Life Support: Escape to the Country (6 page)

Emma tuned in and out as the anesthetist and surgeon talked to the intensive care doctors. She overheard snippets of their conversation and didn’t like what she was hearing, so instead she focused on the nurses as Jenni took handover from the theater nurse, untangling lines at the same time. Everything within Emma wanted to get up and help but she sat on her hands and watched.

“Emma?” The wrinkles on the surgeon’s face drooped, reminding Emma of sagging power lines. His eyes were tired and unsmiling. “I’m Rick Knight, one of the team who operated on your husband.”

“The knight in shining armor,” Emma said, forcing a smile.

Her joke fell flat and she instantly regretted opening her mouth. Rick’s body language indicated he was about to deliver bad news. Lots of it. Emma held her breath.

“I don’t have to tell you the next day or so will be crucial.”

Goosebumps exploded across her arms and she rubbed vigorously at them, feeling suddenly chilled to her core. “Is he going to make it?” Surely he would? After all, they’d just done surgery, fixed the things inside Lleyton which were broken. Hadn’t they?

Rick cleared his throat. “Lleyton’s brain is—”

Emma’s eyes widened.
No.
 She’d seen the monitoring wires coming from Lleyton’s skull and knew what they meant. Intracranial pressure monitoring. If he had a brain injury … She shuddered. She would not let her mind go down that path.

“There’s a lot of swelling. We won’t know until it goes down.”

“Won’t know what? Whether he’ll ever be normal again?” She caught the expression on Rick’s face and once more wished she could swallow her words.

“That’s not how we like to put it,” Rick said kindly.

“What are his chances?”

“As I said, until the swelling goes down, we simply have no idea.”

She ran her hands through her hair. It would be a long night. Thoughts raced. Should she call her parents? Or perhaps her sister-in-law? Kate was an ICU nurse and would be able to answer all of Emma’s questions. How were Mary-Margaret and Win going to cope seeing Lleyton like this?

Rick touched her shoulder, ending her racing thoughts. “We will all be praying he recovers.”

A tear spilled down Emma’s cheek and she brushed it away with the back of her hand. It sounded like it would take more than prayers for him to pull through. “Thank you Dr. Knight. I know you’ve done everything you can for him.”

“I’ll see you in the morning.” Shoulders hunched, he shuffled out of the room leaving Emma with a hollow feeling inside her stomach and a heaviness in her heart.

Jenni stood at a large desk positioned at the end of Lleyton’s bed. She unfolded a large sheet of paper and recorded Lleyton’s vital signs. Emma waited for her turn to approach the bed even though what she really wanted to do was flee from the place and never come back. Pretend this day had never happened.

She shouldn’t be here. Lleyton shouldn’t be here.

Jenni finally looked up from her paperwork. “I’m sorry. I’d forgotten you were here. Go on, touch him. Hold his hand. The sedation is cranked right up, but you never know, he might be able to hear you.”

If he’s not already brain dead.
Emma’s stomach curled on itself before she stuffed the thought back down.

She approached the bed with a sense of trepidation. They had positioned Lleyton on his back and his tall, muscular body lay immobile on the air mattress. A blue hospital gown covered his upper body. It had slipped off one shoulder and she gently tugged it back into place, careful not to dislodge any of the monitoring leads attached to his pale body. With his face swollen and bruised, his eyes puffy and closed, his head shaven, he was practically unrecognizable. She squeezed her own eyes shut and sucked in a deep breath. He looked far worse than he had when he’d arrived in ED.

A thin tube came from his nose draining green fluid from his stomach into a clear plastic bag hanging under the bed. Emma smoothed the skin-toned dressing across his nose where it had lifted on one side. Another plastic tube came out of his mouth – the endotracheal tube – and it was attached to more plastic tubing that snaked its way toward the ventilator like a hose. A central venous catheter poked out of the skin on the right side of his neck. Attached to it were half a dozen lines that wound like clear spaghetti across his body to the back of the bed. Behind him, IV pumps and infusions dripped fluids and medications from plastic bags and syringes.

Jenni suctioned the tube, adjusted transducers and wires and sorted through the spaghetti of plastic leads and lines. How did they keep track of everything?

Jenni saw her looking. “We’ll keep him comfortable, I promise.”

Emma nodded as something pinched in her chest. Lleyton would hate this.

“He’s not going to make it, is he?” As soon as the question was out of her mouth, she wished she’d thought first. She clamped her lips shut. Lleyton might be in a coma, but as Jenni had said, chances were he could still hear her.

Jenni hesitated. “You heard Dr. Knight. We won’t know much more until tomorrow. The head injury—” She paused and Emma saw the pained expression on her face. “My job is to get him through the night.”

“Thank you. I’m sorry. This is just such a shock.” She inhaled and exhaled. “Lleyton’s a doctor. He wouldn’t want this.” A single sob escaped.

“Trust me, no one wants this.”

At some point, day became night, but Emma never noticed. Just before nine o’clock the next morning, over twenty-four hours since his accident, the Chirnside family arrived. Emma heard them coming before she saw them. She ducked her head out of Lleyton’s room and groaned quietly. They blew in like a high-pressure weather system – dark and ominous. Emma felt the hairs on her arms rise. Winston and the girls – Lleyton’s three older sisters, Olivia, Laura and Claudia – tailed Mary-Margaret. Mary-Margaret was pale – like a woman who had aged ten years overnight, a woman whose life was irrevocably changed. Winston was stoically silent. No one was crying, which surprised her. She’d expected her mother-in-law to be in hysterics. Instead, they stood side by side, not touching, separated by grief.

Three men followed in their wake, all neatly dressed in near-identical charcoal business suits. No doubt the girls’ husbands were on their respective ways to work when they’d been summoned to attend the hospital. A fourth man, also in a dark suit, followed behind them. Something about him was vaguely familiar, but Emma couldn’t place how she knew him.

The unit manager stopped them all in their tracks when they tried to barrel into the department.

“Two at a time and Emma’s in there now. Decide who is going in first and the rest of you can go into the waiting room. And wait there until it’s your turn.”

The nurse gave no chance for argument and though she was exhausted, Emma was unable to stifle a small smile at the woman’s polite but bossy manner. She whispered a quick prayer for strength before she stepped out of the room and greeted them. She might not get along with her parents-in-law, but deep down they were good people and right now, like her, they would be hurting. For all Win’s gruff exterior and bossy ways, and Mary-Margaret’s domineering and controlling manner, they did love their son.

“Win. Mary-Margaret. It’s all right, you go in. I’ve been here all night.”

As soon as they saw her, the men shuffled, awkward and ill at ease. Olivia started crying, which set her sisters off.

“How is he?” Mary-Margaret asked, ignoring her sniveling daughters.

Emma gnawed on the inside of her cheek to stop herself from asking why they hadn’t come to see him straight away, even if it had been in the middle of the night. “How about we all go into the waiting room first and chat. I can fill you in on what’s happening.”

They were standing in the busy central hallway, blocking other people’s paths. Emma didn’t want them to cause a scene in the middle of the unit where curious eyes watched through glass-fronted rooms.

Mary-Margaret brushed Emma’s hand away. “No, that’s fine. Winston and I will go in and see him first. Emma, you can get the doctor and he can come and speak to us.”

Emma clamped her lips shut. Typical. No “please” or “thank you” from Mary-Margaret. Emma had expected to see a more human and broken side to her mother-in-law, but the usual dragon was in place, breathing fire and spewing vitriol. Emma ground her teeth together and forced a smile. Her husband was lying in a coma on life support and she did not need any more grief from her mother-in-law.

Mary-Margaret turned and indicated the stranger. “This is Andrew Williams, one of the family lawyers.”

Emma’s eyes widened at the name. This was Lleyton’s lawyer? The same man who had emailed her? The man she and Lleyton were supposed to meet to begin their divorce proceedings? He was younger than Emma expected.

“Andrew works in partnership with his father, who happens to also be one of Winston’s best friends,” Mary-Margaret explained. “The boys grew up together.”

Emma’s heart sped up. Why was the lawyer here? Did the Chirnsides know about the divorce?

Andrew shook her hand. “Hello Emma. I’m sorry we have to meet properly like this.”

His tone was neutral but an odd look crossed his face, which Emma was unable to interpret. He gave her hand a gentle squeeze and something in the way he looked at her warned her not to say another word.

“Now Emma, go and find the doctor would you?”

Emma drew a deep breath and spun on her heel. Sometimes there was simply no point in arguing with the woman.

*

Half an hour later, Rick Knight called a family meeting in the same bland waiting room and explained the situation. All evidence indicated Lleyton was brain dead.

There was mass hysteria from the girls at first, followed by calm as the family huddled together and drew strength from one another. Andrew and Emma were left on the outside of the circle like the kids not chosen to play in the school sports team because they weren’t good enough. Emma tried to shrug off the hurt – after all, she’d been on the outer of the Chirnside family from the day Lleyton had first introduced her – but in light of Lleyton’s grim prognosis, their snubbing angered her.

Her husband was not going to recover and there was no one to offer her comfort.

Time, which had moved so slowly for forty-eight hours, finally sped up, and in Lleyton’s final moments it went too quickly. Everyone had a chance to say their private good-byes, even Andrew, and at Winston’s decision, the entire family gathered for the moment when the nurse turned the machines off. Despite the unit manager’s insistence that perhaps they didn’t all need to be there, ten people plus two nursing staff crowded into the tiny room.

Emma was still reeling over how Mary-Margaret and Winston had overruled their son’s wishes to have his organs donated. She had pleaded with Andrew, but he’d sadly shaken his head. It seemed he had no power to change their stubborn minds either.

Other than Emma, Andrew was the only person in the semi-darkened room to shed a final tear when Lleyton’s soul left his body. Emma bowed her head as relief flooded through her. Lleyton was finally at peace.

One by one, the family trudged from the room, leaving Emma sitting beside the bed, Lleyton’s hand in hers. For the first time she noticed his wedding band was missing. She stroked his cooling fingers, unable to bring herself to look at his bruised and battle-scarred face. He’d fought and lost a fight he was never going to win.

“Emma?”

Andrew was at the door, alone. Gone was the stiff suit from the day before and in its place he wore khaki-colored chino pants and a buttoned-up check shirt, open at the neck. His casual dress reminded Emma of Lleyton in his weekend attire.

“Until death do us part,” she whispered, closing her eyes and trying to shut out the sights around her. Her words seemed to echo around the empty room. “I never gave much thought to those vows when we made them.”

Red-rimmed eyes met hers. “He always loved you,” Andrew said softly.

Emma cocked her head. “Surely not after he knew I wanted to divorce him?”

“Yeah, he still loved you. Even then.”

“How do you know that?”

“He told me.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

The affair gave her hindsight to realize Lleyton had never really loved her. At least not the way she yearned to be loved – like the love her parents shared or like the way her brother Joel had fallen head over heels in love with Kate. Emma wanted
that
kind of love, and Lleyton couldn’t offer it. Now she knew the reason why.

They were silent for a few minutes.

Emma rubbed her eyes. “His death. It’s such a—” She paused, unable to find the right words.

“Loss?”

She nodded. But it was more than that. His death was a tragedy. A total waste of a life, particularly if, as the police believed, Lleyton had simply fallen asleep at the wheel.

Andrew looked sadly at Lleyton’s body and he too sighed heavily. His face was a mixture of grief and something else Emma didn’t recognize.

“Now’s not the time Emma, but after the funeral, can you come and see me in my office? I’d like to chat to you about Lleyton’s will.”

Emma’s eyebrows shot up. “But we were getting a divorce. I can’t be entitled to anything. Besides, surely it’s unethical for you to represent me. Shouldn’t I have my own lawyer?”

“I hadn’t finalized your divorce paperwork yet. Technically you and Lleyton were still married.”

“But he had an affair. We were separated. I …”

Her vision blurred and she broke down and bawled.

Andrew laid a hand on her shoulder and waited for her tears to finally subside.

“I did love him once, you know,” she hiccupped, pulling a crumpled tissue from her pocket and blowing her nose loudly. “Before …”

Andrew nodded. “I know you did. He told me that. And in his own way, he loved you too.” Andrew shrugged. “But it wasn’t meant to be.”

“I was never going to leave him though. Our marriage wasn’t great but I would have hung in there. But after the affair …”

Emma started crying again and this time Andrew pulled her toward him and let her weep on his chest while his arm circled her shoulders and rubbed her back in support. Eventually she stood and moved away to the other side of the room. Lleyton’s body lay between them. Again neither of them spoke for what felt like hours.

Emma paced around the room. She felt trapped, claustrophobic, shut in. She was grateful for Andrew’s silence. She had so much to sort through in her mind. Conflicting memories of her marriage threatened to reach out and smother her. She
had
loved him once, and yet in the end she’d hated him too and the guilt of that only made the reality of his death a hundred times more painful.

“He was a good man,” she said, at last. “But he took me, and our relationship, for granted right from the beginning. I think he assumed I’d always be there for him. And for two years, I was. The stupid thing is if someone had come in and swept me off my feet, right in front of him, he never would have realized.”

“I’m so sorry Emma, really, I am,” Andrew said. “You didn’t deserve this.”

She made a funny sound in the back of her throat. “It’s hardly your fault.”

“Partly it
is
my fault. I should have helped Lleyton understand he needed to end it with you much sooner. Before you were hurt.”

Emma looked at him in surprise. What an odd thing to say. “I would’ve been hurt anyway if he’d left me.”

“Because you loved him?” Andrew asked.

“Yes, and because I believed in marriage.
Still
believe in marriage,” she quickly corrected herself. “But I wanted more from him.”

“He wasn’t there for you.” It was a statement, not a question.

Emma nodded. “No. Looking back he was there physically, but he was emotionally absent much of the time. I wanted him to feel passionately about me but he never did. To be honest, right from the beginning of our relationship he wasn’t passionate toward me. He blamed it on being too busy. What a joke. Too busy to give me five measly minutes of his day. Five minutes of his precious time. That’s all I wanted.” Her words tasted bitter on her tongue. “Instead, he gave those five minutes to
someone else
.”

A ghost of something flashed past Andrew’s eyes. “And once again, I’m so sorry.” Andrew sighed heavily. “At least he never had to hide his love for you.”

The words were so quiet Emma wasn’t sure she’d heard correctly. She stiffened and stopped moving. “What’s that supposed to mean?” she whispered.

Andrew exhaled and stared deep into her eyes. “I didn’t want to tell you here,” he said, pointing to Lleyton’s body. “Lleyton and I were—”

Shock ripped through her and she collapsed onto a chair, her eyes wide in stunned disbelief. “It was you?”

Andrew nodded and hung his head but not before Emma saw the tears dripping down his own cheeks. “I’m so sorry I had to tell you like this.”

The world seemed to rotate then slow down. “It was you?” she repeated. “You and Lleyton at the house that night?” She’d only seen the other man’s back, but they had been kissing which was more than enough for her to understand the full picture.

He nodded slowly, not meeting her eyes.

She exhaled. “Do the Chirnsides know?”

Andrew’s head snapped up. “They have no idea. And they can’t find out. Ever. Neither can
my
parents. They’d never understand, never cope and probably never get over the shock.”

“Why not? Lleyton’s dead. What difference does it make whether either of your parents know you’re gay?” Andrew looked shaken and she quickly apologized. “I’m sorry. That was harsh.”

There was a long heavy silence in the room. The clock ticked on. It sounded so loud Emma wanted to rip it off the wall and throw it through the window.

“Both of us have a secret to keep,” she said finally. “So where do we go from here?”

Andrew didn’t answer.

Emma ran her fingers through her hair, pulling it off the back of her neck before letting it fall back across her shoulders. She sighed again and rolled her neck where it had become stiff.

“Great. That’s great. My life just became a bloody television soap opera.”