Why is he asking about Gwendolynne? “Not that I’m aware of.” I give a grim smile. “Perhaps it’s just the residue from my vastly superior magic levels.”
My friend shoves me in the shoulder, and I chuckle. But inside, my gut is clenching. My chest feels tight. And I am pretty sure it’s because what I’m telling Danny is true: that Gwendolynne and I aren’t “up to” anything. We haven’t been “up to” anything since the disastrous events of the gala.
In fact, after tonight’s conversation, and the absolute contempt she’d shown me before she’d climbed the fence and stomped off…Not to mention the way she’d dismissed the kiss we’d shared as being “nothing”…
I don’t think we’ll be “up to” anything—possibly ever again.
Once Danny takes his leave, keen to get back to Bridie, I shove my hands in my pockets and begin the slow trudge to London General Magical Hospital, which is just up the street from the pub.
I haven’t been to visit my father since Sunday, the day after the explosion. It feels remiss of me, but I’d been too caught up in investigating the surges with Gwendolynne. Besides, the daily updates from the nurses told me that Father still hadn’t woken up, so I figured he wouldn’t care whether I was there. Though, truth be told, he probably wouldn’t even care were henotin a coma.
Today, though, I’m supposed to sign some paperwork to extend the duration of his stay.
The lift doorsding, and I stride out. As I draw closer to his room, my footsteps start to drag.
Stopping before the vending machine, I lean my forehead on it, the cool glass freezing against my flushed skin. Then I purchase a drink with my strap, almost jumping when the aluminum can crashes to the bottom.
Now that I know about the tethers, and have been soundly unsuccessful in my search for them, I rather wish I could just straight up ask my father. Surely he knows more than he was letting on when Gwendolynne interrogated him at the vault?
If he dies, we’ll never know.
But then again, if he survives, it’s likely he wouldn’t answer anyway—conscious or unconscious. And I can’t very well search his strap since the police confiscated it following the explosion.
I gulp down the drink in one go, tossing the empty can into the recycling bin before swiping at my mouth with my sleeve. The carbonated liquid churns in my stomach, and I have to stop myself from doubling over in front of my father’s room and being sick all over the linoleum.
There’s really no point. No point going in. My father is in a coma, with zero awareness of the outside world. And truth be told, I dread it: Seeing him is just like holding a mirror up to all my flaws and defects.
Whether he lives or dies has no bearing onme.
I’m just about to turn around and leave when a nurse sticks their head out of the room. “Ah, Mr.Briggs,” they say. “Glad you’re here. We need you to make a decision on signing the DNR.”
My gut gives a lurch. A DNR—do not resuscitate—order would mean the staff wouldn’t attempt to revive my father if he went into cardiorespiratory arrest. Not that the probability of recovery is very high, of course. But choosing whether or not they’ll even try? That feels significant.
The nurse raises their eyebrows expectantly. To keep up appearances, I have no choice but to follow them inside the room.
The door closes behind me with a low-pitched squeal. And there he is, my father, his body making peaks and valleys of the sheets. His face looks more wan and sunken than it did just five days ago. The wheeze of the ventilator and the beep of the monitoring equipment are like screams that punctuate the still, dead air.
I have no idea how I’m going to make the decision. Do I want my father to live…or die?
Deciding on his fate feels like too much responsibility, and I don’t quite know if I’m up to the task. If you’d asked me straight after he’d attacked Gwendolynne and held a gun to her head, or after my conversation with Nathaniel had reminded me of him and his blackmailing ways, I would’ve signed the DNR with absolutely no hesitation. In fact, if you’d caught me at the right moment, I might even have come into this room and unplugged his machine myself.
Is that the rational decision, though? According to my (many) therapists, I can be impulsive, irrational, and prone to making bad decisions. Is this one of those situations? I can’t tell.
And can I judge him for blackmailing me, when I—in an act that truly cements me as his son—did the very same to Gwendolynne? My memory strays to the multiple times I’d threatened to tell Dean Kaur about Percy, and my heart seizes with guilt, as though it’s been clamped in a vise. Thinking about our fight in the drug cupboard is like twisting the key. Tighter, tighter. I clutch my chest. Fuck, I was a right arsehole.
I have to admit, once and for all, that my father and I are the same—whether or not I wish to believe it.
Staring at him, I half fancy that if I watch him for long enough, perhaps I’ll be able to read his mind. To know what he is thinking. To, once and for all, figure my father out.
But I can’t. He’s just as locked up as ever, even before the coma.He’d been lying to me: lying about being in Wales, lying about his role at Magecorp, lying about the employees who had died on his watch.
Standing beside his bed, looking down at him, I’m suddenly transported back to my childhood. I’m four years old again, watching him from the corner as he stampedes through the house in a rage, discarding all of my mother’s things. I’m twelve, and he’s shunting me off to boarding school without so much as a backward glance. I’m eighteen, and he’s rebuffing my offer to kick back with beers and watch a game of Flaugball. And the feeling that washes through my body isn’t sadness because of his condition. It isn’t even the pure rage I feel for what he did to Gwendolynne. It’s a deep and wretched nostalgia for a life that has never been, for a future that never will be, for a father-son relationship that he’s never deemed us worthy enough to have.
My fingers clench into fists, then uncurl, then clench again. The room tilts, and white spots cloud my vision.
There it is: the emotion—therage—that I’ve been missing, cresting through my body: a deadly tidal wave.
I lean forward and brace my hands on the bed, breathing through my fury. The room is silent, save for the incessant beeping of the machines and the constant whir-pump of the ventilator. I stay like that for what feels like eons, though when I raise my head to glance at the clock, only a few minutes have passed.
