‘I know, Dad. I know. I think he just wanted to talk.’
He tries to nod, but it hurts like hell. And there are so many questions.
‘How?’
‘Aunt Lorraine was in the pub with you. She followed the ambulance, but they wouldn’t let her in, seeing as she’s not a next of kin … or anything.’ Brianna winces at this next bit. ‘So, they called me. But I had my last exam, so I phoned Heather. She has some power of attorney thing from when you were away.’
Heather was here?He asks with his eyes.
‘She drove through the night and stayed until I got here.’
His eyebrows move involuntarily, and a shot of pain fires into his head. The thought of Heather being here, in this room, sitting alongside him when he wasn’t able to apologise or explain hurts his heart. No wonder she didn’t stick around. Brianna squeezes his good hand. ‘She was really worried about you, Dad. We all were.’
A nurse bustles into the room before he can formulate a reply. She busies herself reading machines and looking at printouts, changes over a few bags and inspects his cannula.
‘Your dad needs to rest now, sweetheart,’ she says to Brianna. And before he can explain, or pacify, or do anything else, he drifts off into another deep sleep.
The next time he wakes, Lorraine is there, talking in a dulled voice, reassuring him it’s all going to be alright.
On the third day, Brianna and Lorraine visit together. He’s sitting upright, his cannula and catheter out, his observations mostly clear, his pain medication closely monitored. They decide it’s the ideal time to carry out a joint assault.
‘You can’t avoid this anymore, Scott,’ Lorraine begins, and the words make the hairs on Scott’s neck stand upright. ‘Even you agreed before your accident that you need to see Leon. It’s time. And in your heart, you know it.’
He knows it’s right?
Scott might not remember the last twenty-four hours but he sure as hell can remember the last eight years and the strategy of self-preservation that got him through.So why, then, would he agree to meet?
The answer is implicit in Brianna’s gaze:Do it for me, Dad.
He shifts uncomfortably on the squeaky plastic of the hospital bed and adjusts the position of his hands on his lap. Perhaps his strategy hasn’t been entirely without its flaws? Perhaps his strategy has landed him, and his loved ones here? Perhaps it’s time to stop fighting.
He reaches over and grasps Brianna’s hand.
‘I’ll do it. For you,’ he says.
Lorraine sits back, appeased. Brianna’s smile is pure sunlight.
‘Thank you.’ She grips his hand. ‘And by the way, I’ve used my holiday money to repair my car. I have my test scheduled next month once my project’s wrapped up and term ends.’
‘Can I help?’ he asks. ‘I can make time for us to go driving together. Maybe in the holidays?’ Because time with hisdaughter is one of the things he values most in life. He knows that now.
Brianna shakes her head.
‘I’m doing Camp America with Georgia in the summer. We’re working, then we’re travelling. We’re going to meet Georgia’s dad.’
It sounds so familiar.
‘Yes. Sorry. I know that, I think,’ he says.
‘How do you know I’m going to America? I only told Heather.’
Scott’s mind, still hazy after the brain injury, jumps around, because there’s a warm glow of familiarity to what Brianna says.
Heather was here, and she was talking to him.
And slowly, bit by bit, he pieces together her monologue.
FRESHMAN PARENTS' ONLINE FORUM: ST ANDREWS UNIVERSITY
