A Good Man
Copyright© 2011 by Marc Nobbs
Chapter 45: Home
“No!” I shook my head, even though it caused pain to rip through me. I didn’t care. The pain didn’t matter. “No. That’s ... It’s not true. You’re lying. It can’t be true. I’m okay. I survived. Emily’s okay. Clarissa must be okay. She must be! She can’t be ... She can’t! I don’t—”
“Paul,” Will said softly as he placed his hand on my arm. I felt him squeeze. Then Vicky stepped up to the bed and did the same on my other arm.
I fought to regulate my breathing, which was threatening to get out of control. I looked from Will to Vicky and back as Will’s words sank in.
Dead.
How could she be dead?
It wasn’t fair. We had a future. We had everything planned. We were going to be happy. We were going to help—
“Paul, I’m sorry. I really am.”
I looked up at him.
“We didn’t want to tell you like this. We wanted to get you home first.”
I nodded. It still hurt to do so, but the pain felt... ‘Good’ isn’t the right word. ‘Real.’ The pain that shot through me felt real. It was the only thing that felt real.
“How...” I took a deep breath. “How did it ... When ... Did she...”
I couldn’t finish any of my questions.
I didn’t want to finish them.
And didn’t really want to hear the answers.
Will squeezed my arm again. Then he took a deep breath.
“The impact on her side of the car was massive. The external injuries were bad, but the real damage was internal. Particularly the brain. The paramedics did their best at the scene. But they really didn’t have a hope. They rushed her to the hospital, but...” He sighed. “The doctors fought to save her. They really did. She went straight into the theatre but...” He closed his eyes. “Three hours. They fought a losing battle for nearly three hours, but it was in vain.”
“But...” I shook my head.
“There was no brain activity. None at all. They did their best they could but...”
I could feel the tears running down my cheeks. There was nothing I could do to stop them.
“I know it’s of no comfort, Paul,” Will said, “But the doctors said she wouldn’t have felt anything after the impact. She didn’t suffer. She didn’t suffer at all.”
I nodded. He was right, it was no comfort. Or was it? She didn’t suffer. At least ... I squeezed my eyes tightly shut, forcing more tears to cascade down my face.
I took a deep breath. None of this made sense. None of this was fair. Clarissa was a Good Person. She was going to do Good Things. This shouldn’t happen to Good People. It shouldn’t. She’d barely had a chance to live. Barely had a chance to make a difference. And she was going to make a difference. It wasn’t fair!
“But ... I mean ... Don’t they have ... Machines? Life support or whatever? Could they have ... I don’t know? Keep her alive? In a coma? Until she got better?”
He again shook his head ever so slightly. “We asked all the same questions, Paul. All of them. There was nothing they could do. If the doctors thought there was any chance at all—even a slim one—but there wasn’t. To all intents, Paul, she died at the scene. I’m sorry, I really am. Clarissa was—”
“No! Don’t say you’re sorry! Don’t start trying to placate me!” The anger felt like molten lava inside me. It was looking for any outlet. Any outlet. If that outlet was Will, then so be it. Offering words of comfort. Trying to make me feel better. He didn’t know how I felt. No one could. No one had just had their whole future ripped from them. No one. And someone had to be to blame.
“This is Chrissy’s fault! She could have made them—”
“That’s enough!” said Will, with more angry authority in his voice than I’d ever heard. “This is not Christine’s fault. Not even close. She’s just watched her only daughter die, just a few years after watching her husband die. She is suffering enough with you blaming her for something she had no control over.” He took a deep breath. “I understand that you’re angry, Paul. I understand why you’re angry. I am, too. But if you want to blame someone, blame the lowlife who was driving that car. He’s the one who’s taken Clarissa from us. He’s the one who took her light from the world. I’m angry, Paul. I angry that that ... Scum has put an end to a life so full of promise. You want to be angry? Fine. You’ve got every right to be angry. But be angry with that pathetic piece of shit!”
I stared at him. I’d never seen Will so ... Riled up. So angry. He swore! He actually swore. I’d never heard him swear before. Never seen him lose his cool like that before.
But what he said made sense. It was his fault. The driver. Whoever he was. They should string him up. Or lock him up and throw away the key. But that wouldn’t be enough. If I ever got my hands on him, I’d make him pay. I’d make him suffer like I was suffering. Like Chrissy was suffering.
“Who was he?” I asked. “Who was dri—”
There was a knock on the door, and we all turned to watch as it swung slightly open. Emily’s head tentatively appeared from behind it. “I’m sorry, I know I should wait until he gets home but—Paul, you’re awake.”
She flung the door the rest of the way open, bouncing off the doorstop, and rushed over to me. Will had to sidestep to avoid being knocked over. She threw herself at me in a hug and started crying.
“Oh, thank God! I thought ... I thought that maybe you too ... Oh, thank God!”
I lifted my arms to hold her, gently patting her on the back. She crushed me closer to her, causing enough pain to make me wince.
“Oh, sorry,” she said, pulling back. She ran her palms down my arms until she could take my hands in hers. She looked down at me, with a mixture of anguish and relief on her face, and nothing but grief in her eyes, and all the anger drained out of me. She must have sensed that because she looked at Will and said, “He knows?”
Will nodded.
“You were going to wait until he got home! I should have been here with him.” She turned back to me. “I should have been here!”
With a shrug, Will said, “You know what he’s like. He insisted.”
Delicately put, I thought.
Emily looked at Will again, then turned back to me. “I’m so, so sorry, Paul. I loved Rissa, you know that, but nothing like you did. You two were meant to be together. You were perfect together. And now...” She broke down in tears again, unable to finish the sentence.
I shook her hands to get her attention. “Hey. Ems, hey. Look at me.” She raised her eyes to mine, blinking to clear the tears, forcing them to run down her cheeks. “It’s not your fault, okay. This isn’t your fault.”
“But it is! Don’t you see?” She ripped her hands from mine and wiped her eyes and cheeks dry. “I saw the car coming before you did! If I’d called out ... If I’d done ... something! Anything! Then Rissa might have been able—”
“Emily, we’ve been over this,” said Will calmly. “Even if you did call out, there was no way that Clarissa could have avoided the accident. The speed the other driver was going—”
“How do you know?” she spat, rounding on him. “You weren’t there!”
After a deep breath, he replied, “No, but there were plenty of people who were there. And they all said the same thing. There was simply no way that anyone could have avoided that accident. And, as the police said, their recollection of events is far more reliable than yours since they weren’t directly—”
“What about afterwards, then? Huh? I just sat there, screaming. I could have helped her, but I didn’t, I just—”
“Hey!” Emily spun back round to face me. “Stop it! All right.” She stared at me. “Ems, this isn’t your fault, so stop blaming yourself.”
“But—”
“But nothing. Look, I was the one singing. It could be my fault for distracting her.”
“But that’s crazy. You were the one who saw the car coming.”
“But if she hadn’t been looking at me, she would have seen it herself.”
“And still not have been able to get out of the way,” said Will. “None of you three in the car was at fault. There was no way that anyone, no matter who was driving, could have avoided that accident.”
The door opened, and a doctor and nurse walked in.
“Sorry for the interruption, but I understand you’d like to get the young man home as soon as you can, in which case I need time to examine him.”
“Of course, doctor,” Will said. Then to Emily and Vicky, he added, “We should wait outside.”
The exam took about ten minutes, and the paperwork for the discharge took about double that. A nurse and an orderly helped me into a wheelchair and then into Will’s car.
Emily never left my side—she even sat next to me in the backseat of the Range Rover. Back home, Will ordered me to wait in an armchair in the lounge. Vicky gave me a stool to rest my foot on, so I could keep my leg straight—not that I could bend it even if I wanted to, the cast had seen to that.
Emily sat with me while Will and Vicky set about moving my bed into the dining room (and moving the dining table out). While we sat, Emily rang around all our friends to tell them I was home, but to leave visiting until later that afternoon when I’d settled in properly.
Still, my first visitor arrived just after lunch.
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