~o~
By the afternoon of the following day Suzanne was back at Emily's bedside. Doctor Partington looked in through the door of Emily's room as he was passing. He paused and then overcoming his initial reluctance entered and sat next to Suzanne. He wished there was more he could do for both Emily and her mother. He knew the importance of not becoming emotionally involved in situations like this but Mark Partington was a man who took the responsibility for those in his care very seriously and all too often found himself breaching that self-imposed restriction.
Suzanne turned her eyes towards him, they shared a delicate smile that was more an expression of acknowledged sadness.
"Mrs Wilcox," he spoke slowly and carefully. "I'm afraid Emily is quite poorly. As you know we are monitoring the activity of her brain and although there is quite a lot of low level electrical activity, very little of it conforms to what we might normally expect to see."
"So what does that mean?" Suzanne said.
"We have never seen anything quite like this before so I'm afraid we don't really know... Then there is the problem with her breathing, without the help of the life support system I'm afraid we would lose her very quickly."
Suzanne knew this but the sound of the words, coldly stated, made her gasp. She put her hand to her mouth and closed her eyes blinking away the tears. She swallowed hard as if she were trying to force her grief down.
"What exactly are you trying to tell me? That she is beyond hope now."
"There is always hope Suzanne. All I want to do at the moment, is make you aware..." He paused searching for the best words, but there was no good way to say what he had to.
"We may have to face the prospect of turning off Emily's life support and letting her find her peace. But nothing will be done without your agreement and we are some distance from that point yet."
Suzanne's tears fell silently, there was no hysterical outburst; she just felt numb. To lose a child is an unbearable pain, but to be placed in a position of having to choose the time when this would happen, by your own consent, was beyond what she could contemplate.
"How long before we... before I, have to make a decision?" She asked, her red rimmed eyes searching those of the doctor's, looking for a glimmer of hope.
"Not yet, it is still possible that Emily will recover, but her coma is very deep. They say that the voice of a loved one can rouse people from a deep coma, talk to her, hold her hand, read to her... We can keep Emily alive for as long as we feel there is still a good reason. But you must consider the fact that whatever Emily is experiencing at the moment cannot be considered as a life. I hope you can understand that."
"I know what you are saying Doctor, but in my heart I don't feel that Emily is gone yet... I know she is still in there somewhere just waiting for the right moment to come back to me. I have to believe that Doctor, please keep her alive."
The doctor knew that as the weeks and months ran on, the pressure to resolve the issue would mount. From a purely financial point of view, spending resources on an unresponsive patient would only be allowed to go on for so long before the decision was taken out of their hands. Unless Mrs Wilcox had her own substantial financial resources, unless Emily made a miraculous recovery, the end for this young life may already be tragically counting down.
Suzanne stayed for a while longer but the sterile, harsh room, the bright light focussing on Emily's inanimate frame, the dread that the alarms would suddenly start sounding again, made her want to run away and hide. She decided to go back to the cottage and find one of Emily's books. She could read to her as the doctor had suggested. That would be easier than trying to make up a meaningless, one sided conversation while staring at her daughter's slow descent into death.
Suzanne went back home to take a shower and attempt to revive her sagging spirits. As she was dressing, the phone rang.
"Hello, it's Ken... any news?"
"Nothing good!" Suzanne replied a little curtly, she regretted her tone almost as the words left her lips; she knew that Ken was only capable of kindness.
"I'm sorry, Ken," she continued. "The doctor gave me his rehearsed speech a while ago, the one I have been dreading since Emily was put on life support."
"What did he say exactly?"
"Well, you know, he gave me no deadline..." she paused at the unintended bitter irony contained in the word deadline.
"He didn't say when, but reading between the lines, it's only a matter of time before... What do they say... the plug will be pulled."
"Oh Suzanne, I'm so sorry to hear that, do you need a shoulder to cry on? At times like this a stranger is often easier to talk to than someone really close."
"I no longer think of you as a stranger Ken, but actually, yes. I'm desperate for a shoulder to cry on... Would you like to meet me at Emily's cottage? I need to collect something from there. I'll make us some tea and we can have a chat if you can spare the time."
"When should I come?"
"Could you make it in about an hour?"
Without a moment of hesitation he said he would. As the conversation ended, Ken made a call to the clinic to rearrange the remains of his afternoon; work could wait for once. His heart was heavy, if the worst did happen, he would miss Emily's cheerful presence and skill with animals more than he had realized. Even more than her professional competence, he would miss her as a friend.
Suzanne arrived at the cottage and let herself in. The flowers still looked good but she changed the water and then put the kettle on to boil. She had brought a date and walnut cake, not home baked, she had neither the time nor the enthusiasm for baking at present. The cake still looked tempting when placed on one of Emily's blue and white willow pattern serving dishes. She found forks and plates and matching cups and saucers. It could almost have been an ordinary, casual afternoon tea; the sort she used to occasionally enjoy with Emily.
Suzanne stepped into the garden to get a breath of fresh air, and here in the stillness by the leafless apple trees, she suddenly felt strangely calm and at peace, as if Emily were safe and happy, close at hand and not in a hospital bed with a clock ticking her hours away. Suzanne breathed in the damp autumn air, full of the scents of the garden: the musty leaves which had fallen from the apple trees, the sea air drifting from across the wind-carved dunes and, though she knew it could only be her imagination, here too was the scent of her daughter, unmistakeable. There was no doubt, this was a special place.
She heard a knock at the front door which dragged her from her reverie. Suzanne walked quickly to answer it, suddenly a little nervous at the prospect of meeting Ken for the first time. Suzanne had wondered how his appearance would match Emily's description and her own mental image. In fact he was slimmer than she had expected, and younger. From what Emily had told her, Suzanne expected Ken to be rather elderly. In fact he appeared only ten years or so older than herself. Then she realized that to Emily's eyes she was probably now seen as an elderly woman herself. The thoughts about Emily's perspective caused tears to prick at her eyes; she wanted to keep her composure in front of her visitor and sniffed them down.
"You must be Suzanne." Her visitor said holding out his hand.
"Hello Ken, it's so good to finally meet you in person."
She ignored the outstretched hand and kissed Ken on both cheeks.
"Come in... I've got cake." she said lost, for words.
Suzanne linked arms with her visitor and led him to a seat at the table. Her usual shy reserve had been sequestered by the knowledge that Ken was a friend of Emily's, and as such was, by default, her friend too.
Suzanne poured the tea and cut the cake which crumbled at the edges as she lifted generous slices onto the plates. The initial small talk and pleasantries were taken care of as they got to know each other. They then talked of Emily, long into the late afternoon. As Suzanne opened up, she readily confessed that the cottage was a place where she still felt close to her daughter, as if she might have just slipped out for a moment. Ken could not help agreeing
that that the cottage did seem full of her presence.
"I love this place almost as much as Emily does, but I hardly have the time to look after it, and I could not bear to let it get run down."
"It's not really my place to offer you advice, but, have you thought of renting the cottage – just on a short term basis, then it would still be a lived in home for when Emily needs it again, It would save you the worry of looking after it and at the same time raise a little income for Emily."
"Please give me all the advice you can Ken, you have my full permission. Actually I don't know why that idea hadn't occurred to me, especially as I work in the real estate industry, the company I work for actually runs a rental service and, for a modest sum, takes care of all the day to day worries... you know acting as a liaison between the owner and renter."
Suzanne glossed over the fact that she had in fact already thought of the idea, but somehow it seemed like a betrayal of Emily to put a stranger in there; like a mercenary acceptance that Emily would never be back. Now that the idea had been raised by someone else; someone she was coming to trust, the idea no longer seemed quite so terrible.
"I think I'll discuss the idea with my son Tony; you could be on to something Ken." She allowed her fingers to brush briefly against Ken's hand, an expression of gratitude and of a growing confidence in his friendship.
Ken checked the time, the afternoon had flown by. He smiled at Suzanne and shrugged his shoulders while tapping the face of his watch.
"I have to go," he said "but I've enjoyed this afternoon despite the sad circumstances. Look Suzanne, if there's anything you need, please call me."
As they stood Suzanne hugged him for just a brief second and said she would keep in touch. The afternoon had been a pleasant interlude and she felt sufficiently restored to be able to face the bleakness of the hospital again.
Suzanne tidied up the cottage and collected the well-thumbed book which Emily had left open before dashing off to take Juno out for exercise. The evening was already falling and as Suzanne turned back by the door for a last glance, she imagined she could almost see Emily smiling at her from the shadows. She drove home and finding that Tony had gone out without leaving a message, she made herself an omelette and then gnawed at a crisp apple as she drove the increasingly familiar route to the hospital on her own.
Nothing had changed since earlier in the day but Suzanne felt better able to cope after unburdening herself to Ken. She also had Emily's book of poetry which gave her something to do. She spoke a few words of welcome, told her daughter that she loved her and that she was going to read to her. She felt surprisingly unselfconscious at talking to her unresponsive daughter and made herself as comfortable as possible on the hospital chair.
Emily roused from her sleep. She was still in her garden; the light was growing dim as evening drew down. In the distance through the membrane she could hear the soft sound of a voice, the words were difficult to understand, but she knew the voice or rather she knew that she knew the voice even if she could not quite place who it belonged to.
Suzanne read a verse from a Shelly poem:
Art thou pale for weariness
Of climbing heaven and gazing on the earth,
Wandering companionless
Among the stars that have a different birth,
And ever changing, like a joyless eye
That finds no object worth its constancy?
The imagery was almost too much for Suzanne to bear, she saw Emily as the moon, lost in a world where she could not be reached. The familiar tears welled in her eyes. While Emily smiled content in her world, somehow safe in the knowledge that she was loved.