‘No plans,’ Cam says, confidently.
If I wasn’t already lying down, I would fall down. I’m dizzy. Hot. And scared witless.
‘Cam—’
A nurse puts a finger to her lips, asking me not to say anything.
‘Do you remember where you were just before the accident?’
I hold my abdomen protectively and will him to know. Despite all the clattering in Emergency, I can almost hear him trying to concentrate.
‘We were at . . .’ Recognition flits into his voice, briefly. ‘Katie – are you pregnant?’
I start to cry and imagine his face lighting up the way it lit up when I showed him the early pregnancy test. It’s like he’s learning this news for the first time.
The more excited he sounds, the more terrified I become. I don’t know what’s wrong with him but I know it’s serious.
‘Out of an abundance of caution, I think we might order a CT scan,’ a young registrar says. ‘Nothing to worry about at this stage. It’s likely concussion.’
‘Will I be having one?’
‘Not at this point, no.’
‘Because of the baby?’
She looks at my stomach, then back at my eyes, kindly. ‘No.’
Because I’m with it, aren’t I? I can answer basic questions. There’s clearly nothing wrong with my brain.
‘Let’s get you thoroughly checked out, Kate, and then you can probably hop off this bed.’
Subtext: I can quit being the patient here and start being my husband’s support person.
An hour and a half later, I am officially discharged. I sit in Cam’s empty cubicle, unable to go anywhere near radiology, obviously. They said it could take a while.
Being alone here, waiting, makes the whole thing feel even more enormous in my mind. I need time to think before I call anyone and make this real. It’s the first time I try out the words. What if Cam has a brain tumour? Even thinking it makes me instantly sick, and I belt down the corridor to the nearest toilet.
My phone lights up and I can see it’s Hugh, probably wondering where I am. I can’t talk about work right now, so I decline the call. No. If Cam’s sick, I have to keep my job. I hit the button on the missed call and, when he picks up, I barge into the conversation without preamble, as though we’ve been working together for years.
‘We’ve had a car accident,’ I blurt out. ‘We’re at the hospital. Cam’s having a CT scan now.’
‘Is he okay? Are you and Charlie?’ Hugh asks. ‘The baby?’ Somehow the fact that Hugh can rattle off a complete roll call of my nuclear family makes Cam’s forgetfulness seem even worse.
‘I think he’s got a brain tumour!’ I blurt out.
‘What?’
‘Cam. He’s not right. He can’t answer basic questions.’
There’s a pause on the line. ‘Where’s Charlie?’
‘Childcare.’ It’s been less than a month since he started, and he still cries every time we drop him off. That should be his biggest problem. He’s too innocent to have a seriously ill parent.
‘Who’s waiting with you? Can your mum come?’
My mum is not an ‘emergency’ person. She is the emergency, much of the time. Even the idea of having her here raises my blood pressure.
I don’t speak because I don’t want to sound pathetic. Grace is at a social work conference in Sydney, though of course I’ll text her next.
‘Do you want me to call in?’ Hugh asks, into my silence. Any human on the other end of this phone call would have to say that.
Yes.
‘I’m fine,’ I lie. I’d like to think I’m overreacting, as usual, but every cell in my body seems to know this is not a rehearsal for some distant future diagnosis, decades from now when we’re old and tired and ready for it.
‘I’m not convinced,’ Hugh observes.
‘Don’t make a special trip.’ I haven’t known him long but I suspect a special trip is exactly what he will make.
‘I’ll be there in twenty minutes,’ he promises.
I pass the time between our call and his arrival googling brain tumour symptoms on my phone.
Headaches. Check.
Vision problems. I suspect so.
Confusion. Yes.
Personality or behaviour changes. Yes.
It’s been little glitches. Introversion, when he’s normally so gregarious. Frustration, instead of his usual patience.
I can’t keep reading. I was hoping it might be comforting, might tell me there’s something else, much more innocuous, behind all of this. A virus, perhaps. Some totally treatable infection.
I lock my phone and up pops the photo of my boys on the lock screen. Cam with Charlie on his shoulders. Daddy’s boy. Cam is the fun parent. He’s the fun spouse.
My heart sinks again and I blink back tears.
‘Listen, Grace,’ I type. ‘I’m fine, but we were in a car accident. Cam is having a CT scan. Something’s very wrong.’
‘I can hire a car and be home in three hours,’ she types back. ‘Let me get out of this session so I can call you . . .’
‘Hugh is on his way in,’ I type.
‘Boss of the year?’ she writes.
Something like that. He fixed the problem at the gym. He fixes everything at work. There’s a part of me that hopes he’ll stride in and fix this too. Wave a magic wand and make it all go away. Or at least open up a manageable path through it, with the happily-ever-after ending Cam and I are supposed to get.
13
A lovely nurse bustles in just as Hugh arrives. I try to ignore the unsettled expression he clears as he enters the cubicle.
‘There’s a bit of a queue at radiology,’ the nurse explains. ‘Now would be a good time to pop out and get something to eat. I’ve got your number and I’ll call as soon as Cam gets back.’
An orderly had wheeled Cam away on the bed and this empty cubicle – everything unplugged and switched off – feels like a harbinger of doom.
I look to Hugh for leadership. That’s what he’s paid for, after all. And I hate the compassion I meet in his eyes. Compassion is for people with something terrible going on. This diversion is way off script for Kate and Cam’s Excellent Adventure.
‘I can’t think of food,’ I tell him.
‘Let’s go for a walk.’
We make it out of Emergency and as far as the hospital foyer. I don’t want to stray too far in case the nurse rings.
There’s a discarded magazine on one of the lounges. I take a seat and flick through pages of ‘inspiring’ interviews with ‘brave’ women who’ve made it through unimaginable tragedy. I do not want to join them. I’m not the heroic type. I’m more the falling-in-a-heap type.
Hugh sits down beside me, catches a headline in the magazine and confiscates it. ‘You know they invent most of that stuff,’ he says definitively. ‘Come on. You need to eat. There’s a cafe across the road and we could sit in the sun for a few minutes.’
‘I’m not hungry.’
‘Come and watch me eat, then.’
He stands up and starts walking. I find myself following him out of the foyer like he’s the Pied Piper of Hamelin. Must be the Hot Coals Effect.