“You keep the bag.”
She pulled out Daniel’s personal possessions and handed them to Howard over the table. He took them and placed them on the chair next to him.
“I need to find somewhere to stay. The nurses said he’s going to be here for a few days at least.”
“I don’t think Laura’s going to let you see him. Not for a while.”
Stunned, she stared at him. “She can’t stop me.”
“I’m afraid she, we, can. As his next of kin.”
The hurt deepened. “You too?”
“My wife is already extremely upset over this. Minimizing her stress can only help Daniel to get better.”
“What about me?”
“It’s just for a while. Until he’s got through the worst.”
Cherry blazed with anger. “She doesn’t seem to understand that I love him.”
He watched her for a moment. “Did you book this weekend to deliberately upset my wife?”
Her eyes flashed to the floor.
“Because if you did . . . then you don’t love him that much, do you?”
She sat numbly as he got up.
“Are you going to take Daniel’s car back to London?”
She shrugged:I suppose.
“Drive carefully,” he said kindly.
She watched as he walked away, Daniel’s things under his arm: clothes, wallet, phone, flat keys. She had effectively been dismissed.
24
Wednesday, August 27
“FROM HIS SCAN, WE BELIEVE HE SHOULD BE REGAINING CONSCIOUSNESS,” said Dr. Raina. She waited while this news sank in.
They were back in the consulting room. It was early morning and the sun was streaming through the window, making the dust spin in the light. Dr. Raina was compassionate, but professional, passing on facts without embellishment; Laura and Howard were exhausted and frightened. Laura had spent three days at Daniel’s bedside and then last night the doctors had stopped the sedation. At some point over the following twelve hours, he should have come round.
Laura’s voice sounded small, shriveled. “So, why hasn’t he?”
“We don’t know yet. We’ll start investigating this morning. He’ll have another scan and we’ll also perform brain EEGs and other test activities.”
“How long will it all take . . . ?”
“We’ll have some results in later today, but I must warn you that they may not give us the answers we need,” Dr. Raina said gently. “The brain is very complex and sometimes it takes a while until we find out exactly what’s stopping someone from coming out of a coma. Sometimes they recover before we do find out.”
“Can you tell . . . Can you tell how long he’s likely to stay like that?” Laura felt Howard put his hand gently on hers.
“I’m afraid not. We just don’t know. The good news is that he is breathing unassisted, so he’s off the ventilator.”
Laura nodded, but she couldn’t help feeling these were scraps of good news. Small things to cling to when the bigger problem loomed large and dark.
