The two of them went to the hospital and sat with Daniel’s dad, listening to the machines keeping him alive. Daniel stroked his father’s hand and then he washed his forearms gently and carefully as if they were made of fine china. He spoke to Bennett as he did so, explaining his father was still in an induced coma to give his brain time to heal which was why the ventilator was breathing for him and he was being fed through a tube into his stomach. Daniel stopped speaking when his voice started to crack and break apart, and the only sounds were the machines beeping and sucking and whooshing.
Daniel slumped into his chair after he had finished washing and drying his father’s forearms. ‘It’s the not knowing that’s the worst,’ he said. ‘Because none of the doctors or nurses can tell me if I’m never going to speak to him again or whether I’ll be helping to nurse him back to health after he comes out of the coma. So that’s why I need to make the fit, to try and help him. I don’t want to leave it up to the world to decide what’s going to happen. I want to make him better if I can. It’s up to me. But what if I can’t find anyone? What if I wasn’t saved to help him at all? That all along I’ve just been hoping I was.’
Bennett sat in silence for a moment and then he stood up and went round to the other side of the bed and held Daniel until his friend had stopped crying.