Emergency: Wife Lost and Found

‘No.’ James said, and then ‘No,’ again. ‘Look I’d really rather just deal with this on my own. I’ll call you tomorrow.’

‘Ellie.’ James said, when May sat down.

‘Your girlfriend?’ May asked, because even though she never usually would, she was here tonight as a friend and colleague and she was also treating him as a relative of a patient, trying to piece it all together so that she could help him best. ‘So she knows about Lorna.’

‘I told Ellie about Lorna a couple of months ago. We were starting to get a bit more serious. I thought it was right…’ His voice trailed off.

‘You were married to Lorna?’ May checked. ‘For how long?’

‘Not even a year.’ He could have stopped there. A year wasn’t long after all and it had been a decade ago. It should all be neatly relegated to the past, only he’d never quite managed to do that, had never been able to add a neat full stop to that chapter in his life and move on. He’d tried, though, over and over he’d tried, but that year with Lorna had been a roller-coaster ride from start to finish and he felt as if he were back on it again. He’d wondered sometimes at the ease with which patients gave the most personal details, had decided there was this need to make sense of the life the doctors and nurses were fighting for, to make that person real and warm and perhaps, a need to put things into frantic perspective. He had been right, because here he was doing the same now, trying to match up that limp lifeless patient with the person he knew or, rather, had known.

‘She was a couple of years younger than me,’ James explained. ‘She seemed a strange little thing, very prim and shockable, or she was when we were at medical school. She never came to many of the social things, but she always stood out.’

‘With her hair?’ May smiled, but James shook his head.

‘There are plenty of redheads in Scotland. I don’t know May, she just always stood out for me, sort of stood apart. I was a bit fascinated by her, I guess. And then one night there was a party and she was there…’ He even smiled at the memory, his face ashen but still he smiled in recall. ‘She just blew me away, we couldn’t stop talking. We’d known each other vaguely for a while yet that night it was as if we’d met each other for the first time. We went to bed that night. She’d never slept with anyone before…’ He shook his head as if he still couldn’t believe what had happened. ‘But there was no question in my mind that she’d ever sleep with anyone but me again. I was crazy about her. We spent the next two weeks in bed, not just that, talking, studying, May it was the best two weeks of my life. It was crazy, it was wild, but it made perfect sense at the time.’

‘And then what?’

James didn’t answer straight away. He stared up at the clock that must surely have stopped, because if felt as if they’d been sitting in there for hours. Felt as if he was living it again after all these years.

‘Let’s just find out!’ Normally calm and practical, heneeded to be even more so here, James had realised,because Lorna was a mess. Handing her the little paperbag with the pregnancy test kit he had bought, he rememberedguiding her to the bathroom, but at the doorshe baulked.

‘You don’t understand…’

‘Lorna!’ He was getting exasperated now. For twodays she’d been panicking that her period was late,two days of anguish, which, over and over he hadpointed out, might be unnecessary—they had beencareful. ‘Let’s just find out first if there really is anythingto worry about.’

He’d sounded so calm and practical, but sittingoutside the bathroom in his junior doctors residenceflat, he had been nervous. He’d just started his internship, had just moved out ofstudent accommodation, andwas finally starting to earn some money—and now this!As careful as they had been…well, they’d barely beenout of bed, and… He closed his eyes and blew out abreath, trying not to think about how they could havebeen a bit more careful. Well, they would be in thefuture, James had decided. She hadn’t wanted to go onthe Pill in case her parents found out, which James hadfound bizarre! Well, they’d have to sort something out,they couldn’t go through this each month.

They wouldn’t have to.

Her sobs from the bathroom told James before heeven went in that there would be no second chances. Holding her sobbing body, he tried to comfort her, totell her it would be okay, that they would sort somethingout, that they would get through this, only she wasbeyond comfort.

And as he held her late into the night, only then didthe realisation hit that she wasn’t worried about hercareer, or her future, or how a baby would affect herlife, and she wasn’t worried what a pregnancy threeweeks into a relationship might do to them. The onlything that consumed her, the only thing that seemed toliterally terrify her, was how her father would react.

‘What happened then, James?’ May’s voice broke him from his introspection.

‘We found out that she was pregnant.’

‘Hello!’ A bubbly ICU nurse who introduced herself as Angela came in and interrupted them, but even with her bright demeanour James could tell she was nervous—it was never easy dealing with staff, especially when the patient was so ill. ‘Sorry to have kept you waiting so long, but we’re still having a lot of trouble stabilising her. Now, I just need to go through a few details. You’re Lorna’s ex-husband?’ she checked.

‘That’s right.’

‘Firstly, is there any past history you’re aware of that we should know about?’

James hesitated for a second, not sure it was relevant, not really wanting to share that part of his past, but if it helped her, they had to hear it.

‘I don’t think so. She had an appendectomy when she was twelve, I believe, and she had an an ectopic pregnancy, but that was ages ago.’

‘How long?’ Angela asked, scribbling the information down.

‘Ten, nearly eleven years ago.’

‘Anything else? Diabetes, epilepsy…’

James shook his head. ‘Not that I’m aware of.’

‘Do you keep in contact with Lorna?’

‘No.’

‘And how long is it since you’ve spoken with her?’

James gave a tight swallow. ‘Ten years.’

‘I see.’ James felt sorry for Angela, it was a difficult situation after all. He had no real right to see Lorna, less right even than a person on the street who might walk in now and claim to know her. Divorce did that, James had long ago realised. ‘Her family are on their way,’ Angela said. ‘They should be landing any time now—they got a flight as soon as they were informed. Obviously, while Lorna is unable to speak for herself, we have to rely on the next of kin to determine her wishes, which in this case is her parents.’

‘They won’t be thrilled to see me!’ James looked her right in the eye. ‘Look, there was nothing acrimonious in the divorce.’ It was killing him to discuss this with a stranger, he wouldn’t discuss this with a stranger. ‘It just didn’t work out, but we did both care about each other. I know I’m her ex, which should mean I’m the last person she wants to see,’ he faltered, because from previous indication that was exactly the case. ‘She was in full cardiac arrest in my department. I just need to see for myself…’

‘I understand.’ Angela said, but James was quite sure she didn’t. However, her eyes were kind and she gave a sort of half-smile. Then what she said next made him realise that maybe she did understand after all. ‘I’m divorced myself, but I know I’d want to see him if he was so ill. But once the family get here, the decision will be theirs.’

‘I understand that.’ James gave a grateful nod. ‘I’m not going to get in the way.’

‘Do you want me to come?’ May offered, but James shook his head. ‘I’ll just wait here.’

He’d always wished for one more chance to see her, to talk to her, to say he was sorry, so very sorry for all that had happened and to find out why, and some of his wishes had been granted tonight. Even though they hurt like hell, he was incredibly grateful for them.

She was pinker now. It was the first thing he noticed when he approached, just as if she were sleeping really, apart from the tubes everywhere.

The warming unit was on—a large inflated duvet, that would help maintain her temperature, and she looked tiny beneath it with just her head and shoulders visible.

He’d wanted this moment with her, would have pulled rank or just stormed his way in to get it, only now it was here, James didn’t know what to do, didn’t know what she’d want him to do.

A chair had been placed by the bed so he perched on it. Angela took over from the float nurse who had been watching Lorna and now she sat, high up on a stool at the end of the bed, reading all the equipment and filling in the charts, watching Lorna every second, which was what Intensive Care was, after all, but he’d have killed for just a couple of minutes alone with her.

‘She’s the most private person.’ James glanced over at Angela. ‘I mean, she’d really hate all this. I know anyone would, but…’ He was rambling, really didn’t know what to do. Her collar bones were exposed so he pulled the warming unit up higher around her neck. She’d always been slim but she was skinny now. As Angela exposed her arms to check her reflexes he could see the veins, see her neat, short nails which, unlike her toes, were left unpolished.

‘Here.’ Angela left one skinny forearm out from under the warming unit. “Why don’t you hold her hand, tell her that you’re here? It might be reassuring for her to hear a familiar voice.’ He hadn’t held Lorna’s hand in ten years and he didn’t know if he should, but when he did her hand felt cool, but that was how she had always felt. He stared at the bony fingers and the blue veins on the back of her hand and the smattering of freckles that he had adored but she had so hated.

‘She was always cold.’ He was talking to Angela but looking at Lorna. ‘She’d come in after a night shift and she’d be frozen.’ Now he was remembering things that he had chosen not to, those freezing winter mornings when she’d climb into bed beside him as cold as the ice outside, or when he’d crawl into bed beside her at 7 a.m., cold himself to find her for once warm. He wanted to warm her now, wanted to crawl into bed and hold her, feel her again. Only he couldn’t, hadn’t been able to for a decade now.

What to do, what to do? His head was spinning. She’d left him, would she even want him sitting beside her now?

Yes.

Accidents did happen—James Morrell knew that better than anyone, but for her to be here when she was so very ill… His head tightened at the thought that she might die, or be brain damaged, but somehow there must be a reason that she was here. Somehow she had come back to him, even if it was just to say goodbye.

He was holding her hand to his face now and it was like a dam breaking. Feeling her skin beneath his lips he leant over, buried his face in her hair, inhaled the last wisps of the lavender shampoo she had always used, felt her cheekbone rest beneath his.