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She stood up quickly, wincing at how stiff her body was from sitting for so long. “Yes?”
“The doctor will see you now.”
She followed the nurse through the swinging doors into A&E, and then into a curtained-off cubicle with a bed that was empty, stripped of its sheets. For a second Rachel’s heart stopped and she felt like she couldn’t breathe.Had her dad…
“He’s been transferred to the neurology ward,” the nurse explained quickly, her eyes crinkled in sympathy. “The doctor wants to speak with you.”
“Okay,” Rachel managed shakily. Her heart was racing, and her limbs felt watery. She eased herself onto a chair by the bed, the vinyl creaking and squeaking underneath her, and made herself take several slow, even breaths. A full twenty minutes passed before the doctor, a man in his late thirties with sandy hair and a tired smile, came into the cubicle.
“Miss Mowbray, Peter Mowbray’s daughter? You brought him in?”
“Yes, please call me Rachel.” She half-rose from her seat before the doctor waved her back down and perched on the edge of the bed, a clipboard resting against his knees.
“Your father was unconscious due to the injury he sustained to his head, which I don’t think is particularly serious in itself,” he told her, and Rachel couldn’t keep her breath from rushing out in a gusty sigh of relief.
“Oh, thank—”
“But I’m afraid there are other issues I am concerned about,” the doctor continued, silencing her completely. “When he regained consciousness, he was disorientated, which was to be expected, but it became clear that the disorientation was more significant than simply from the bump on his head. I also saw from his medical records that he’d been having some issues with balance, memory, and speech?”
“Well, yes,” Rachel confirmed. She wanted to add some sort of caveat but there wasn’t one. “He’s scheduled to have an MRI tomorrow, actually.”
“Yes, I was pleased to see that. Hopefully we can get some answers for him soon.” He gave her a smile that was kindly enough but didn’t reach his eyes, which looked tired and even sad. Rachel felt a frisson of dread take hold of her, swirling in her stomach.
“What do you think it is?” she made herself ask. “That’s wrong with him, I mean?”
“I couldn’t possibly offer a diagnosis without an MRI,” the doctor said, but his tone was hesitant, and Rachel leaned forward.
“I know that, absolutely, of course. But if youhadto guess…can you just let me know what we might be dealing with here?” She tried to smile but couldn’t quite manage it. “He went to a memory clinic a couple of weeks ago, but the doctor there didn’t seem to think he had Alzheimer’s or anything like that. At least, it didn’t seem like he did, based on how he was able to answer the questions.” But the doctorhadrecommended him for an MRI, and clearly something was going on with her dad. Why had she kept pushing it to the back of her mind, doing her best not to think about it, even when it had been staring her full in the face?
Because you do that with a lot of things.
“Please?” she asked the doctor, an edge of desperation entering her voice. “Just an idea of what you’re concerned about?”
“From the symptoms described, I’d be looking to see if he might have a brain tumour,” the doctor told her after a pause. “But whether it is benign or malignant, slow or fast growing, I couldn’t possibly say, without an MRI and potentially a biopsy.”
A brain tumour.As she stared at the doctor, the professional sympathy she could see in his face, Rachel knew she wasn’t really surprised by this news.Thishad been the possibility no one had been willing to talk about, when it seemed he didn’t have some sort of dementia. This was the possibility that had been there all along, except she hadn’t wanted to see it. Ben had, though, she thought, knowing the truth of it absolutely. He’d suspected something like this and hadn’t said as much, maybe because he knew she couldn’t take it.
“I’m sorry,” the doctor said, when Rachel realised she’d been simply staring at him. “I could be wrong.”
“What happens now?” she asked. It took effort to form the words; her tongue felt thick in her mouth, her brain fuzzy. It was nearing midnight and she was utterly exhausted.
“We’ll keep him here overnight for observation anyway,” the doctor said, “and he’ll have the MRI as scheduled tomorrow. After that, he’ll either stay in hospital, if the consultant he’s assigned decides that’s the best course, or he’ll be released back home until the MRI results come through, which usually take a few days.”
“Okay.” Rachel nodded mechanically. “Can I see him?” she asked.
“Of course. I’ll have one of the nurses direct you to the neurology ward.” The doctor rose from the bed and Rachel from her chair; she still felt as if her brain was buzzing, every thought difficult to form, impossible to hold on to.
She followed the doctor out of A&E; he left her in the waiting room with a murmured goodbye and she realised she’d forgotten to thank him. A nurse bustled up to her and gave her the directions to the neurology ward, which Rachel couldn’t follow at all.
She nodded and mumbled her thanks before walking over to the hospital’s main foyer. The card and coffee shops were shuttered, one of the staff was mopping the floor, and a weary-looking security guard sat at the reception desk.
On stiff legs Rachel walked to the bank of lifts and studied the list of departments posted by their gleaming doors.Short stay surgical, renal services, gastroenterology, breast and endocrine surgery, respiratory medicine, acute…
The words blurred before her and she took a deep breath, let it out slowly. A woman glanced at her as she pushed the up button. “You all right, love?”
Rachel turned to see a woman in her sixties with a short bob of bright pink hair looking at her in concern.
“I’m looking for the neurology ward,” she said, and the woman frowned.
