When we get back to the hospital reception with its wall of floor-to-ceiling windows, I see it is already dark outside.
After ordering an Uber, I text Steph and let her know that Kane has been given the all-clear, and say that we’ll be home soon. She loves using GIFs and sends back a funny one of a seal clapping excitedly.
I don’t know why I feel nervous about what happened today, as if this is all my fault. I packed Kane’s inhaler and that’s as much as any mother can do.
While we wait for the cab, I sit down on a comfy seat at the end of a row of chairs and park the wheelchair next to me. Within seconds, Kane falls fast asleep. His cheek presses against the side of the wheelchair, pulling his mouth at a funny angle. His eyelids are fluttering and his chest rises and falls dramatically. I wonder if he’s reliving the asthma attack. The tightness in his throat, the panic throbbing through his small body.
In his left hand he clutches the inhaler the hospital gave him. If one positive thing comes from today, I pray it will be that he’ll always remember to keep one with him from now on.
The attack has really taken it out of him, and I think it might be a couple of days before he’s completely back to normal. It’s likely I’ll keep him off school on Monday, just to make sure his energy levels are back up to where they need to be.
I look out of the large windows at an ambulance pulling up and its back doors flying open. My heart sinks as someone is rushed out on a stretcher to waiting medics.
I shiver, having been too close to disaster myself today. We started off at Farmer’s play park and ended up here at the hospital. I find reassurance in routine these days, I’ve spent enough time on the emotional rollercoaster to last me a lifetime. But the reality is, life can turn on the throw of a coin, and if it hadn’t been for George Mortimer… well, I’m absolutely certain things would have panned out very differently. In the worst way possible.
I sit back, stretching my aching neck this way and that as I look around the large reception space.
Nothing is ever still in this place. There are people coming and going all the time, the receptionists simultaneously talking on the phones while tapping at keyboards and then looking up to speak to people who approach the desk to ask a question.
It’s only just past teatime, but the light has already seeped from the dense, brooding sky that was threatening rain. I hate these dark winter nights. I think I miss Joel even more, if that were possible.
Just a few days ago, it was Bonfire Night. We attended an organised firework display at a local pub, the Griffin’s Claw, with Steph and Dave and my sons’ grandparents, Brenda and Leonard.
The boys dashed around in the freezing cold, scoffing mushy peas and pastel-pink marshmallows. Waving sparklers and writing their names in the air, they barely stood still for a second.
Ironically, despite the biting cold and the smoky atmosphere, Kane only needed a couple of puffs of his inhaler when the big bangers went off and filled the air with the caustic tang of gunpowder that caught in the back of our throats. Yet this morning, breathing in nothing but fresh air at the adventure park, his body all but shut down within minutes.
I check the location of the cab on my Uber app and find it’s still eight minutes away.
Instead of turning off the screen, my finger hovers above the Facebook icon.
I’ve managed to keep away from her profile for the last two days. That’s got to be some kind of a record.
Steph once told me she’d read somewhere that if you persistently view someone’s Facebook profile, someone you aren’t yet connected to, you will eventually appear in their ‘suggested friends’ list that appears on the home page. So logically, you could consider the list to be a way to identify who is silently lurking. Who is viewing your photographs, reading your public posts.
This conversation was the incentive I needed to set up an anonymous profile in the name of Tana Philips, self-proclaimed fashion and beauty guru. Tana has a picture of glossy, sparkly lips as her cover photo, and a vintage Parisian Stockman mannequin as her profile image.
Tana is invaluable to me. She is Facebook friends with Daniela Frost – who accepted her friend request immediately.
It wasn’t difficult to mirror most of Daniela’s designer and stylist preferences in the new profile. The various pages Daniela followed were set to public view, so Tana liked those too, and I also managed to secure a couple of acceptances for my requests from her existing followers before I friend-requested Daniela herself.
It’s surprising how people so readily trust a stranger if a few of their online friends appear to ‘know’ them already.
My finger taps on the icon and my Facebook feed loads. I scroll down and spot four new photos that were posted just this morning.
This time Daniela is at a posh brasserie with friends. Close-ups of pale frothy lattes held by manicured fingers, and pains aux raisins, glossy with buttery glaze. Perfect bodies pose to their best advantage in each frame. Partial shots of whitened smiles and hair expensively tinted with warm caramel highlights nestle under the status: Breakfast to celebrate my move!
Last week there were shots at the gym capturing impressive evidence of the pressing of hefty weights by taut brown legs that already looked pretty much perfect. Maybe she’s celebrating losing another half a pound.
I’m suddenly aware of how tight the button on my jeans has become, pressing into the soft paunch of my stomach. I chose a baggy knitted sweater this morning rather than the fitted striped Joules top I wore to death last winter.
I glance at the screen again. Daniela’s life looks fabulous, but I’m not stupid. I know as well as the next person that all this social media stuff is staged, the shots cropped and airbrushed.
She’s probably got a miserable existence and has grown pale and flabby in real life. I allow myself a little smile at the spiteful thought, and then my satisfaction fades when I catch sight of her radiant face again.
How can she be so happy after what happened? After Joel’s death?
We are polar opposites in every way and it only makes me detest her more.
I press a button and the phone screen turns black. Like Steph says, I have to stop doing this. She has no power to take away our happy family memories unless I let her.
‘Cab for Hilton?’ a harassed, tubby man barks from the entrance.
‘Yes! Sorry!’ I push my phone guiltily into my handbag and gently rouse Kane from his nap by stroking his arm. I wheel his chair nearer to the door and help him to stand up.
‘Can you walk OK, sweetie?’ I ask him, and he nods, yawning.
He links his arm in mine and we step outside, our breath escaping like little warm clouds into the frosty air.
I’m so grateful I’m taking my son home. My boys are truly the only thing that matters; I’m so happy I have them back in my life. I don’t know why it even occurred to me to look online just now.
I resolve to delete my Facebook account when I get home.