corridor, but no one seems to be leaving or trying to get the patients out. They are all standing around looking very confused. Or is it fear on their faces? It’s only when I hear one of them speak that I realise why they might be afraid.
‘The hospital is on lockdown,’ they say before they call out to everyone else in the corridor, which includes me and my family members who stand a little further away from Sadie’s room. ‘Everybody stay where you are. Nobody leave.’
‘What’s going on?’ Sadie’s father asks, but he doesn’t get an answer.
The only reply any of us gets is seeing the doors lock at the end of the corridor. I guess the nurse was serious.
We have to stay here. Nobody can leave.
But why?
What is going on?
Why is the hospital locked down?