Always and Only You

Chapter Forty-Three

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

Present Day

When I arrive at Mum’s the following Sunday, she won’t even let me take the smallest of my suitcases into the house. She and Simon move everything while I am made to sit down on the sofa with a cup of tea and a cheesy movie on the TV. I sit back and feel my muscles unknot. I am ready to be fussed over and pampered by my mother, possibly for the first time in my life.

Reality hits hard on Monday morning, however. While I thought I arrived at an ordinary-looking 1930s semi in Bromley, I discover I’ve actually been enrolled in some kind of head-injury recovery boot camp, with my mother as sergeant major.

She hands me a schedule at breakfast. Mum has my days mapped out for me because routine is what I need, apparently, so while I had a lie-in today, from now on breakfast is at seven-thirty sharp, followed by medical appointments or anything that requires a bit of mental energy in the first part of the day, because that’s when I’m definitely at my best.

While part of me bristles at being organized in this way, another part is slavishly grateful that someone else has taken on the mental load of what I’m supposed to be doing when, and after a bit of resistance from me, I give up and give Mum her way and the next couple of weeks pass in a comfortable rhythm.

If there’s nothing planned for the mornings, I am expected to dive into a puzzle book. Mum has heard of other brain trauma survivors doing them, so she’s convinced I’ve got to do at least one puzzle a day to stop myself from falling into a vegetative state. I end up messing around with a pencil, doodling over Sudoku grids. I was rubbish at them before the head injury. How does she think I’m going to do them now?

After lunch we take a gentle stroll in the park and then it’s nap time. I never argue about that, because I’m normally more than ready for it. It’s as if my brain is now worn out by doing the everyday things it always used to do on autopilot. After dinner, we watch TV. It’s not very exciting for poor Mum and Emir. I can’t seem to manage anything other than comfort watches, so we have the 1995 version of Pride and Prejudice on a loop. It doesn’t matter if I zone out, because I can still mouth the words along with Darcy and Lizzy from the midst of my stupor.

The only time I really leave the house is for my out-patient appointments. Mum has to drive me around because my licence has been suspended until the DVLA is convinced I’m sufficiently recovered. This is a bitter pill to swallow. I’ve always prized my independence and now I’m being ferried around by my mum the way I wished I had been when I was a teenager. Back then, if I’d wanted to go to after-school clubs, I had to get the bus.

A couple of weeks after I move in, I have another appointment with Naomi, my psychologist. We arrive at the clinic, a therapy centre housed in a converted Victorian villa in Lewisham. It has beautiful parquet flooring in the waiting room and a view over a well- tended garden out the back. When my name is called, Mum stands up. I walk towards the consulting room and Mum still follows me. Naomi is holding the door open. She sees the look on my face, the look of unbridled determination on my mother’s, and moves to the centre of the doorway. ‘Erin, would you like your mother to wait outside?’

‘Yes,’ I say quietly. There’s something I’d like to ask Naomi in private.

‘But I can take notes in case you forget,’ Mum says, looking anxiously through the open door.

‘Sorry,’ I mutter over my shoulder and scuttle inside.

Naomi closes the door and motions for me to sit down in a comfy green chair. She takes one opposite me on the other side of a low coffee table. ‘It can be tough with family and friends,’ she tells me. ‘Knowing where to draw the line – for both of you. They’ve been through their own trauma because of this, too.’

‘I realize that. And my mum has been absolutely brilliant, but sometimes I just …’ I shake my head, unable to put my thoughts into words. Naomi nods is if she gets it anyway.

We chat about how I’m feeling, of course, but we also look at tools to help me move forward with a more positive mindset. I’m trying hard, I really am. But it often feels as if my own brain is at war against me. I’m used to making a plan and getting things done, not forgetting the plan ever existed or doing the wrong thing. It’s most frustrating.

As we round up our session, Naomi asks me if there’s anything else I’d like to talk about. On automatic, I shake my head and stand, but then I remember what I deliberated over the whole car journey here and I sit down.

‘When I was …’ I shake my head and start again. ‘When people are in medically induced comas, what happens to their brains? Is it just blank, sort of offline, or do they have thoughts or, um, other kind of brain activity?’

Naomi tips her head on one side. ‘What was your experience, Erin?’

I knot my fingers together even tighter. ‘Well, I might have had a … kind of … It was a bit like a dream.’

She leans forward. ‘What happened?’

‘Nothing terrible…’ If you discount almost drowning at sea, of course, but I don’t want to tell her that. ‘But it … it seemed so real. And it’s not fading like a normal dream would. I can still remember every detail.’

Naomi doesn’t look alarmed in the slightest. ‘What you’re describing isn’t uncommon. Quite a lot of coma patients say they experienced extremely vivid dreams while they were unconscious. In fact, you’re one of the lucky ones. Some people have horrendous nightmares they can’t forget. I hope your dream was a nice one.’

I swallow. ‘I suppose it was … I was in St Lucia for most of it.’

She laughs. ‘Well, that doesn’t sound bad at all.’

I laugh along with her, not wanting to divulge anything else. I’m taking the details of that dream to my deathbed. But I feel better knowing it’s just something that brains do sometimes when there’s nothing else to occupy them, that I’m not some kind of freak for experiencing this.

I rise out of the chair. ‘Thank you.’

‘No problem, Erin.’