Chapter 13: Gareth Chancelor, Sunday

When your beginner-driver daughter is out driving with the remainder of your family as her passengers, absolutely the last thing you want to receive is a phone call. Even before you answer, the heart starts beating faster and the mind starts whirling with possibilities.

When it’s your afore-mentioned daughter talking on her mother’s mobile phone and her voice is clearly distressed, some possible outcomes get discarded but other options start whirling around. I took a couple of deep breaths and asked careful questions and the true story emerged. It was nowhere near some of the catastrophes I’d been imagining but a knock on the head could be serious. Jen wanted to take Estelle straight to the hospital to get checked and I agreed with her. I made her promise not to rush. I didn’t want her getting in an accident and making the situation worse. I promised to meet them there and ended the call.

All my instincts were telling me to jump in the car immediately, but it would take me less than 10 minutes to get to the hospital and they would be at least 40 minutes. I dug out Estelle’s medical history file and tucked it under one arm in case it was needed. Estelle would have her Medicare Card and private insurance card in her purse but there were copies of the relevant numbers in her file. I walked around the house and locked all the doors then I sat in the living room and fidgeted for 30 minutes.

I was waiting outside the doors of the Emergency Department when they arrived. Estelle was upright and holding a bloody shirt to her head. Jen and Bonnie bracketed her, holding her up and steering her towards me. Estelle looked mostly okay. Jen seemed to be fairly calm. Bonnie looked white and anxious.

We went inside and registered with the triage nurse. I stayed to fill in the paperwork while Jen, Bonnie and Estelle sat and waited. One advantage of going to a small country hospital was that we only had to wait about 10 minutes before we were called. I’ve experienced waiting in Emergency in a big city and it can be a very long wait. We followed the nurse through to a room with a row of beds each sectioned off with a curtain. Estelle sat on the bed and the nurse told us the doctor would be with us shortly then pulled the curtain closed around us.

About 2 minutes later a youngish looking doctor with a clipboard in her hands stepped through the curtains and introduced herself as Dr Ainslee. She took in the situation in a glance and asked Estelle for her name and her birthdate. Estelle was able to answer her questions in a clear voice. Dr Ainslee looked at me and asked if I was present when Estelle hit her head.

Jen said, “No he wasn’t. I was there. And Bonnie.”

Dr Ainslee asked Jen some questions, which were mainly focussed on whether Estelle had been unconscious or whether she’d appeared confused or vague immediately after hitting her head. Jen answered all her questions. Estelle might have been unconscious for 10 or 15 seconds at the most but Jen wasn’t sure, Estelle may’ve not been moving from surprise. She hadn’t appeared confused at the time. These things reassured me somewhat. Then Dr Ainslee looked at Bonnie and asked if she had anything to add that Jen might’ve forgotten. Bonnie shook her head and then she said, “There was an awful lot of blood.”

Dr Ainslee nodded and explained that even a small wound in the scalp tended to bleed a lot because the blood vessels are close to the skin of the scalp. Bonnie seemed a bit reassured by that and I saw her start to relax.

Then Dr Ainslee asked us to step outside and go to the little waiting room for a while so that she and the nurse could patch Estelle’s scalp up and go through their normal procedures for a head-knock.

So we sat in the waiting room and I got Bonnie and Jen to tell me about their day to take their minds off the situation. It sounded like they had a good day. It’s not the sort of day I could enjoy. I much prefer planned outings but I understand that other people don’t have my hang-ups about surprises.

Bonnie blushed very cutely when she told me how Estelle and Jen had gone skinny-dipping in the dam. I shrugged and said that it sounded like fun. I don’t think Bonnie was expecting my calm response to that and she gaped at me for a second, then closed her jaw with a snap and sat there quietly while Jen and I kept the conversation going.

Dr Ainslee came to find us a little while later. She told us they’d cleaned up Estelle’s scalp wound and put in a couple of stitches to hold it. She said that Estelle appeared to have a minor concussion and she was being taken to the other end of the building for a routine scan to make sure there was no issues on the inside of her skull.

Bonnie said, “Would the scan show why she’s been acting so crazy?”

Dr Ainslee seemed to go on alert and said, “What do you mean?”

So Bonnie talked about Estelle’s sudden outbursts of screaming and swearing and how they would start for no apparent reason and then stop suddenly a few minutes later. Jen and I confirmed that this had been happening. Dr Ainslee asked how long this had been going on for and Jen and I said the last few days but then Bonnie said, “More like, the last few months. The first one I remember was a few days after my birthday and that was two months ago. I guess it wasn’t so over the top, though, so I didn’t think much about it. Then the next one I know about was about 3 or 4 weeks ago and then a few times in the last week.”

Jen and I looked at Bonnie and then we looked at each other. I could see Jen thinking, “Ohhh.” I was thinking the same thing.

Dr Ainslee asked if there were any other noticeable changes in her behaviour. Bonnie said, “I thought maybe she had Bipolar Disorder, but Dad said he didn’t think so but we all thought that maybe it was something like that.”

Dr Ainslee asked us to wait for a moment. She ducked out of the room and picked up one of the phones. I could see her giving some instructions then she hung up the phone and came back to join us. She told us that she’d asked for a more complete scan to see if there was any physical reason for the atypical behaviour. Then Dr Ainslee explained that the hospital had a clinical psychiatrist on call who was a more appropriate person to deal with mental health issues and asked if we wanted her to give him a call.

I said “Yes, please.”

Dr Ainslee went back out and used the phone again. This time it was a longer conversation. Eventually she came back in and said that the doctor would be arriving in about 10 minutes and asked us to wait for him where we were. Then Dr Ainslee left us to go and look after her next patient.

About 10 minutes later, a tallish middle-aged man, in a grey suit came strolling towards us. He had a stocky build, a Mediterranean complexion and black wavy hair. He was reading some notes on a clip-board as he came towards us. Then he looked up at us and smiled to see us. I instantly knew I recognised him from somewhere but couldn’t place him.

He came in to the waiting room and Bonnie immediately said, “Hi Mr Puretti,” and she went over and gave him a hug. Now I knew him. He was the father of Bonnie’s friend, Mona.

He came up to me and reached out a hand. “Hi, I’m Benito Puretti. We’ve met before I think. You are Gareth Chancelor?”

We shook hands. “Please call me Gareth. Have you met my other daughter, Jennifer?”

“You must call me Benito. And Jennifer, it’s lovely to see you. I think we’ve met at school events.”

“And you clearly already know Bonnie,” I said. “Thanks for coming in on a Sunday to see us.”

He waved that off. “I was on call. I got to spend most of the day with my family while they paid me for being available. It’s not a bad deal.”

He got us all to sit down. “Now, they’ve only taken Estelle in for the scans a minute ago, so we have a bit of time. I want you to repeat everything you told Dr Ainslee about changes to Estelle’s behaviour over the last few months. If you think of anything else while we’re talking, feel free to throw that in as well.”

I looked at Bonnie. “You should start Bon. You noticed the problem first.”

As I listened to Bonnie talk, I realised she was describing a couple of incidents that I’d dismissed at the time, or perhaps I’d ignored them. My usual strategy is to retreat from irrelevant conflicts so maybe I’d walked away and left my daughters to cope with Estelle. I was embarrassed that I’d done that and wished I could wind back the clock and do things differently.

Benito listened carefully to what Bonnie had to say and regularly made little notes on his pad. He asked a few questions to draw out details but generally let Bonnie talk. Bonnie then started to describe her Saturday morning experiences. This time she acknowledged that now she understood her mother was trying to give her adventures, but she hadn’t understood at the time and she’d felt uncomfortable and betrayed by the whole experience. I didn’t come out looking too rosy in that description either because I’d unthinkingly backed up Estelle without investigating the reasons for Bonnie’s behaviour.

Benito listened to the entire story without appearing to judge the rightness or wrongness of what happened. He didn’t even react when Bonnie talked about me smacking her. Bonnie did say that I never smacked her hard, even though she didn’t figure that out until this weekend.

Finally, Bonnie wound down by saying, “Then something happened last Thursday evening, but you’ll have to ask Jen about that because it was something to do with sex and I only know what Jen has told me.”

So now I got to sit there quietly and feel even more humiliated as Jen described her long-term obsession with me and how her mother had fuelled the flames to the point where Estelle offered Jen to have sex with me as a birthday present. Benito continued to listen carefully and make occasional notes. He did seem disturbed when Jen mentioned that Estelle had changed her birth control into what had turned out to be something quite different.

Benito leaned forward, “Do you have the printout of that analysis with you?”

I said, “No,” and looked at Jen. She said, “It’s in my bag out in the car.”

Benito said, “I would like to look at that. Are you still taking those pills?”

Jen said, “No, I stopped on Friday when I found out what they were. The printout said I would experience highly fluctuating levels of arousal as the drugs dissipated from my system and it wasn’t wrong. I’ve been all over the place. I’ll get the printout for you when we finish talking.”

“Do you know where Estelle obtained those pills?” asked Benito.

“The pharmacist who did the analysis said they almost certainly came from the internet,” I said.

Benito shook his head. “Sourcing medication over the internet is so dangerous. You never know what you’re getting. Jennifer, I want to run some basic blood and urine tests on you while you’re here to ensure there hasn’t been any long-term damage.”

Jen went a little pale and said, “Okay.”

“I didn’t mean to alarm you,” said Benito. “This is only a precaution. Have you resumed taking your normal birth-control pills?”

“No, the printout said not to do that until the other drugs are completely out of my system. It said they would interfere with each other or something.”

“Yes, I imagine they would. Don’t resume taking your normal pills until we can confirm your system is clear. Was that the end of your story?”

“Well, no,” said Jen. Then she blushed and glanced at me before returning her attention to Benito.

I also blushed as Jen recounted the events of Thursday evening and Friday evening from her point of view. Then she did a quick wrap up of Estelle’s reaction to her demotion and behaviour over the weekend.

“That’s a fascinating story,” said Benito when she had finished. He turned and looked at me. “I need to speak to your daughters alone for a few minutes. I expect that Estelle will have returned from her scan by now. If you speak to the nurse at the desk around the corner to your left, she’ll be able to reunite you with your wife.”

I nodded and stood up. “See you soon,” I said to my daughters, then I walked out.

I found Estelle propped up on one of those wheeled hospital trolley-beds in a curtained alcove. She smiled to see me. I stooped and kissed her.

“How’re you feeling?” I asked.

“I have a headache, but apart from that I’m okay.”

“Have you heard anything about the scan results?” I asked.

“No. They put me here and told me there would be a bit of a wait. Where’ve you been?”