Relativity, page 8
Slumped in the rigid chair, Claire covered her eyes. Her legs trembled and the floor bulged. Her mouth was dry, her face was hot; her fingers and toes tingled. Shallow breath after breath, she started to choke. The room caved in. One of the nurses heard Claire panting and approached with a glass of water. She drew the curtains closed.
“Take deep breaths,” the nurse said, rubbing Claire’s back. “Breathe in through your nose, out through your mouth.”
“I,” Claire started, gulping the word down. “I can’t.”
“Yes, you can. In the nose, out the mouth. Let’s try counting backward from one hundred in threes. We can do it together. One hundred. Ninety-seven. Ninety-four.”
“Ninety-one,” said Claire, following the breathing pattern: inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale, in the nose, out the mouth. “Eighty-eight. Eighty-five.”
The nurse gave her an encouraging smile. “That’s right. Eighty-two.”
Eventually, Claire caught her breath. The dizziness stopped and her panic began to shrink. But now she felt like she’d been hit over the head with a blunt object. “Sorry, I don’t know what came over me.”
“You’re exhausted,” said the nurse. “You need to sleep. Even for an hour. There’s a parents’ lounge just down the end of the hall.”
“I need to stay here. What if he wakes up?”
“Then we’ll come and get you,” the nurse said. “I promise. Rest up for him, you’ll be no help to your son tomorrow if you’re sleep-deprived.”
Claire reluctantly agreed. She went to the bathroom and splashed cold water on her face. Her hair looked wild, her eyes bloodshot. Breathe normally, she said to her reflection in the mirror. Do not fall apart.
But she couldn’t fall asleep. She rolled onto her back and stared at the patterns on the ceiling. Each time a car drove past outside, it distorted the light. Her heart beat loudly; she was sure other parents sleeping nearby could hear it pump and pound.
Back here again. She couldn’t believe it. Lying on a narrow foldout bed with its familiar metal frame pressing into her back. It even smelled the same—industrial laundry powder, stale hospital food. But what Claire really couldn’t believe was that she was back in this place inside her head. The darkest place with the darkest thoughts and the darkest feelings; she thought she’d come so far. This was all her fault. She knew it was. She could’ve stopped Ethan being here again. She’d made so many mistakes, kept too many secrets.
Claire pushed the memories aside but now everything was flooding back. She’d seen things she couldn’t forget. Years of nightmares, flashbacks, hauntings; there’d been so many sleepless, terror-filled nights. Friends had gently suggested she really ought to talk to somebody about it, get professional help. One psychologist had diagnosed her with post-traumatic stress disorder, but knowing the name for whatever was wrong didn’t heal Claire. Her trauma wasn’t easily extinguished; it quietly continued to blaze and flare. But looking after herself wasn’t a priority. She’d do that later. Ethan always came first. Claire learned to live with the lightning crashes of pain and panic, the sudden stun of suffocation. They were her penance for her mistakes.
Another car drove past, white headlight streaks elongating on the ceiling before the sound of the engine rolled away. Her nightmare revisited, refracted from another angle, fractured by different light. Claire was drained. After her adrenaline-fueled high, she could feel her body crash. Shadows crept back again, the blacks and blues of pre-dawn like bruises left behind by night. Her heavy eyelids started to close.
Ω
A TALL DOCTOR entered the room. Something about him made Ethan think of a rainforest: trunks for limbs, a beard so thick maybe wildlife lived inside. Behind him was a nurse with straight black hair fixed into a neat ponytail. She smiled at the two children. Alison was still sitting on Ethan’s bed. Next to the giant doctor, the nurse seemed like a dwarf.
“Morning, Alison,” the doctor said in a loud voice, pushing his glasses up his nose. “Remember what you’ve been told about leaving your bed; you’re not allowed to get in with other patients. But looks like you’ve made a friend.” He smiled. “How long has he been awake?”
“Only a few minutes. Not long, promise,” Alison said, talking too fast. She waved at Ethan, shuffled back to her partition and closed the curtain.
The doctor stood over the bed. “How are you feeling, Ethan? A little confused?”
Ethan blinked. “I guess.”
“Pupillary reflexes look normal,” the doctor told the nurse, before turning to Ethan. “You’ve grown,” he said warmly. “I’m your neurologist. My name is Dr. Saunders.”
“Nice to meet you.”
“Conversing normally,” Dr. Saunders said to the nurse as he wrote something on his notepad. He turned back to Ethan. “We’ve actually met before. Although you wouldn’t remember. I was your doctor when you were a baby.”
“When I was born?”
“Bit after that. How old are you now?”
“Twelve.” Ethan rubbed his arm.
Dr. Saunders held the clipboard close to his face and read Ethan’s file. “Twelve already! Doesn’t time fly? I’m just going to do a couple of tests to see how you’re recovering. You were asleep for quite some time, so we need to make sure everything is all right. Is that okay?”
Ethan nodded.
“This is Lucy.” Dr. Saunders gestured to the nurse with the ponytail who was busy checking the fluid levels of the drip. He addressed the nurse. “We need to perform a cranial nerve exam.”
Lucy winked at Ethan. “Could you squeeze my hand please?” The nurse spoke with a Scottish lilt; it made her sound like a fairy.
Ethan squeezed. Lucy’s hand was warm. She wore a silver ring on her right hand and small veins covered her skin. Something about her long fingers reminded him of his mum.
Dr. Saunders smiled. “Good boy. Normal movement. Responding to simple instructions, great. Now you’re probably a little muddled after what happened. Do you know why you’re here?”
Ethan glanced at the drawn curtain on Alison’s side of the room. “Did I maybe have a seizure?”
“Yes, you’re right. You had a seizure. Where’s your mother?”
“I don’t know.”
The doctor hesitated. “Do you remember what happened just before the seizure, or anything like this happening to you before?”
Ethan shook his head.
“While you were sleeping we did some scans,” Dr. Saunders said. “I have them here.”
He flipped through his folder and took out a stiff sheet of paper—rows of electric-blue circles arranged on a black grid, like pictures of sponges in a row. They made Ethan think of pancakes: the way the batter spread roughly in a hot pan; how the edges of the pancake were uneven.
“These are cross sections of your brain. You have nonspecific white matter in the left hemisphere. Scar tissue. Just here.” The doctor pointed to a milky smudge. “See?”
Ethan leaned in. The scar tissue looked like a ghost. “That’s my brain?”
“Certainly is,” said Dr. Saunders. “I’ve asked to see your CT and MRI scans from when you were a baby to compare them. Radiology are trying to locate the original images. They’ll be around somewhere. I suspect your brain injury from twelve years ago is responsible for this scar tissue in your brain, making you susceptible to seizures like the one you had yesterday.”
The doctor made no sense. Scar tissue inside his brain? Ethan touched his head. It was tender, like he’d lost a layer of skin. He felt hypersensitive to every sound and sight: colors were too bright, voices were too loud. What brain injury? He wanted his mum.
Lucy placed a thermometer in the side of Ethan’s mouth.
“But I don’t think I’ve ever had seizures before,” he said, the thermometer muffling his voice.
“Not since the original injury,” the doctor said.
Lucy removed the thermometer from Ethan’s mouth and gave it a vigorous shake.
Spit had collected under his tongue. “Injury?”
“The bleeding in your brain,” Dr. Saunders said, still looking down at his clipboard.
“Thirty-seven degrees,” Lucy said, squinting as she read the numbers marked on the side of the glass.
“Good.” The doctor continued taking notes in the folder, the pen scratching as he wrote.
Bleeding in his brain. Ethan felt dizzy and tried to center himself by looking out the window. The sun was coming up, morning illuminating the pavement outside. It made his eyes burn. “Dr. Saunders,” he said, flinching as the doctor placed a cold stethoscope against his chest. “Why was there blood in my brain?”
“Breathe in. Typically babies with nonaccidental head injury present with what we call a constellation of symptoms. A subdural hematoma, retinal hemorrhages, and cerebral edema. Breathe out. In other words, bleeding in the brain, bleeding in the eyes, and swelling in the brain. You had all three symptoms when you were admitted here twelve years ago,” Dr. Saunders said, adjusting the stethoscope’s rubber earpiece. “Let’s take your blood pressure. Lucy?”
Ethan shut his eyes for a moment. Blood in his eyes and brain, swelling. The doctor must be reading the wrong file, there had to be some mistake. They’d obviously confused him with some other kid. And why did Dr. Saunders say ‘babies with a head injury’? Ethan wasn’t a baby. But he would have been twelve years ago.
The nurse wrapped a plastic cuff around Ethan’s upper arm, securing it with velcro. The band inflated suddenly with air, then deflated again. His eyes started to water.
Lucy put her stethoscope down, noticing Ethan’s tears, and placed her hand on his shoulder. “Dr. Saunders . . .” she began.
The doctor ripped the velcro open. “Blood pressure is normal, excellent. Just one more test. I’m going to shine this light quickly into your eyes.”
Ethan nodded absently. Bleached light pierced his cornea.
“Hmm.” Dr. Saunders frowned. “That isn’t normal. He isn’t reacting to the light. Lucy, can you check this?”
She pointed the light into Ethan’s eyes, shifting it from left to right. “Strange. Excessive dilation. Looks like a blown pupil.”
“Mydriasis?” Dr. Saunders asked. “We’ll need to investigate raised ICP. Place a call to the neurosurgeons to give them a heads-up.”
“Sorry, Dr. Saunders, I think I made a mistake. Pupil reactivity appears normal, I’m observing constriction in the light. Could you check?”
The doctor looked carefully into Ethan’s eyes. “You’re right. Let’s make sure there’s no apparent loss of visual fields.”
“Ethan, could you please let me know when you see the pencil?” Lucy asked in her fairy voice. She slowly moved her arm closer to Ethan’s face. “Try to keep your eyes focused on my nose.”
“Now.”
She splayed her hand open. “How many fingers am I holding up?”
“Four. Plus your thumb, which technically isn’t a finger.”
“Very clever.” Lucy gave him a half-smile. She shone the light in Ethan’s eyes again; it made his eyeballs feel itchy. “What can you see when I shine the light in your eyes?”
“Light.”
“Patient’s pupillary response normal and vision unimpaired, ruling out orbital trauma,” Dr. Saunders muttered to himself as he took down more notes. “Ruling out raised ICP.”
“And it turns red then blue,” Ethan said.
Dr. Saunders put his clipboard down. “What does?”
“The light. As it moves from one side to the other, it changes color. Red then blue then red again.”
Dr. Saunders took the light to his own eyes. “Ethan,” he said slowly. “You shouldn’t be able to see that. Lucy, you try.” The doctor repeated the back-and-forth movement in the nurse’s eyes.
“No,” Lucy said. “No colors.”
“Are you sure that’s what you can see, Ethan?”
“Positive. Red and blue.”
“I don’t know how that’s possible.” Dr. Saunders removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “We still need to run some more tests then. Get an ophthalmologist to examine you too.” He gathered his notes and stacked them into a neat pile. “I’ll come back later. Come on, Lucy. Let’s go.”
Ethan watched the nurse and doctor walk away to another room in the ward. People were waking up now; children yelled farther down the hall. Some of the voices seemed happy, other kids wailed. One child within earshot was screaming at the top of his lungs—begging with his parents, maybe a doctor or a nurse, No, please, not another needle.
A small voice called out from behind the curtain. “Ethan?”
He’d forgotten she was there.
“I didn’t mean to eavesdrop.” Alison pulled the curtain open and stood there with fabric half covering her face.
“It’s okay,” Ethan said, lying on his back. Around him, everything in the room swirled but his body was completely still.
Breakfast arrived on beige trays. Alison didn’t touch her soggy cornflakes and watery scrambled eggs. Ethan was starving—he couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten—and devoured his meal, then ate Alison’s too. Nurses came in and out of the room, inspecting Ethan’s chart. Another neurologist hooked the electrodes on Alison’s cap to wires on some recording device.
“Hey, Ethan,” she said, trying to cheer him up. “Want to watch The Alison Show?” She pointed to the screen and smiled at him. It looked like she was plugged into a television and was broadcasting her mind. “It’s unmissable viewing. If you watch any EEG today, make it this one.”
“You look like a spider,” Ethan said.
Alison stuck out her tongue.
They played poker on her bed, using latex gloves they’d found in the ward to wager their bets. The EEG recording machine jumped every time Alison won another hand.
Ω
CLAIRE WOKE UP with a jolt. Her neck clicked as she stretched her back. The bright room was disorienting; she wasn’t sure where she was. She sat up too quickly, making her head spin. Then she remembered. Hospital. It was daytime now and the ward hummed with activity. How long had she been asleep? Claire pulled the white blanket off her body. She had to get back to him.
Across the ward, Claire heard Ethan giggle, his throaty, boyish laugh. Relief washed over her; he was laughing, he was awake. She followed the laughter to his room.
Ethan spotted her immediately. “Mum!” He jumped into his mother’s arms.
“Pumpkin, I was so worried. But you look so much better. How do you feel? Are you okay?” Claire held her son close. His skin smelled like butter and Band-Aids.
“My head hurts a bit. And I have a big scratch on my knee. Mum, this is Alison.” Ethan gestured at the girl in the next bed, who gave Claire a spirited wave. “Alison, this is my mum.”
“Hi, Alison. Lovely to meet you. Thanks for keeping Ethan company. Do you mind if I speak to him—” Claire pointed at the curtain rail.
“Oh! I was going to beat him anyway; he’s not very good at poker. I’ll even listen to music. My brother let me borrow his headphones.”
Claire wheeled Ethan’s drip back to his cubicle and helped him climb into his bed. She tucked him in and fixed his sheets.
“Where did you go?” Ethan asked.
“The night nurse,” she started. “She said she’d wake me up. I was up all night then fell asleep in the parents’ lounge. I shouldn’t have left you. I’m so sorry.”
He frowned. “I didn’t know where you went. And then the doctor came in and said there’s a scar in my brain. From a nonaccidental head injury. And that my brain was bleeding. And now the scar is making me have seizures, and that’s why I blacked out.” Ethan blurted it out so quickly he had to stop to catch his breath.
“Hold on, you spoke to a doctor? Which doctor?”
“His name was Dr. Saunders. He showed me some pictures of my brain.”
Claire’s stomach dropped. The doctor still worked here, after all these years.
Nonaccidental head injury. She’d worked their lives around a secret, forever swerving away from the truth. There had been something calculated about it, but never cold; her secrecy came from a place of warmth. It was easy enough to hide—Ethan’s brain was locked away inside his skull. He didn’t remember. Claire did, though. She was enveloped in her grief, shaped by it, and needed to keep her son safe from its disfiguring effects. But secrets were like scars: they faded and softened, but as much as you tried to camouflage them, they didn’t completely disappear. Damage had lasting impact. His scar was still there. The secrets were too.
Ethan swallowed. “Mum, why did the doctor say nonaccidental head injury?”
Claire should have rehearsed this, had a plan. She didn’t. “Ethan, when you were four months old—”
“It happened to me,” he said quietly. He sank into his pillow and looked at the ceiling. “But a nonaccident means it wasn’t an accident.”
“Another name for it is shaken baby syndrome.”
“And I was the baby.” Ethan took a sharp breath and turned to face her. Their eyes met.
She hesitated. “That was why your father went to jail.”
Ethan’s face immobilized Claire: his trembling chin, his glassy stare. She’d always wanted to shield him from the precise distress she saw now in his eyes, spare her child the circumstances of his injury. Protection was primal, a piercing instinct deep inside her bones, as automatic as breathing. There’d been moments when Claire had considered telling Ethan the truth, but it was never the right moment. Never the right words.
“Mum, why did he do that to me?”
“Ethan, I still don’t understand it myself. Sometimes having a small baby is stressful. They’re always crying, some parents get overwhelmed and can’t handle it. They snap.” Claire paused. She’d asked herself why this had happened for years, tried to make sense of something so senseless, explain the inexplicable. Everything coming out of her mouth sounded like a platitude. An excuse. “Maybe that’s what happened to him.”
