What's Yours Is Mine (6 page)

A nurse in pink scrubs pokes her head around the door. “Mrs. Hamilton? The doctor would like a quick word before you see Mum. If you and your husband could come with me, he'll be here in just a minute.”

I start to follow, but the woman blocks my way. “I'm afraid it's still family only—”

“What am I, the hired help?” I demand.

“It's OK.” Grace sighs. “She's my sister.”

I shove past the old bitch, fighting the urge to slap that snotty expression off her face. I
really
need a fucking cigarette.

We're shown into a cramped waiting room furnished with cheap beige cube sofas, fuzzy beige carpet tiles, and beige-painted walls. If you weren't depressed before you got in here, five minutes should do the trick. A potted plant in the corner has simply given up the fight, its dusty green leaves slowly turning brown as if to match the rest of the miserable little room. The only window is set six and a half feet up in the wall, adding to the sense of incarceration. It's like something out of
Prisoner: Cell Block H
.

Ignoring Grace's disapproving glare, I pull a low coffee table over to the wall, climb on top of it, and force the window open. Then I pull out my Marlboros and suck as many carcinogens into my lungs as possible. I'm just stubbing the butt out on the sill when the door opens again, and my father comes into the room, followed by a man in a white coat who may or may not have come to take me away.

My father nods briefly at Grace as I jump down from the table, and he looks straight through me.
Gee, Dad. Thanks for the welcome for the Prodigal Daughter
.

“Are we all here?” the doctor asks. “Good. Shall we sit down?”

“I'd prefer to stand,” Dad says stiffly.

“Well, then. As you all know, Catherine is very sick. She's survived the initial stroke, but we have no way of knowing what damage has been done until she regains consciousness …”

He starts in with the ER-speak, but loses me at
vital
signs
. It's weird to hear Mum called Catherine, like she's a kid or something.

I sneak a sideways look at my father. You'd think he'd joined the military, he's so stiff-backed and stiff-necked and stiff-upper-lipped. I'm shocked by how much he's aged. But then, I haven't set eyes on him in more than nine years; our little falling-out goes way further back than my bust-up with everyone else. Pretty much back to when I was born, if we're being honest here.

“… Mr. Latham, we may need you to make some very difficult decisions,” the doctor is saying. “I know this isn't something you want to think about, but it's best to be prepared. Of course we'll do everything we can, but you may decide at some point that it's time to let her go. As her next of kin—”

“Dad,” Grace says. “Dad, you won't let them just
stop
, will you?”

“Has Catherine ever discussed her wishes with you?” the doctor asks. “Did she sign an advance decision—a living will?”

“She's fifty-nine,” Dad says. “She isn't even old enough to retire.”

“I realize how hard this is, Mr. Latham, but if your wife—”

“Dad?” Grace says, tugging at his sleeve like she's five again.

“I'm not making any decisions now,” Dad says, pulling himself together with an effort. “I'm not having you write
her off. She's a fighter. She'll come through this, I know she will. I want you to—”

“Actually,” I say clearly, “actually, Dad, it's not up to you.”

They both jump, as if they've forgotten I'm here. For the first time since he walked into the room—the first time in almost a decade—my father turns and
sees
me.

“What the hell do you mean?” he grinds out finally.

Oh, I've been waiting a long time for this
.

“Mum came to see me before I left England five years ago,” I say, unable to keep the triumph from my voice. “She gave me something. A power of attorney, in case anything happened to her. It's not you or Grace who gets to decide what to do. It's
me
.”

I feel fine. The nagging headache that's been plaguing me for the last couple of days has finally gone, and so has the beginnings of that sore throat I thought I had coming.

In fact, I feel
better
than fine. At fifty-nine, you get used to aches and pains shifting around your body from one day to the next like mercury in a glass vial. One morning it's backache, the next you can hardly bend your knees. But this morning, I don't feel any pain at all.

Voices murmur in the hospital corridor outside my room. I sit up, straining to hear. I do hate all this
fuss
. I had a bit of a dizzy spell, that's all. There was no need for David to call an ambulance! I can't believe the hospital admitted me. I'm not
sick
. I probably just turned the central heating up too high again.

I slide off the bed, smoothing my gray wool skirt and checking my hair in the tiny mirror above the sink in the corner. I must have slept well, because I feel better than I have in weeks. I'm lucky to have got a private room, what with the NHS being what it is these days.

I turn around as the glass door whooshes open, and a nurse in what look like pink pajamas pushes a small trolley into the room.

“Excuse me?” I say. “I don't suppose you know where my husband, David, is?”

She's so focused on her other patient she doesn't hear me. “How are you feeling, love?” she asks the woman in the bed, reaching up to replace her IV bag. “Caused a bit of a stir, you have. Your family has arrived, they're worried sick about you. Be nice if you could sit up and give them a smile when they come in.”

She scans the clipboard on the foot-rail, and then checks the monitors hissing and beeping to the side. I don't want to interrupt, but I'm getting slightly anxious to see my husband.

I cough politely as she adjusts the straps holding the patient's ventilator mask in place. “I'm sorry to bother you, but if you could just tell me the way to reception, I'm sure I'll manage to find him.”

She must have heard me, but she doesn't even look up. Is she deaf? Or just plain rude?

“I know,” she sighs kindly, straightening up and patting the woman's still hand. “You'd wake up if you could.”

I'm in front of the door. She can't ignore me now.

She pushes the trolley right through me.

I feel dizzy, as if I'm standing too close to the edge of a cliff. Behind me, the ventilator hisses rhythmically. It sounds as if someone is breathing in my ear.

This is a private, single room, but there's a patient in the bed.
The bed I just got out of
.

On the green visitor's armchair by the window, someone has carefully folded a neat pile of clothes: a dark skirt, a pink-and-gray striped blouse, a pink pullover. The toe of a pair of charcoal tights peeks out from beneath the pile. Under the chair, two black driving shoes are neatly lined up side by side.

The same clothes I was wearing when I came into the hospital. The clothes I'm still wearing now.

You'd think I'd be frightened, but I'm not. I know I'm not dead. The machines tell me that. I stand at the foot of the bed and look down at myself. One breathes for me; another measures every heartbeat. I'm not dead. But I'm not
here
.

At my neck—at the neck of the woman on the bed—the gold crucifix I inherited from my mother catches the light. I haven't taken it off since the day she died, seventeen years ago. Automatically, my hand goes to my throat, and closes around its echo. It feels real
—I
feel real—to me.

I don't know if I'm going to die soon. I don't know if there will be a white tunnel and light; or if I can still … 
go back
 … into my body. I don't know how long I have to choose; or if it's even up to me. But if I am going to die, I have to see David first.

The door swishes open again; you wouldn't think a ghost—or whatever I am—could jump, but I do.

The nurse is back, a white-haired doctor in tow. With them is my family. David, Grace, and Tom, I expected; but I'm startled to see Susannah. I thought I was the only one who even knew where my younger daughter was. She telephones me every six weeks or so, and I wire her money. I haven't told David, of course.

Grace must have tracked her down somehow and flown her back home. Which means I've been sick longer than I thought. How many days have I been here? What's wrong with me?

I call their names, but of course they can't hear me.

Oh, David
. He looks tired and anxious as he goes to the bed and stares at the woman lying there. I touch his face, but he can't feel me. And worse: I can't feel him. My fingers stroke his cheek, but it's as if I'm smoothing air.

He grasps his wife's hand, and suddenly I yearn desperately to be able to feel his touch. I close my eyes, and will myself back in my own body. I open them, and I'm still here, in limbo.

I'm brought up short by a thought. Is that what this is?
Limbo?

Long-forgotten phrases from my schoolgirl catechism come back to me.
Limbo is the border place between Heaven and Hell where dwell those souls who, though not condemned to punishment, are deprived of the joy of eternal existence with God
. But it refers to children who haven't been baptized, or those who lived before the birth of Christ, not adults, practicing Catholics, like me.

Not limbo, then. But … perhaps Purgatory.

Purgatory. For those who must atone before they can be forgiven. It's not fashionable to talk about Purgatory anymore; these days it's all about tolerance and loving the sinner, if not the sin. But that doesn't mean Purgatory doesn't exist. Is there something I need to put right before I can move on? Something I need to stay for?

I look at my daughters, on opposite sides of the bed, unable to come together even now, at a time like this. At my husband, who hasn't spoken to his youngest child in nine years.

I'm ready to die. Not eager, certainly, but ready. I believe God is waiting for me. I've been lucky enough to know love in my life: the love of a good man, and the love of my children. There isn't really much more to say about me; I didn't have a career, or change the world. I was happy to stay at home and look after my family. I think girls these days have it much harder, despite all their washing machines and expensive clothes. All those
choices
. So much easier in my day, when you knew what was expected of you and how to give it.

David will survive without me. He'll grieve, of course, which is as it should be. And then he'll recover, and live the rest of his life, which is as it should be, too.

But I worry about my Susannah. She still needs me so much.

I follow her as she stalks over to the window, peering through the slatted blinds with one finger. I can tell she's itching for a cigarette. Gently, I stroke her hair, though of course neither of us can feel it. Such pretty blond curls she
used to have, when she was little. Now look at it: thick, matted rat's tails reaching halfway to her bottom, tied back with an old elastic band. And the way she dresses these days. Like an Emu, Grace says it's called. No: an Emo, that's it. All black and ugly. When I think of the care I took of her when she was a baby, worrying every little graze would leave a scar. And now look: all those ugly tattoos, and pieces of metal stuck into her face. She looks like a bundle of wet newsprint. Why would such a lovely girl want to deface herself the way she has?

Then I see her expression as she watches David put his arm around Grace. Grace, our perfect daughter; the daughter who turned out so well, the daughter we can be proud of. Such a credit to her parents.

It never seems to have occurred to David that if we take the credit for Grace, we must take the blame for Susannah, too.

“This is too weird,” Susannah says suddenly, pointing towards the bed. “Look at her. You can tell, she's not even
there
.”

“Don't say that,” Grace snaps. “Of course she's there.”

Typical Grace. Always believing that if she wants something badly enough, she can make it happen. That may be true of passing exams or getting into Oxford, but it's not true of life. She's still got a hard lesson to learn.

She pushes herself too hard. She's got so
thin
. She's not eating properly. I know she and Tom have been trying for a baby, but she needs to look after herself better if she wants to fall pregnant. She should take a leaf out of Susannah's
book and try to relax more. I know how proud David is of the fact that she takes after him, but a career isn't everything. I managed fine without one.

Tom puts a supportive hand on his wife's shoulder. To look at them now, they seem like the perfect couple; though I've never been quite so sure. They have the perfect life, which isn't quite the same thing.

But still: Grace is flanked, supported, by her husband and her father. And Susannah has no one.

WE ONLY CONCEIVED
Susannah because David, a lonely only child, wanted Grace to have someone to play with. Even before she was born, her existence was secondary to her sister's.

Unlike my first pregnancy, I had a very difficult time when I was expecting Susannah. They'd withdrawn the drug that'd given me Grace by then, and so I worried constantly that I'd lose the baby. I was tired all the time, had appalling morning sickness, couldn't sleep, and my blood pressure fluctuated wildly. Grace had been born at home with just a midwife in attendance, but clearly that was never going to be possible with Susannah.

In the event, my water broke five weeks early. After fourteen painful hours of labor, Susannah went into fetal distress, and had to be delivered by forceps. I bled very badly. They told me then there would be no more children. No son to carry on the family name.