I was the only one who really knew that about Libby. It was something she confided in me, like a terrible secret; that underneath all the confused juvenile talk about anti-capitalism, feminism and individuality what she really wanted was to get married and live a regular life. She was a paradox in so many ways. Capable of such original thought, such different ways of seeing the world, and yet all she really wanted was the norm. She felt terrible about it, this aspiration to nothing more than the mundane and traditional, torn between what she wanted to be and what she was raised to be. The one thing she knew for sure was that she wanted to be a mother. The irony of how things turned out wasn’t lost on either of us.
I keep looking in her direction, knowing that any minute now she’ll look over and meet my eye. But she seems to be looking everywhere but at me. I need to approach her, but my feet are rooted to the ground. Despite all my fantasies about our reconciliation, now that I see her, so changed, I realise we’re strangers. We were little more than children when we last saw each other, and now look at us. I’m not great at making conversation at the best of times, let alone with people I don’t know, and at the end of the day I don’t know her anymore.
My heart is racing and all of a sudden I don’t think I can do this. It’s fear that’s brought me here – fear of the unresolved, of the unsaid, of eternal regrets. And now it’s fear that’s urging me to turn around, go home, forget I ever saw her.
Fear. My eternal nemesis.
Chapter 4
Fear
I remember saying: “He’s going to die.”
I’d whispered it without meaning to, without even realising the words were forming on my lips. Perhaps, on some level, I believed it would be helpful, somehow lessen the blow by preparing me for what was inevitably coming my way.
“He’s not going to die,” said Michael quietly but forcefully, putting his arm around my shoulders, “don’t say that. It’s going to be okay.”
“The doctor said—”
“The doctor said they’re doing everything they can.”
I buried my head in my hands, rocked back and forth on the plastic chair, my thoughts wild and entangled, frantic. I stood up abruptly, strode quickly down the corridor, stopped, strode back. What if one of the doctors returned? I wasn’t going to leave this spot. But where the hell were the doctors? What were they doing? Every second felt like an eternity. I paced quickly, halted, pressed the heels of my palms into my eyes, leaned against the wall, tried to breathe, pushed my hands through my hair, paced some more, gazed up at the strobe lights until they dazzled me, leaving white blotches swimming in my vision. What was I meant to do? Just stand here?
I felt utterly useless. I was meant to protect him. That was my job, to keep him safe. And I’d failed. If only I hadn’t left him. All that time I’d spent checking door and window locks whenever I put him to bed, keeping an eye on who was entering the playground behind us, who was getting a bit too close in the supermarket or on the street, making sure the car doors were locked whenever we pulled up at traffic lights, telling him never to talk to strangers, never to go off with anyone we didn’t know… none of it had been enough. Because when he really needed me, I hadn’t been there to spot the danger.
Instead, where had I been? On a date in a bar, getting cosy with some girl I was only half interested in, all because Michael had persuaded me I needed to get out there, start a relationship, or if not a relationship then just start having a little fun. Do things normal twenty-one-year-old blokes do, he’d said. But look what had happened. I hadn’t heard my phone over the music. I’d become distracted by the hand on my knee, the promise of the situation, and had forgotten to even check for messages. And now here we were. And for the second time, I might have been too late to save a life.
On one level it felt unavoidable, like a story I could suddenly see the end of. So, this is how it would happen. This is how my world would fall apart, here in this brightly lit corridor with its nauseating scent of disinfectant. It was almost easier in that moment to give in than to hope, less painful to surrender myself to the horror that was surely to come than grapple with the torment of uncertainly.
I looked at Michael, slumped forward on the otherwise empty row of chairs, his head down, his hands clasped tightly in front of him.
What if he died? What if he actually died? What would happen then? I couldn’t live with it, I just couldn’t. A sense of panic overwhelmed me, making my head spin, my knees weak. I closed my eyes and tipped my head up towards a heaven I wasn’t sure I believed in.
I will do anything, I promise, just let him be okay. Please. Please. I’m begging. Let me die. Just let him live.
There was silence, stillness. I felt abandoned to my fate, cast out. Why should He care what I wanted? I was tainted, had been for a long time. I wasn’t worthy of His help, and the only voice that answered me was my own.
But you wanted him to die, didn’t you?
I shook my head. I didn’t. I had never wanted that.
Yes, you did. Don’t you remember?
I rubbed at my temples. Shut up. Shut up! It wasn’t true. That was never—
Here, in this very hospital, isn’t that what you were hoping for? That his first breath would never come? Isn’t that the same as wishing him dead?
“No,” I groaned quietly, my heart aching.
