If Harry hadn’t still been awake worrying about his parents’ argument, and heard the fall, it could have been far worse.
As it was, the doctors were hopeful Sam would recover physically. They pieced his knee back together with metal screws, the incision running from mid-shin up to his thigh. A sling, painkillers and weeks of rest would sort his collarbone. The concussion would take as much rest as it took. And as for his mental state, well, that remained to be seen. Sam hadn’t told Orla that he’d been taking antidepressants. Or that he’d been put into probation at school due to underperforming for the first time in eight years of teaching, and was starting to crumble under the stress and the secrets.
We didn’t ask our sister what had happened that evening before she left to go dancing and flirting with another man. It wasn’t our business what words had passed between them, or what had led Sam to go drinking himself half to death.
Annie postponed her flight home to look after the kids, with the rest of us chipping in around our own work schedules at crunch times like breakfast and early evening and dinner time and bedtime and, well, any time they weren’t in school. Three stressed, scared and energetic kids were harder work than I’d have thought. For someone who prided herself on being organised and efficient, I was doing a pathetic job of helping Annie keep on top of everything. How could every item of school uniform get so filthy every single day? Then for each child, on a different day they needed PE kits, which might be the standard school kit or might happen to be the football strip, or swimming costume. Let alone prepping three totally different lunches, and not running out of after-school snacks or bedtime drinks or breaktime snacks, of which the primary school only allowed a specific list, none of which were found in the late-night-opening supermarket. Forms filled in, spellings learnt, reading done, homework completed, piano practised, hamster fed, rooms kept below nuclear-disaster levels of chaos…
My respect for Orla expanded exponentially. I could see how a job coupled with some positive attention and a new, vibrant social life had seemed appealing compared to a distant, uninterested husband on top of answering ten thousand impossible questions per day, along with dealing with one child who refused to eat anything green, brown or yellow and another who had taken it upon himself to become the local single-use-plastic police.
Cooper was brilliant. He drove over after work each day with Bridget, played Xbox with Harry, listened to Lottie’s recorder practice, read Shirley Hughes stories to Oscar until they both knew them off by heart. He made hot drinks, poured the odd glass of something stronger and even brought me snacks.
And at the end of each day, he wrapped his arms around me and rested his head against mine for a long, slow minute before kissing me goodnight, not a murmur of complaint that I was dumping my new husband to take care of my shattered sister and her kids. He never once suggested that I had a night off and let the others manage without me. Cooper understood that we Donovans were there for each other, and that, as the only two who were self-employed, Annie and I were there when the others couldn’t be. Bridget, being the one most likely to understand the medical gobbledegook, spent most evenings at the hospital with Orla. Sam’s mum also drove down from Newcastle for a couple of days, before returning to care for his grandmother. Sofia did what she could, but with Eli still staying with them, and a dozen other crises kicking off every time she checked her phone, her capacity was limited.
But was I also making excuses for my sisters because it was kind of an awkward time to be moving in with a man I still barely knew?
Did they figure this out for themselves, and tactfully refrain from insisting that they take their share of night duty, giving me a perfect reason to postpone the scariness of moving into my new home?
That would be a yes.
I did love those sisters of mine.
* * *
After a week in hospital, the decision had to be made about what would happen next. As predicted, Sam’s body would make a full physical recovery. Unfortunately, his concussed brain controlled his body, and that was going to take much longer. He would be on crutches for months as his leg healed, but add to this shaky coordination, and frequent bouts of feeling dazed and confused interspersed with violent headaches and nausea, and things were extra-complicated.
‘I strongly advise that Sam spend some time in Meadow House,’ Dr Farouk explained to a haggard, wretched Orla. ‘It is an excellent facility. They take a lot of younger patients, who generally do very well, and they’ll be able to support his physical rehabilitation as well as carefully monitoring his brain function.’
‘How long would he be there for?’ Annie asked, given that Orla seemed to be ignoring him.
Dr Farouk frowned. ‘It’s very difficult to say at this point. Anything from two weeks to a few months. It’s only once we can assess the rate and extent of recovery that these kinds of decisions can be made. But the aim will be to get him home as soon as possible.’
‘Where is it?’ I asked.
‘On the outskirts of Birmingham.’ The doctor frowned in sympathy. ‘I’m sorry there were no places available any nearer. This was the best we could do.’
Bridget glanced at me. ‘That’ll be, what, over an hour’s drive?’
‘Far longer in rush hour. But don’t worry.’ I reached across Annie to touch Orla’s knee. ‘We’ll help with the kids and everything.’
‘No.’ Orla shook her head, weakly at first, and then increasingly determined. ‘No.’
‘We will!’ Bridget said, her distress clear. ‘I have holiday I can use, and Sofia’s working to offload some of her other commitments—’
‘No, he’s not going.’ Orla glanced in the direction of the ward, where she’d left Sam sleeping. ‘He’s coming home.’
‘Orla, have you thought about this?’ I asked. ‘If Dr Farouk thinks Sam needs specialist care—’
‘It’s not his decision!’ she barked at me. ‘Right now, Sam needs to be with me so we can work through this together. It’s called in sickness and in health.’
‘But what about your job?’ Bridget said, tentatively.
‘I quit my job at eight a.m. last Monday morning! Right after deleting Jim’s number from my phone.’ Orla’s eyes darted between her three sisters, and it looked as though something had broken in their watery depths. ‘My husband nearly died, while I was out farting about pretending I was young, and carefree, and that it mattered if a fit bloke thought I was special. My child found his dad sprawled on the floor, his head stuck there with his own blood. His aunties had to step in because his mother was out getting off her face on two-for-one cocktails and compliments. I’d never have got over losing Sam. But given that he’s still here, I’ve got the rest of our precious lives to make it up to both of them. And that starts by taking Sam home, to be with his kids and feeble excuse for a wife.’
‘With all due respect, Mrs Peterson, your husband had consumed an extremely worrying amount of alcohol. We need to establish whether—’
Orla stood up. ‘With all due respect, Doctor, my very depressed husband was having a very bad day, and, being a vocally repressed personality type who thinks that real men don’t talk about their feelings, he dealt with feeling that his life was drowning at the bottom of a cesspit by getting off his head on vodka. Once.’ She bent closer, looking him right in the eye. To his credit, Dr Farouk did not shrink back. ‘He needed me, and I wasn’t there for him. That’s not going to be happening any more. If you can look me in the eye and tell me you never drowned your sorrows with a few drinks and ended up taking it too far, then I’ll gladly wave him off to this rehab place myself.’
‘Mrs Peterson, a place at an establishment like Meadow House doesn’t come up every day. Brain injuries are very complicated matters. Add to that his physical injuries and I’m sure that you would agree that we need to put your husband’s needs first, rather than prioritising assuaging your guilt for not being there.’
