Chapter 9
Isaac
They have moved her to High Dependency on day four.
A “step-down”, they call it. It means she is getting better, they say. But she still isn’t awake. How much longer?
I know Amelie shouldn’t be here.
Hospitals aren’t for babies. There are all kinds of bugs around, and she is so small and vulnerable. But that desperate, irrational part of me keeps thinking, Maybe if Luna heard her cry …
Maybe that would bring her back faster.
But Amelie’s safety must always come first. She is home with her grandma. I came in with Lily when they let us into the HDU.
Mum has been quiet since … everything.
I spoke to Dad briefly, not everything, just that I didn’t want any contact with Chloe anymore. When you are used to giving in all your life, standing up for what is right feels uncomfortable.
Dad just sighed and said, “Your mum doesn’t know when to stop. Sometimes, you have to put your foot down.”
And that was it.
He’d always let her lead while he disappeared behind newspapers and fishing trips. I know they love each other. But what goes on between them … who really knows.
***
When I walk in, Luna is restless. Her eyes move under translucent lids, sometimes opening to show a glimpse of green before closing again.
They give her something to calm her down, say something about her trying to pull her catheter out.
I sit, holding her hand as long as they let me, waiting for her to wake up again.
I can see her hospital gown is wet in the front.
The nurse said they had to pump the milk out.
Bile rises in my throat at what I almost lost just to keep the peace.
***
Later, she grows agitated, as if she is trying to reach the surface.
They add soft restraints to stop her pulling at all the wires and tubes.
I stand here, staring at her wrists where the fabric loops loosely. She would hate that. Her hair is tangled. It looks like it needs a wash.
That small, ordinary detail hits me harder than everything else.
Her hair is her pride and joy. Dark brown and reaching her hip, I love to spread it on my pillow. I used to watch her brush it out before tucking it behind her ears just so.
Her eyelids look thin and bruised, almost translucent with pale green veins just beneath the surface. I can see her eyes moving beneath them.
Is she dreaming?
Or is her mind trying to find its way back?
I sit here and think about the first time I heard her voice.
She was twenty-one. I was twenty-six.
Just a phone call to ask when she should report for her internship. But her training contract was in front of me and as soon as I saw the stiff smile on her passport sized photograph, I just needed to see her face.
And when I did … God. It had taken me six months to get her to agree to go out with me.
Another few months before I popped the question.
And when she said yes, it felt like my forever had chosen me back.
I was twenty-eight back then. She was twenty-three.
We got married in a small chapel by the sea. Luna had flowers in her hair and looked like she had stepped out of a dream. She had whispered about wearing something blue under her seafoam gown, and it was all I could think of.
We waited to have Amelie. Luna wanted her permanent job first. I was all for it. I had her all to myself a little longer.
And now, here we are, thirty-two and twenty-seven.
Six years behind us with a life built, piece by piece.
And I sit here, watching her tied gently to a hospital bed.
And wonder how I could have written that line to Chloe.
I still dream about you.
I married Luna at twenty-eight because I couldn’t imagine a life without her.
I had married Chloe at nineteen because I didn’t know how to say no. And we didn’t even last a year. Nothing good came from that.
I look at Luna again, and all I feel is panic. Something so much worse than fear. I desperately want her to wake up. But what will happen when she does?
***
Night has fallen. Still on day four.
They have moved her into a side cubicle on the ward. Lily is by her bedside, sitting close, one hand resting lightly near Luna’s arm, as if ready for anything.
I must have fallen asleep at some point, but something wakes me. The ancient clock on the wall shows it is almost midnight.
“Luna?” I say, my voice thick, unfamiliar even to myself as I jerk awake, leaning forward the moment I realise she is stirring.
My wife makes a small, instinctive shift, but she stops halfway as pain crosses her face, and her breath catches as she whispers, “Hurts.”
I surge forward to hold her hand.
“It’ll get better,” I insist, like if I say it the right way, it might become true, like I can will it into existence for her.
“Head hurts,” she whispers.
I lean closer, forcing myself to stay steady, to do what they have told me, and I ask her where it hurts. “Is it a headache? Is it dizziness? Do you feel like throwing up?”
And she answers in fragments, slow and uneven, her mind trying to reach through fog just to find them. I just need to keep her talking.
“Isaac …”
“I’m here,” I say immediately, because that, at least, is something I can give her.
I am about to lose it. There is no build-up, no warning, just a sudden collapse inwards, my breath hitching, chest caving like I can’t pull air in properly, tears blurring my vision before I can stop them, before I even understand what is happening.
I watch as her beautiful green eyes open and try to focus. They find me.
“Don’t wanna sleep,” she whispers, her voice like fragile paper.
My hand clenches around hers immediately, tighter than I mean to, like I can stop her from slipping away again by sheer force.
“You’re not going anywhere,” I say, more to convince myself.
She opens her eyes again, slowly and carefully, like even that takes effort. For a moment, they struggle to settle, her gaze unfocused, drifting—
And something softens in her expression.
“You came.”
No, I didn’t. I stayed in the office like a little twat while you … Oh, God—
Her lips part slightly, a faint, tired smile ghosting across her face as she looks at me. And then, softly, like it slips past whatever barriers are still holding, she whispers, “I still dream about you.”
For a second, it doesn’t register. That lasts only for a blessed second before reality checks in.
My mind lurches, racing ahead before I can stop it, dragging me straight back to that message, to the words I typed without thinking, without understanding what it would cost me.
I still dream about you.
Chloe.
A cold, sick dread spreads through me.
How—
How does she know?
Has she seen it?
Lily can see something is wrong, but I cannot keep the terror from showing on my face.
My thoughts spiral, fast and chaotic, each one worse than the last, each possibility clawing at me. Despite the winter chill, the shirt on my back is soaked with cold sweat. I can’t breathe.
But underneath all of it, louder than anything else, is one single, devastating thought—
Is that why?
Is that what tipped the balance?
A husband she thinks is unfaithful?
My own weakness. My stupid, selfish need for support.
Is that what pushed her?
What broke her?
I stare at her, at the woman lying in this bed, pale and fragile and fighting her way back to us—
And I suddenly realise the fear is not just that I might lose her. It is that I might be the reason she almost disappeared in the first place.