Aidan took a deep breath as he followed Garda Sullivan through the sliding doors into the hospital building. He was glad that she knew where to go because his brain couldn’t process what was happening. Everything seemed surreal; from the doctors and nurses hurrying past him, to the bright yellow sunlight streaming in through the glass atrium, making the reception area seem impossibly hot. He waited while she spoke to a member of staff and then they were led down a corridor until they came to a stop outside a red door. They were ushered into a small, windowless room, which was empty, save for a box of tissues standing on the table.
‘I’ll get one of the medical team,’ the receptionist said before closing the door behind them again.
Aidan began to pace around the room.
‘Why don’t you take a seat, Aidan,’ Garda Sullivan suggested after a moment.
He shook his head. ‘I’m good thanks,’ he said as he continued to walk in circles around the tiny room, like a hamster on a wheel.
The more Aidan looked at the Garda, the younger she seemed – far too young to be tasked with something like this.
Finally, the door opened, and a doctor entered and introduced himself, but Aidan’s mind was too full of terror to catch his name.
‘Please tell me, are my wife and daughter okay?’ Aidan asked straight away.
The man’s eyes darted away from his. ‘Mr Whelan…’ He paused for a breath, ‘I’m so sorry to have to tell you this, but your wife didn’t make it. My team and I tried everything we could to save her, but she sustained a massive head injury as well as catastrophic internal bleeding. I’m so sorry.’
Somewhere on the periphery, Aidan could hear this man’s words, he could see the doctor’s face studying his, waiting for a reaction to the news he had just delivered to him, but Aidan couldn’t process it. Was the doctor saying that Rowan was dead? His beautiful wife, so full of fun and life, how could that be possible? He wanted to open the door, walk out of this claustrophobic little room, run out of the hospital and back to their house, where, just a few hours ago, they had all been sitting eating breakfast together.
‘B-but she can’t be,’ he cried out, knowing how feeble it must sound. He placed his palm against the wall, afraid that he would fall to the floor if he didn’t steady himself.
‘I know this is a lot for you to take in,’ the doctor said. His face was creased in sympathy and somehow Aidan knew, he knew, what he was saying was true.
‘So-so, she’s… dead?’ he asked, finding the word seemed to stick and clot in his throat. His wife was dead. Rowan was gone. This was all wrong. Thoughts floated past him, but he was unable to grasp them. His brain felt as though it was congealed with sludge.
‘I’m so sorry,’ the doctor said.
Aidan thought he was going to be sick, as icy sweat broke out across his body. He made his way down into a chair and bent forward so that his head was cradled in his hands. He suddenly remembered Milly and slowly he straightened up again. ‘My daughter – Milly – is she okay?’ Aidan braced himself, if they told him that Milly was gone too, he’d never survive.
‘Your daughter is in a serious but stable condition,’ the doctor answered. ‘I can take you to her,’ he was suggesting now.
Aidan nodded, trying to process it all.
Garda Sullivan stood up. ‘Here are my details, Aidan,’ she said, handing him a business card. ‘I’ll be your Family Liaison Officer from here on, so if you need anything please don’t hesitate to get in touch. Once again, on behalf of An Garda Síochána, I wish to express my sincere condolences to you and your family.’ Then she shook his hand and left.
Aidan began following the doctor but it felt as though his feet weren’t connected with the ground. They went into the lift and ascended to the next floor. His shoes squeaked along the rubber floors as he walked until, finally, they went through the flap of a set of double doors signposted ‘Intensive Care Unit’.
Aidan gasped when he saw Milly looking impossibly small lying on the huge white bed. Her china doll face was swollen and bruised and her left arm was in a cast. Machines beeped and a tangle of wires and tubes trailed her tiny body. This was all wrong. It was so at odds with her toddler bed at home, with its fairy lights that Rowan had entwined around the frame.
Aidan felt himself land in the present with a smack. He had just been told that his wife was dead and now his beautiful baby girl lay here all broken and bruised. How could this be happening? How had they all been sitting around the table together as a family that morning and then their world had been ripped apart so savagely just hours later?
‘Milly,’ Aidan whispered, moving closer towards her, desperately wanting to touch her but terrified in case he hurt her.
‘She is in a coma, Mr Whelan, and has some abdominal internal bleeding. We have stabilised her blood pressure with IV fluids, but it may be necessary to operate or do a blood transfusion at a later point. We will monitor her closely over the next while,’ the doctor explained.
‘But will she be okay?’ Aidan begged.
‘I’m afraid I can’t promise anything yet, Mr Whelan. It’s a waiting game until she wakes up and we see how she responds. I’ll leave you alone for a few minutes with her.’
Suddenly Aidan felt his legs might give way and he fell into the chair beside her bed. She looked like an angel, with her dark, shiny hair fanned out against the white pillow behind her. He gingerly reached for her tiny hand, its knuckles softened by baby fat, and took it within his own.
‘Daddy’s here, baby girl,’ he whispered and at the same time he felt his heart twist because Milly hated when he called her baby girl. ‘Me big girl now, Daddy,’ she would correct him. The reality of what had just happened slammed into him. ‘Please hang on, Milly, I can’t bear to lose you,’ he sobbed.
The lift descended into the basement and stopped with a shudder. The doors parted and when Aidan saw a sign for the mortuary, he felt the breath hitch in his chest. Aidan had asked if he could see his wife; a part of him was still hoping this was just an awful mistake.
They had sent a lady from the bereavement team called Marion to accompany him. She was a softly-spoken woman with close-cut, grey hair. She was wearing soft-soled shoes and a black trouser suit and Aidan guessed she was in her sixties. Marion led him inside a darkened room and introduced him to the assistant, a neat, balding man called Wayne.
‘Are you ready, Mr Whelan?’ Wayne asked.
Aidan swallowed back a lump in his throat and nodded. It still felt like a nightmare that he hoped he might wake up from.
Marion remained outside while Wayne showed him into another room. The air was sucked from Aidan’s lungs when he saw the trolley cloaked in a white sheet that was standing in the centre of the room. He held his breath as the sheet covering the body was pulled back, praying that by some miracle it wasn’t his wife underneath it and he could run out of that room, relieved that they had made a mistake and his life could go back to the way it was that morning before everything had gone wrong.
It was her swollen face he saw first; bruised and battered. Her lips were a horrible shade of mauve. Blood matted her curly hair, and her right eye socket was so puffy that the structure of her face was barely recognisable on that side.
Aidan moved closer and lifted the sheet so that his eyes landed on her engagement ring and wedding band and he knew it was her. This was real. Life as he knew it would never be the same again. His beautiful wife was dead. He tried to breathe in deeply, but there was no air in the tiny room.
‘Is this your wife, Rowan Whelan?’ Wayne asked.
Aidan swallowed a lump in his throat and nodded to confirm.
‘I’m so sorry for your loss, Mr Whelan. I’ll give you a few minutes alone with her.’
He left the room, closing the door softy behind him.
‘Oh, Rowan,’ Aidan whispered as he stroked her wounded face. He was startled by how cold it was. It suddenly hit him. She was gone.
Fudgy thoughts formed in his mind of the things he needed to do – what was he supposed to tell Callum and Jack? They were still in school, oblivious to how much their world had been turned upside down. He had a couple of hours yet before they needed to be collected and he would have to tell them, but how was he meant to do such a thing? It would shatter their whole world – their life would never be the same again. Life without her was unimaginable. How did you explain that the woman who had kissed them goodbye at the school drop-off that morning was now dead? At fourteen and ten, they were far too young to have to endure such heartache.
God, he’d have to tell Rowan’s family – and his own too – how was he supposed to deliver that kind of news? He suddenly felt overwhelmed and thought he was going to suffocate.
He kissed his wife on her cool forehead and walked straight past Marion and Wayne, who were waiting outside for him. ‘Mr Whelan?’ they called after him. ‘Are you okay, Mr Whelan?’ but he walked fast before they had a chance to catch up with him and took the lift back up to the ground floor. He waited for the doors to separate and then he headed straight across the foyer and outside through the sliding doors of the hospital that it felt as though he had only entered minutes ago. Beads of sweat were sticky beneath the cotton of his work shirt and the collar was choking him. He undid the knot of his tie and tossed it onto the ground and opened the top button of his shirt. He tried to pull the air deeply into his lungs, but it was as though he couldn’t search it out. In, out, he told himself, just keep breathing.
He took his phone out of his jacket pocket and with trembling hands dialled her father’s number. Rowan’s parents, Philip and Sheila, were in their late sixties and had recently sold the furniture company they had set up almost forty years ago and now split their time between Dublin and their house in the Algarve, where they currently were.
It was devastating listening to Philip’s anguished cries down the phone as Aidan told him about the crash that had taken their only child. Philip asked him straight out if she was dead and when tears overcame Aidan, Philip knew his daughter hadn’t made it. He told Aidan they would be on the next available flight back to Dublin.
When he was finished talking to Philip, Aidan had had to call his own parents, Bill and Agnes to deliver the same devastating blow to them. Then he had a horrible thought: what if Milly didn’t make it either? Or was left with life-altering injuries. He shook his head, as if trying to rid his brain of its horror. Milly had to get through this – the alternative was unthinkable. He needed to see her. He needed to keep her here with him. He needed to be close to her when everything was so broken in his world. He needed to feel her warm skin beneath his fingertips – he had lost so much today. He would not let her leave him too, no way.
As he made his way back inside the hospital building, Aidan felt hollow as though the very essence had been carved out of him. He was just heading down the corridor back towards the Intensive Care Unit when he heard a voice call, ‘Aidan?’
He turned around and saw a woman he vaguely recognised but couldn’t place. She was dressed in a scarlet red, tailored dress with a matching jacket over it. She was very slim with honey-blonde highlights.
‘You might not remember me – it’s Helena – James O’Herlihy’s wife?’ the woman was saying now.
It suddenly clicked into to place: James was an old college friend of Rowan’s. They had been at their wedding a few years ago. Somewhere on the periphery of his mind, he wondered what she was doing here. Then he remembered that she was a doctor, so he guessed she was working there.
‘James was involved in a car crash this morning…’ she continued, chattering anxiously. ‘His parents have just arrived, so I said I’d step out and give them a few minutes on their own with him…’ Her words all tumbled out on top of one another, and Aidan was having a hard time following what she was saying. She shook her head. ‘I still can’t believe it,’ she choked as tears filled her eyes.
‘What?’ Aidan asked, wondering what the hell she was talking about. His brain was trying to piece it all together, but it was as though the cogs weren’t working properly – he was trying to add two and two, but he just couldn’t get the figures to sum up.
‘James was involved a crash this morning,’ she repeated, her brows knitting together in puzzlement.
‘James?’ It was Aidan’s turn to be bewildered now. ‘Rowan and our daughter Milly were in a car accident this morning too —’
‘Oh, Aidan, no!’ Helena gasped. ‘Oh my God, I’m so sorry… I can’t believe they were in an accident too… Are they okay?’
‘Milly is in a coma and well… Rowan… Rowan didn’t make it.’ The words seemed to claw in his throat. He still couldn’t believe he was saying them. Saying it out loud felt surreal.
‘Aidan, I’m so sorry—’ Helena’s hands flew to her mouth. He could see her features crease as her mind tried to process it all. Her hands reached out to embrace him, but he quickly stepped to the side.
‘I have to go,’ he said. ‘I need to get back to Milly.’