Chapter 22
TWENTY-TWO
“There is no such thing as chance; and what seem to us merest accident springs from the deepest source of destiny.”
~ Friedrich Schiller
The next few weeks flew by for Miranda while she kept busy with two jobs and four visits a week to the gym, one of which was her session with Naomi. That was a record for her, and she was very proud of herself. So proud she rewarded herself with a box of chocolates at her two-week exercise anniversary. It was a spur of the moment thing; they were half-price. It would have been a crime to let that opportunity slip by. Anyway, she was sure she would burn off all the calories in no time, if not from the exercise, then from the fear of facing Naomi each week. Or worse, facing Naomi if she gave up on her fitness regime. Now that they worked in the same building, there was no escaping her, and that was kind of good in the grand scheme of things. She was even getting used to the aching muscles, it was actually a relief knowing they were hidden under her skin somewhere, and that she had indeed been born with triceps.
Miranda swiped on another coat of red lipstick and pressed her lips together. Butterflies of excitement danced in her belly. Tonight, she’d meet her blind date; they were accompanying Trisha and Shane to dinner. Maybe he would be The One. Trisha had pre-screened him after all, as she said. And maybe the idea of using a sperm donor before her ovaries carked it could be excluded from her list of options.
‘Miranda!’ Trisha called. ‘Simon’s here!’
Miranda took one last glance in the mirror and stepped out of Trisha’s room; chin-raised in confidence, and feeling sexy in her new Leona Edmiston dress and glossy heels. Well, the glossy heels were a thirty-dollar bargain from Target, but with the stunning dress to capture all the attention, who would ever know? The red satin with beaded lace overlay hugged her body like a lover and she took small, shuffled steps along the hall due to its tight fit. Thank goodness for the TrimTummy briefs. Although feeling firmer in the abdominal region after the gazillion crunches Naomi had her doing every second day, for now she was more than happy to take advantage of patented spiral technology.
It’s only the first date, there’s no way he’ll be seeing these.
She stopped at the top of the stairs, her heart beating briskly, and glimpsed Simon in Trisha’s living room. Not bad at all, a little shorter than expected, but nicely dressed and well groomed. A good start. Miranda stepped onto the curved staircase and nodded a hello to Simon as he looked up from his conversation with Shane and Trisha. She took another step but her ankle faltered, rolling outward and propelling her sideways. She reached for the railing but missed, tumbling down the stairs until the cold hard tiles on the floor met with her head, and sharp pain led to blackness.
‘Miranda? Miranda? Oh, thank God ... she’s coming around.’ Trisha’s voice was faint but recognisable.
‘The ambulance will be here in five,’ called Shane from what sounded like further away.
‘Miranda, honey, don’t move, okay?’ Trisha ordered, her voice louder. ‘Just keep still, help will be here soon. You’ll be okay.’ Her warm hands comforted Miranda’s face yet held it firm.
‘Hurts ... when I ... breathe,’ Miranda managed. She had a splitting headache, and her stomach was doing somersaults to join in the party.
‘I know, I know, just try to keep calm.’
Out the corner of her eye, Miranda noticed a slightly blurry but shell-shocked Simon standing awkwardly nearby. This was one date he sure wouldn’t forget.
‘How bad is the pain on a scale of one to ten, Miranda?’ asked the rosy-cheeked paramedic who looked about fourteen.
‘Eight ... no, maybe nine ... oh, I don’t ... it just ... hurts bad!’
‘Okay, try not to worry. We’ll give you some pain relief and you should feel a bit better soon. Do you have any drug allergies? ’
‘Yes, I do have dog allergies,’ Miranda replied, and even through her pain she realised how silly her answer was. Drugs , not dogs, duh!
‘Okay, morphine going in,’ said another paramedic who looked slightly older than the other one, maybe sixteen.
The sharp edges of pain became fuzzy and Miranda’s eyelids drooped.
‘Miranda Sheppard, twenty-nine, fell down the stairs. Head meets tiled floor. Unconscious briefly at the scene according to her friends, and GCS is twelve. Complaining of pain on inspiration, mild dyspnoea, headache, blurry vision, nausea...’
‘Ow! Lights ... too ... bright!’ Miranda exclaimed as she was wheeled into the Emergency Department.
‘...and light sensitivity,’ the paramedic added to the list.
‘Hi there, Miranda, I’m Jeanette, one of the doctors. We’re going to take good care of you.’
Oh, sure, nice to meet you too, Jeanette. What’s with the introductions? Don’t waste time talking, just bloody fix me!
There appeared to be four or five people around her, all moving busily and speaking in what seemed like a foreign language. The brace around her neck gripped her chin, and hands prodded and poked her.
‘Miranda, we’ll have to cut through this dress, I’m afraid,’ someone said. ‘We need to examine you properly and assess your injuries without having to move you around too much.’
‘My dress, no! Please ... I’ll take it ... off ... myself. It has a zip ... at the back, see?’ She tried to roll over but someone held her head firmly in place. She was trapped. Trapped in a strange place, with strange people, unable to move. And to top it off, a nurse, a male nurse at that, was cutting off her beloved six-hundred-dollar dress that she hadn’t worn until tonight! There should be such a thing as fashion insurance.
‘We’ll have to cut these off too, Miranda,’ he said.
Oh no! She’d forgotten about the support briefs! With a few snips they were off, and she was covered loosely in a sheet as the team continued their examination.
‘Right, let’s get this brace off your neck,’ the doctor said after scans had ruled out spinal injury. ‘You’ve sustained three broken ribs, Miranda,’ she said. ‘That’s why it hurts to breathe. There’s also slight bruising around your brain, so we’ll need to keep you here and monitor that. You’ll have a headache for several days, but we can treat the pain.’
Bruising? Brain? Who knew you could get a bruise on your brain, bruises are for knees, aren’t they? Confusion and fear bounced around her mind and the pain intensified. ‘Oh no, I think I’m going to ...’ Before she could say ‘vomit’, a bowl appeared in front of her, and just as quickly she filled it up, although some missed the target and splashed onto the nurse holding the bowl.
‘Sorry!’ Miranda said, wiping the side of her mouth.
‘Don’t worry, I’m used to it.’ The nurse grinned as he walked away.
‘I’m going to give you something for the nausea, and some more pain relief,’ the doctor stated.
Ahh ... much better now. They must have given her a higher dose than the paramedics did, because the pain had mostly subsided and a comforting grogginess floated inside her head. This is better than chocolate .
The nurse returned to her bedside.
‘Are you ... the one I puked on?’ Miranda slurred.
‘That would be me,’ he replied.
‘M-A-T-T … Matt,’ Miranda read his nametag. ‘I’m Miraannda. M-I-R-A-N-D-A,’ she spelled it out, surprisingly correct given her drug-induced drowsiness. She’d always been the best speller at school, proudly spelling anything and everything she could, as often as she could. Why she chose this moment to allow her talent to resurface she didn’t know. ‘M--I--R--A--N--D--A’ she repeated slowly. ‘Hey ... Maaatt? Did you really cut off ma dress?’
‘Yes. Sorry, Miranda.’
She tried to prop herself up on her elbows but slipped. ‘That cos me a fortune it did!’
‘I’m terribly sorry.’
‘Yur a jerk!’ She tried and failed to throw a punch. ‘J-U-R-K.’ She tried to write the letters in mid-air, then giggled. ‘But yur a cute jerk.’ The soft support of the pillow behind her head beckoned her and she promptly fell asleep.
After what seemed like minutes but was probably more like an hour, Miranda opened her eyes and Trisha’s face came into focus.
‘Hey ... how’re you feeling?’
‘Been better,’ Miranda slurred.
‘The doctor said you’ll be here overnight.’
‘Wish I could go home ... ow!’ She tried to change position but her ribs wouldn’t let her .
‘I know. I’ve called your mum to let her know what happened. And I’ll come back first thing tomorrow and bring some clothes, okay?’ Trisha held Miranda’s hand.
‘Thanks. I need some ... they took my dress, the jerks.’
Trisha smiled. ‘I thought as much. Don’t worry, it’s not important. What’s important is that you’re okay.’
‘I’d rather be okay and have my dress, but I guess ... I can’t be picky.’ Miranda attempted a smile, then noticed two figures standing at the foot of the bed; Shane, and – oh God – Simon! She hadn’t even been formally introduced, and here he was at her hospital bed. She mouthed a ‘sorry’, then her surroundings blurred as her eyelids drooped closed again.
She woke to a nurse adjusting something above her. ‘Hi, Miranda, I’m Caroline, how are you feeling?’
‘Um, head feels a little better, but ... still hurts here.’ She pointed to her chest ‘When I breathe.’
Caroline nodded, then fiddled with the tube sticking into the back of her hand.
‘Where’s ... Matt?’ Miranda asked.
‘He had a family emergency and had to leave. I’ll be looking after you tonight.’
After the doctor came to check on her again, and the nurse did some more fiddling, Miranda was left alone to rest. She felt like she had front row seats to a boring repeat episode of ER. It was busy, but nothing major seemed to be going on.
Until ... a beeping sounded from the bed across from her. People zoomed in, someone pushed a trolley of some kind, and they attached things to the patient’s chest. From what she could see, he was an overweight man with dark hair.
Like her father.
Doctors and nurses spoke urgently in their foreign language, and one of them yanked the curtain closed. It didn’t close the whole way, though, and Miranda could see through the gap. Someone shouted, ‘Clear!’ and the man’s body jerked up and down.
Miranda’s heart seemed to skip a beat. She remembered hearing that same word after she and her mother were ushered out of her father’s hospital room twenty-one years ago. When they were allowed back in, it was to say goodbye. Her dad’s cold body lay still as she grasped his lifeless hand, her mother’s hair splayed as she sobbed over his chest.
Miranda shuddered, a sharp pain shooting through her ribs. She tried to look away, but was transfixed. The man jerked up and down a few more times, and the team of people worked on him.
Then they went still.
One person turned away, wiping her brow, and another looked at his watch then walked out.
He’s gone? Just like that?
Whether it was the medication playing with her mind or the shock of what she’d just witnessed, strangely, Miranda’s memory shot back to the day of her job interview when she’d had lunch with Trisha ... she’d seen that little boy seated nearby who looked like his grandfather. As an only child, if Miranda never got the chance to have a baby of her own, her father wouldn’t have a chance of living on through his grandchild. Accepting her reproductive fate would be like saying goodbye to him one last, final time. Tears fought their way out of Miranda’s eyes, and she sobbed. Each cry stung her chest, but she couldn’t stop.