‘OK,’ he says tentatively.
‘You don’t need to come,’ I add when he looks like he might be about to follow us down the hallway towards the elevators.
He pauses, looking troubled. ‘Oh . . . um . . . I think—’
‘Don’t worry,’ Dr Warier says in his usual soothing manner, ‘she won’t be let out of our sight.’
Jonathan backs off.
We crowd into the elevator, squashed around the bed, and I glance over at Gene, who is chewing his already bloody lip.
The MRI takes an hour. June is in a separate room to us, visible through a thick glass window. Gene and I sit with Dr Philips as he watches the computer screen in front of him in silence. I do too, mesmerized by the rainbow color segments of June’s brain.
I bite my tongue to stop myself from asking how it looks. He’ll tell us if he finds anything. Instead I twist my fingers around and around, playing with a loose thread on my bag, watching through the glass as the machine haloing June’s head does its work, and I pray, I pray that this doctor sees something the others don’t, that the colors bursting on the screen speak to him in a language the others can’t understand.
When I was pregnant with June I went for an ultrasound. A part of me was hoping that perhaps it was all a mistake, that the little blue lines on the pregnancy test were a trick and that the scan would reveal a big black void. Instead a perfectly formed baby materialized on screen. There was her head, the brain a dark mushroom blooming inside the skull; there were her arms and her legs. And in that moment joy swept through me, dissolving all the doubts I’d had. Robert and I looked at each other, grins spreading over our faces. We were so caught up in the shock of seeing a baby on the screen that we missed the silence that crept through the room as the ultrasound technician swiped the wand across my belly in increasingly desperate strokes, poking and prodding at me with a frown.
‘What is it?’ Robert asked, the first to notice that something wasn’t right.
The technician gave us a bright smile and got to her feet. ‘I’ll be right back,’ she said and hurried out the door before we could ask her any more questions.
I looked at Robert. ‘What is it, do you think?’
He said nothing and we waited, holding hands, barely speaking, until twenty minutes later a consultant breezed through the door. He introduced himself and then picked up the wand and laid it against my stomach, studying the pixelated image on the screen with a frown. I held my breath the whole time as Robert squeezed my hand. It was punishment, I was sure of it, punishment for not wanting her. I’d come into this room with a sense of dread, only to have that dread wiped out, replaced by sheer wonder and joy, and now that I’d been given a taste of it, it was about to be seized from me. It was so obvious. I should have wanted her more.
‘Is there a problem?’ Robert asked.
‘We’re just having trouble finding a heartbeat.’
I pressed my lips together to contain the sob.
The seconds ticked by and the dread I’d been feeling took hold again, only this time a thousand times worse because it came laced with guilt and shame. But then, just as I was about to jump off the bed and run away, the thundering beat of a tiny heart filled the room.
The consultant turned to us, grinning. ‘Congratulations,’ he said. ‘You’re having a girl.’
I let out the sob I’d been holding in. ‘And she’s OK?’ I cried.
‘Yes, ten fingers, ten toes, everything where it should be, heartbeat’s normal.’
‘Oh, thank God,’ I said, falling against Robert, shaking and laughing and crying all at once. ‘Thank God.’
But what if God was just hitting pause, I wonder now. What if this is his punishment – and he was just waiting to deliver it? The cancer was the warning shot across the bow. That’s what I can’t help but think as I sit here watching another consultant scan June for signs of life.
Beside me Gene is sitting with his elbows on his knees, hands clasped tight, his gaze fixed on the screen.
We both startle when my phone beeps. It’s Hannah. At last. A text message. ‘Hi Mom, I’m fine. Went home to sleep. I’ll be back later. Xox.’ The tension in my shoulders decreases a notch. That’s one thing less to worry about at least.
After two hours the doctor stops studying the screens and making notes and turns to us. I wait for him to speak – equally as desperate for him to open his mouth as I am dreading what he’s going to say.
‘There’s some very faint brainwave activity,’ he says.
I reach for Gene without thinking. He reaches for me at the same time and we grip each other, squeezing tight, clinging onto the words before the doctor can snatch them away from us.
‘What does that mean?’ I ask.
‘We need to wait for the PET scan and I don’t want to speculate about what it might mean in the long run, but I would say that turning off life support is premature.’ I look at Gene, who is beaming. ‘I don’t want to raise your hopes too far.’
‘But you think maybe she is OK? That she’s alive?’ Gene interrupts.
‘She’s alive. The question is whether she will ever regain consciousness or breathe on her own.’
‘Can she hear us, do you think?’ Gene asks.
The doctor shrugs. ‘Who knows? Some studies suggest talking to patients in comas helps. I’ve seen patients written off come out of vegetative states, but many more who have passed away, sometimes after months or even years of being kept on life support. So I’m telling you,’ and here he gives me a warning look, ‘don’t get your hopes up.’
‘Another doctor told us that same
