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RACHEL
I approached my son’s bedside with a lifetime of love to give him, and with the humility of somebody
who’s been brought to her knees in every way imaginable.
I came to him with a surfeit of relief and emotion that should have made for a perfect Hollywood
moment, with full orchestral accompaniment and box of Kleenex required. The works.
But it wasn’t like that.
When I entered the room, I saw that he had his back to me, and he lay curled up under layers of
blankets, motionless and small, the outline of his body making an angular shape.
I saw the back of his head, his sandy hair unkempt, without lustre. One of his arms lay on top of the
blanket. A garish hospital gown covered some of it, but his forearm protruded, bare until the wrist
where a thick bandage was wrapped around it, securing a cannula, which was attached to a tube,
down which a transparent liquid crawled, dripping into his vein.
Closer. An oxygen mask was on the pillow beside his head, hissing. I could see the side of his face
now, his profile. His lips were chapped and paper-thin eyelids covered eyes that were twitching
beneath. His eyelashes were long and beautiful as ever, though they did little to mask the deep dark
patches under his eyes and the grey pallor of his skin.
‘Ben,’ I whispered. I touched the skin on his temples with the side of my hand; it was the softest
skin you could ever touch. I pushed a strand or two of his hair back from his forehead.
He didn’t respond. He was sleeping the sleep of the dead.
Behind me, the doctor said, ‘He may take a few minutes to wake up properly.’ He was standing
awkwardly by the door, keeping his distance. I knew he was there because they were frightened of
what my reunion with Ben could do to him.
‘Ben,’ I said. ‘It’s me, Mummy.’
I sat down on the side of his bed. I wanted him to wake up, I wanted him to come to me, to pitch
into my arms as if he’d been falling from a great height and had finally landed in a place of safety.
His eyelids flickered open, then shut again.
‘Love,’ I said. ‘It’s Mummy. I’m here. Ben.’
Another flicker and then I had them: bright blue eyes. They didn’t move in the usual way though.
They looked past me at first, and it was only when I said his name again that they slid towards me,
locked onto mine.
He blinked.
My head sank onto his, my breath on his face, his head motionless beneath me. I kissed him, my
tears slid from my cheeks onto his. I felt his lips move, and I pulled back so I could see him better,
hear him. ‘What did you say, Ben? What did you say?’
Eyes slid shut again, a twitch of movement in his arm. And I thought, where is my child, the one
who could never stay still, whose every movement was brimming with life?
His breathing faltered audibly and I heard the doctor step forward, but it settled again and the
doctor contented himself with moving the oxygen mask closer to Ben’s mouth.
I felt terrible, terrible sadness building in me, a feeling so powerful that it hurt, and it made my
hands shake. I looked at the doctor, his eyes powerfully kind and his words steady: ‘Give him some
time.’
And he was right, because Ben stirred, and his eyes met mine again, and even though they seemed
to slip out of focus, his lips moved and this time a word was audible on his outtake of air. ‘Mummy.’