‘Eddy?’
‘Yes?’ Eddy didn’t want to have this conversation. It was like driving past a car accident, you didn’t want to look but you had to. Night had turned to day somewhere out in the real world, but time didn’t really matter any more. Not when Reagan was just lying there as though she were in a queue for Heaven.
He was on one side of the bed, holding that hand he’d been so frantic for earlier on, and Mrs Crowe was planted on the other side. It made sense really, to have the two people who loved her the most be here like this.
‘The doctors say she’ll wake up soon. They kept her in a coma for a while so they could stabilise her, but soon she’ll wake up by herself.’
‘Okay.’
Okay, but what?
‘Eddy?’
‘Yes?’
‘The doctor said they can’t do much for her now.’ Eddy followed the tear tracking down Mrs Crowe’s tired face as she looked back at him across her beautiful daughter’s sleeping body. The daughter who should never have to die before she herself did. Seventeen was no fair age to die, it was a fair age to live, to dream and to hope.
‘Okay.’ It wasn’t the right word for the occasion, that was obvious, but it had to be because Eddy’s throat couldn’t fit anything else through. It was locked tight with emotion and this was a tough enough fight as it was.
‘They asked if I thought she should stay here or whether she should come home and be with us there.’ It was both a statement and a question, and Eddy sincerely appreciated that. They’d been through this together and, by God, they’d see it through together.
‘Can she c-come home?’ Now he couldn’t hold it back any longer and as Mrs Crowe’s tears found a hard landing on the cold linoleum floor, so did his.
‘We’ll make her comfortable, won’t we?’ said Mrs Crowe through her pain.
Eddy nodded. What he wanted to say most of all however was I will not let her fall. I refuse to let her fall.
By two o’clock that afternoon Reagan was awake, if awake was what you could call it. It was like there was a dimmer dial turning this way and that inside her, one moment making her reasonably lucid, the next semi-conscious.
When she was up to speaking, it was so hard to know what to say. If ever there was a time to say something profound, something to make an impossible situation seem better, this was it; except he seemed to be incapable of anything other than limp chatter. ‘How are you feeling?’ That was a classic. ‘Are you sure you’re comfortable?’ It just kept getting better. Anything to avoid the excruciatingly obvious.
It was only when Mrs Crowe had to leave for a while to process the discharge papers that they had some time to themselves . . . and Eddy was determined not to let this go to waste. Nothing could go to waste now. Every opportunity was precious.
Reagan must’ve known that too.
‘Eddy?’
‘I’m here,’ he said, leaning in and squeezing her hand ever so gently.
‘It doesn’t hurt so bad now.’ She tried to smile and almost got there too. Whether she knew it was because the doctors had pumped her with painkillers, Eddy didn’t quite know, but at least she wasn’t suffering.
‘That’s good. We’re going to bring you home soon. Back to your place.’
‘I’d like that.’ That was it and there it was. She understood what was going on just as much as he did. She was coming home to die. The knowledge was there in her eyes. It was an acceptance of her fate that Eddy hadn’t witnessed up until now. She had fought hard, but her enemy had been great. It wasn’t fair but then again, what was? ‘You won’t leave me, Eddy?’ This time she squeezed his hand back.
‘I haven’t left you since I was twelve years old. I’m not about to start now.’ It was his turn for that pained smile.
‘Thank you, Eddy.’
‘What for?’
‘For everything. You made me the leading lady in the best movie of all.’
‘Yeah?’
‘My life.’
I love you, Reagan Crowe.
‘I love you too, Eddy Sullivan.’