Chapter Forty-Six
I find my way to the light.
But all it reveals is a white room, white sheets, a white machine beeping next to me. The scent of disinfectant fills the air.
A doctor hovers over me, adjusting the machine, swearing under her breath as she tries to make the beeping stop.
A nurse presses a button and the top half of the bed rises so I can take in more of the hospital ward.
‘What happened?’ I ask, the words abrasive in the back of my throat.
The doctor gives up with the machine and turns to face me. ‘You’ve been in a coma.’ She’s matter-of-fact, no emotion in her voice.
‘How long?’
There’s a pause. I turn my head to look at the doctor who has moved towards the end of the bed.
‘How long?’ I repeat, trying to inject more authority into my broken voice.
She takes a breath. ‘It’s complicated.’
That is not an answer. I can feel my heart rate rising, echoed in the beeping from the machine next to me. ‘How long?’ I ask for the third time.
‘You need to calm down,’ she tells me.
‘You need to tell me how long,’ I counter, but I can feel a fist closing around my heart.
‘Mrs Ingram. You need to calm down.’
I want to scream. ‘My name is Bethany and I need to know how long I have been here.’ I’m so close to losing my temper.
‘You have a heart condition, Bethany. You need to make sure you keep breathing and try not to panic.’
I take a few deep breaths, making sure she sees the performance. Although I have to say that it does make me feel a tiny bit better.
‘You’ve been here for six weeks,’ she says eventually.
I allow the words to sink in. Six weeks. I’ve been in a coma for six weeks. ‘What happened?’
‘We don’t really know,’ the doctor replies. ‘We think you had a heart attack in your office. One of your colleagues called an ambulance. You’ve been here since then.’
‘But … but …’
‘Now, I know it’s very confusing and everything will feel out of kilter. Off centre. Especially at first. In fact there’s a lot of evidence to suggest that when you’re in a coma you might experience hallucinations of various kinds.’
‘Hallucinations?’
‘Like dreams that are so vivid you think they’re real.
’ She narrows her eyes as she stares at me, trying to gauge my reaction.
‘Some patients say they feel like they’ve been somewhere else, even experiencing another life altogether?
’ The rising inflection lets me know she’s asking me a question, asking if I might have experienced something similar.
‘Another world?’
‘Exactly. But don’t worry, okay? You’ll get there. You’ll start to piece it all together soon. Come to realize what wasn’t real.’ She smiles in a way I think is meant to be comforting.
But it was real.
I know it was real.
The nurse stays by my bedside, hovering around the edges of my vision.
‘Did Cesca visit?’ I ask. It’s my first real question and I think she’s slightly taken aback that my question isn’t about something they would deem more important.
But there is nothing else in the world that really matters. Nothing more important than Cesca.
‘Cesca?’ The question tells me the answer. My sister hasn’t been here, despite me being in a coma for six weeks. This has to be the most broken we’ve been and my heart shatters into a million pieces.
I wake up to find the brilliant lights have been dimmed and there’s an eerie hush in the air.
It must be night-time. I’m thirsty and the canula in the back of my hand itches.
At least I won’t be here for long, maybe another two nights and then I’ll skip to a new place, one where the air doesn’t smell like antiseptic.
Unless …
But I can’t let that thought form.
The skipping was real.
Is real.
Everything is going to be okay.
I just need to be patient.