18 March 2014
There’ve been sleepless nights with Leo, dozens of them. He was a grumpy baby, and as he’s grown, we’ve been through night terrors and terrible twos and incidents when he threw up like a zombie from one of my teen horror movies.
But this sleepless night is different. Every minute seems stuffed with dread and memories and missed chances.
As I wait for news, a nurse offers me leftover green cake, and I remember: it was St Patrick’s Day 2005 when Zoë got in touch to tell me she’d got clean. If I’d ignored her text, there would never have been a Leo.
I should have done more for Zoë. I might have saved her. If she makes it through this, I’m not going to take no for an answer. I’ll be her stalker. Send her letters and messages and photos of our son, to convince her that life is worth living.
Except—
It didn’t work when people tried to do that to me. I ignored them all: the doctors, nurses, paramedics, friends, my parents . . .
Kerry.
Is she happy now? She seemed calmer than last time I met her during my first live outside broadcast. But she was being professional, putting my feelings first.
Like she always did.
‘Mr Greenaway?’
A woman in scrubs comes into the waiting room. ‘Is she alive? Is Zoë alive?’
‘Yes. The surgeon will be along later, but we wanted you to know she’s come through the operation, though she’s lost a lot of blood. We’re moving her to ICU and once she’s settled, you should be able to see her, though she will be sedated.’
Dawn is almost here by the time they let me in to the same unit where I came back to life.
Is that a sign? Miracles do happen.
‘Oh, Zoë.’
She’s breathing but unconscious. Probably good, because I’m crying at the sight of her. Not because of the machines and the monitors, but because of what she’s become: wizened, old before her time.
When I was on drugs, people used to pass me on the street or the beach and you could see the disgust at what I’d done to myself, the loss of dignity. Yet it was different for me. Even at my lowest ebb, I could have gone home, asked my parents to help me.
But Zoë was rejected and left to fend for herself, right from when she was a baby. She survived on cheek and cunning and that amazing gift for mimicry.
There’s a tube in her throat to help her breathe, and I want to wrench it out so I can hear one of her accents when – if – she comes round: her cheeky Cockney, her Spanish cabaret singer, even the hospital official she pretended to be when she called all those Christmases ago to tell me I was a dad . . .
I swallow the lump in my throat. ‘Hey, Zoë. I didn’t know you were back in town. You should have called. There’s someone who would really, really love to meet you.’
She doesn’t respond.
‘She may well be able to hear you,’ the ICU nurse who’s walking by tells me.
‘Really?’ I didn’t hear a thing when I was in my coma, but that doesn’t mean Zoë won’t.
The nurse beckons me to step away from the bed and when she speaks again, it’s in a whisper. ‘It’s one of the last senses to go.’
I let this sink in. ‘Does that mean she’s dying?’ My own voice stays low, so there’s no risk of Zoë hearing the question.
The nurse looks at me steadily. ‘The surgeon told you the risks? Shock is the main concern, but also organ failure from when she was bleeding before we operated. We are managing it all as aggressively as possible but that comes with its own dangers.’
‘Right.’ I get a chair and go back to Zoë. It’s past 6 a.m. but something about the lighting around the bed reminds me of bedtime stories with Leo every night, before he grew out of it. I reach to touch a part of her arm that’s visible between wires and tubes and the hospital nightgown. It surprises me that she’s warm, though it shouldn’t. She’s alive, still.
‘Let me tell you about your son, Zoë. About the amazing little boy you made. Number one thing about him, he’s fearless. We call him Lion King, because of his name, but really, he’s the Lion Heart. He knows there are things to be scared of, he’s seen me in hospital and he’s worried about global warming and tsunamis, but what he’s most worried about is he won’t grow up fast enough to fix them.’
The nurse glances at me, then looks away.
‘Second thing, he’s a hell of a mimic, like you. Listen.’ I take out my iPhone and I find my favourite video of him, as he pretends to be Pharrell Williams, singing and dancing through ‘Happy’, his arms and legs flung this way and that, his voice producing that American twang. His face is scrunched up in concentration as he tries to remember all the words, and he misses the odd step, but it’s like the song’s been written for him personally.
‘That’s what he is, Zoë. That’s the third thing. He’s happy. I think he was born that way, despite everything. I’m moody, as you know, so he must have got that from you. Imagine if you’d had parents who’d given you what you deserved, you’d have been like him too . . .’ I stop because I don’t know if this is stuff she should be hearing. It’s no use to her right now.
‘Leo is perfect. He can heal you, like he’s healed me and as soon as you’re well enough, I can bring him to meet you and—’
The alarm sounds and though I can hear it’s coming from one of her monitors, I try to convince myself it’s another patient crashing, not her.
Not her.
Even as the staff come rushing over to her bed and one of them moves me out of the way, I tell myself she still has a chance.
But deep down, I know that’s not true.