I paced.
One step.
Two.
Three.
Turn.
A tiger in a cage. Coiled. Ready to spring the second they reached shallower water. Ready to shower my husband with love and kisses.
At last they were closer but Adam didn’t stand. Instead he was dragged onto the sand and dropped heavily.
Adam.
I fell to my knees beside him. Shaking him. Wake up. Wake up.
‘He’s not breathing!’ Frantically I scanned the crowd. The horrified expressions. The camera phones. Why wasn’t anyone helping?
‘Please.’ I shook Adam again, crying harder. ‘Someone.’
‘Let me see.’ A woman kneeled opposite me, her fingers scooping the inside of Adam’s mouth, before checking his neck for a pulse.
‘Adam. He’s called Adam.’ It was important that she knew but she didn’t answer. Instead, she breathed into his mouth – the mouth that had kissed me goodbye. She linked her hands and pushed hard on his chest.
How can his heart have given up when it was so full of love for me? For our unborn child.
His face was pale. The sand, once golden, was stained crimson by the blood trickling from a wound on his head.
I waited for him to gasp, the way they do in the movies. For water to spew from his beautiful lips.
It didn’t.
Adam.
Please don’t leave me.
Part Three
‘Giving up isn’t an option.’
JOSH QUIGLEY – ADAM’S BEST FRIEND
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Anna
The smell of hospitals was the same wherever you were in the world. Abrasive and clinical; disinfectant mingled with bleach, sorrow tinged with fear.
Adam hadn’t woken up.
I tightly clutched the itchy grey blanket that had been draped around my shoulders, wishing it were my husband’s hand that I was holding. I half ran to keep up with the trolley as it was wheeled down a corridor, bright with harsh, fluorescent light. Doctors and nurses blocked my view as they poked and prodded him, chattering away in a language I couldn’t understand. They could have been saying Adam had no chance of survival, they could have been discussing last night’s TV, what they’d be eating for dinner. I had no way of knowing.
I had never felt more scared.
‘Where are you taking him?’ I asked again. ‘Why isn’t he waking up?’
Again, my questions went unanswered.
The trolley burst through double doors with a clatter, its wheels squeaking on lino. I tried to follow it but a pretty nurse, with a swinging high ponytail, caught my elbow.
‘Please.’ I attempted to break free, but her grip was firm.
‘English?’
I nodded.
‘You come.’
‘But Adam—’
‘He looked after. We check you okay.’
I didn’t need somebody to tell me I was okay. I wasn’t. I was falling and breaking apart. I hovered outside the room Adam had been taken into, second-guessing what was going on inside, but my medical knowledge was limited to watching Casualty on a Saturday night. My grasp of Spanish non-existent.
A woman hurried past me, a tormented expression on her face, a baby in her arms. Immediately I laid my palm gently on my stomach.
‘I… I’m pregnant,’ I told the nurse.
‘Come.’ Her voice softer. I let her lead me away.
My eyes, throat and ears had been peered into; a blood pressure monitor wrapped tightly around my arm. My temperature had been taken. I’d had a scan. Been offered tea, coffee and a plate of fish and vegetables that had made my stomach roil. My body was clad in borrowed scrubs, too short and too tight but at least they were dry. I had been offered everything except the one thing I really wanted: assurances that my husband would be okay.
Was okay.
The family room was small and airless, the walls a dirty orange, the floor an expanse of shining white tiles knitted together with darker grout. In the corner, a red bucket speared by a mop. Here, it smelled like lemons. I sank onto a too-soft, too-low chair. My knees almost level with my chin. There was a stack of magazines on the table I couldn’t read, and then a tourist’s guide to Alircia, which I could but didn’t. It was painful to see the photos of all the places Adam and I had visited on our previous visit: the volcano, the lava tunnel, the underground lake. There were so many things I had yet to do with Adam. So many places we hadn’t been. I refused to believe he wouldn’t wake up, and yet worry throbbed relentlessly at my temples.
I was longing to talk to someone. That’s what they always did on TV dramas, wasn’t it? Low mutters and desperation pouring down a phone line. But who? Adam hadn’t been close to his parents for years. If I called my mum it would bring back memories of Dad being rushed to hospital and she would feel helpless being so far away. She couldn’t fly out because she had to look after Nan. I would tell Mum soon, but not until I could hold it together without crying. She wouldn’t know how to cope.
I didn’t know how to cope.
It crossed my mind that I could call Nell, but there was a part of me that wanted to believe this wasn’t happening. That saying it out loud would make it so. Besides, I hadn’t any facts to share, speculation was all I had at that point. I veered wildly between thinking that Adam was fine, sitting up in bed and joking, to convincing myself he hadn’t made it and no one wanted to be the one to tell me.
No news is good news.
It was a ridiculous saying – one that had never made sense to me – but it was all I had to cling on to. If I hadn’t been told Adam had died, he had to be alive.
Didn’t he?
The slam of a door roused me. Shock had beckoned sleep. I was slouched on my seat, my head resting uncomfortably against the wall. My neck was cricked, spittle crusting around my mouth.
It was a different nurse to the one who had carried out my tests. She crouched down and sandwiched my hand between hers.
‘Anna.’ She nodded as she spoke my name.
I held my breath, waiting for her to speak.
‘I can take you to see Adam now.’ Her English heavy with accent.
‘Is he… Is he…’
‘He’s comfortable.’
I was afraid to ask what that meant. Instead I let her help me to my feet, which tingled with pins and needles, wishing I could transfer the same numb feeling to my heart.
The hospital was a maze. We twisted and turned through winding corridors. Curious glances followed me; the visibly upset girl in the ill-fitting scrubs.
Comfortable.
That’s what they had said about my dad after he had had his heart attack and then they had sent Mum home to rest. He had died four hours later, alone.
The nurse slowed, stopped outside of a door.
‘This is our intensive care unit. Anna, don’t be frightened when you see him.’
If I had been scared before, now I was terrified.
She gestured for me to go in first. Tentatively I stepped inside. Greeted with the sight of Adam, I stumbled backwards, treading on her toes.
‘It’s okay.’ She rubbed my arm. My hands were clasped over my mouth.
But it wasn’t okay. It wasn’t okay at all.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Anna
There he was – Adam – unrecognizable and yet familiar. Under a startling amount of wires and tubes he was still. Silent.