Annabel gets the call around 7 p.m. She’s in the hospital foyer, taking a short break. It’s Daniel’s phone number but an unfamiliar voice.
‘Mrs Harris?’
‘Yes,’ she replies cautiously.
‘It’s Liam, Daniel’s friend.’
Annabel freezes. She knows who Liam is. He uses drugs with Daniel. That does not, by any definition, qualify him as a friend.
‘Is something wrong?’ she asks, even though she already knows the answer. Why else would Liam be calling from her son’s phone? Why else would he sound so scared?
‘There’s an ambulance here ... Daniel’s unconscious ... The ambos told me to phone his family ...’
So here it is. The phone call she’s been waiting for since the last time. The phone call she’s been dreading and fully expecting.
‘Is he breathing? Does he have a pulse?’ she croaks. She wants to shout and scream but her voice is like the rest of her: sapped of strength.
‘The ambos said his vital signs are good but he’s unresponsive ... He’s out cold, Mrs Harris.’
She sees her son in her head. Pale, lifeless, oblivious to everything: the panic he’s caused his ‘friend’, the weary resignation of the attending paramedics, the helpless terror of his mother at the end of the phone.
‘Find out where they’re taking him,’ she says.
She hears a muffled exchange in the background. One of the paramedics mentions ‘Northern Beaches’ before Liam comes back on the line to confirm it.
Annabel almost has to pinch herself. Her husband is in ICU on the first floor of the hospital, and her son is about to be brought into A&E.
‘This can’t be happening,’ she sobs. ‘This can’t be real. It’s too much.’
Liam is still on the line. ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Harris. I’m really sorry. I hope he’ll be okay.’
If he wasn’t the prolific drug user she knows him to be, she could easily mistake him for a responsible and empathetic young man.
Daniel regains consciousness just after 8.30 p.m. He opens his eyes abruptly. Squints into the bright lights of the emergency room. Blinks in surprise when he notices his mother. Stares down at his hand, which is grasped in hers. His face fills with confusion.
‘Hello,’ Annabel whispers. ‘You’re in hospital.’
‘What happened?’ He sounds remarkably lucid. Must be whatever they’ve pumped through his system, washing out the toxins.
‘You overdosed. You’ve been unconscious for almost two hours. Apparently, you were vomiting and unable to move your head. Liam put you into the recovery position and called an ambulance. It was very fortunate you were with someone responsible.’
She can’t believe she’s making Liam sound like a hero. Things have become that surreal. Standards have become that low.
‘Sorry,’ Daniel mutters, his eyes cast downwards.
‘Here you are,’ Annabel says sadly. ‘And your father is upstairs. What am I to do, Daniel? What am I to do with you both?’
The irony is, she had a serious chat with Daniel only last night. They were both home at the same time – a miracle! – and she took the opportunity to sit him down. She explained the gravity of his father’s condition, how she felt compelled to be by his side, and how much she needed Daniel to stay on the straight and narrow and not cause problems at home.
Now this. Less than twenty-four hours later. She had obviously been wasting her breath.
Daniel is to be kept in for observation overnight. He’s given a bed on the third floor.
‘You don’t need to come with me, Mum, I just want to sleep. You should go back to Dad.’
She doesn’t put up a fight, which immediately makes her question what kind of mother she is. She watches the orderly wheel him away and tries to comprehend her mixed-up feelings: detachment, defeat, a reluctant acceptance of the situation. More than anything she feels a need for space, to be away from him in order to get her head together and work out what to do from here.
‘Annabel?’
She swings around when she hears her name. Zach. Again?
He grins as he comes closer. ‘Hey, I thought it was you. We must stop meeting like this.’
That’s twice in the space of a week. In addition to the time in the alcohol and drugs centre. How can it be possible to have so many ‘accidental’ encounters after twenty-odd years of practically nothing?
‘One of my elderly patients had a fall,’ he says, obviously noticing the quizzical look on her face. ‘Thought I’d check on her on my way home.’
He’s a GP and this hospital is the closest major hospital to his practice. Of course, she’s a lot more likely to run into him here than anywhere else.
‘How’s Jarrod? Any improvement?’
He asked the same question last night, as soon as she arrived at the police station. The answer hasn’t changed.
‘He’s the same. There’s still a lot of pressure on his brain. They can’t wake him up until the pressure is within a normal range.’
The doors to the department swing open and a stretcher is pushed through. A teenage girl, circled by doctors and nurses, trailed by paramedics and shell-shocked parents. The scene radiates urgency and Annabel is revisited by the terror she felt when Daniel was wheeled through. She needs to get out of here. She doesn’t like this part of the hospital. The terse instructions from the emergency doctors, the palpable distress of the families and friends, the agitation and obvious pain of some of the patients. She much prefers the calm orderliness of the ICU.
She hurries to catch the doors before they shut. Zach falls into step beside her.
‘How’s your son? I meant to ask at the pub but couldn’t get you alone.’
Now she’s suspicious again. If he’s here to see a patient, why stick around asking questions about Daniel? It’s so odd he has turned up again. Is he too concerned about Jarrod and Daniel? Are all these ‘meetings’ accidental or staged? Then she has a thought out of nowhere. The note he showed her – the one where the author was fantasising about killing him – what if he wrote that note himself? What a perfect way to throw them all off the scent.
Stop being so paranoid. Zach is an old friend of Jarrod’s. Of course, he cares about both Jarrod and Daniel.
Annabel walks through the waiting room, keeping her eyes trained ahead. Finally, she’s outside, away from all the disinfectant and despair. Zach stands next to her, his hands in his pockets, waiting for her to answer his question. Now that she’s out in the fresh air she realises her imagination has run away with her. Zach has no ulterior motive other than concern.
‘My son overdosed,’ she confesses, her voice overly harsh from her efforts not to break down. ‘He’s being kept in for observation ...’
Zach rests his hand on her shoulder. ‘I’m so sorry to hear that.’
‘He could have died. His friend called an ambulance. He saved him. I should be grateful.’
Zach is embracing her now. Her cheek comes to rest against the thin cotton of his shirt, warmed by his skin beneath. His aftershave smells nice and she wonders how she can notice such things while being so distressed.
She tilts her head back so she can look at his face. ‘I don’t know what to do, Zach. I am all out of ideas.’
He stares down at her, his grey-green eyes narrow and pensive.
‘I’ll ask Izzy if she can see Daniel before he’s discharged,’ he says eventually. ‘She has a way with teenage boys. For some reason they seem to listen to her ... You just concentrate on Jarrod.’