Chapter 45: Home

“No!” The word became a wail as Will’s words sunk in. Dead. How could she be dead?

“As I said, she was very badly injured. The impact was massive and right by her door. The external injuries were bad, but the real damage was internal. Particularly the brain. Although the paramedics did the best they could at the scene, they really didn’t have a hope. Or so the doctors told Christine once they got back to the hospital.”

“But...” I shook my head.

“She was on life support, but there was no brain activity. None at all. She was effectively already dead when the doctors requested permission to turn off the machine.”

“Turn off? You mean she might still be alive if they hadn’t?”

He shook his head very slightly. “Not really. It wouldn’t have been the Clarissa we all know. It would have just been a shell. An empty body kept alive by a machine. It broke Christine’s heart to acquiesce to the doctor’s request, but it broke her heart even more to see her daughter lying there with tubes and wires coming out of her, knowing she would never recover.”

“But ... She might have recovered. It might have taken time, but she might have been all right.”

“No, Paul, she wouldn’t. This isn’t something that was done lightly. The doctors wouldn’t have asked if they thought there was any chance, even a slim one. 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!” Anger boiled inside me like molten lava and was looking for 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 Christine’s fault. She could have stopped them. She—”

“That’s enough!” said Will, with more angry authority in his voice than I’d ever heard. “This isn’t Christine’s fault. 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 it.” He took a deep breath. “I understand you’re angry, Paul. I am too. But if you want to blame someone, blame the low-life that was driving that car.”

That made sense. It was his fault. 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 Christine was suffering. Like—

There was a knock on the door and we all turned to watch as it swung slowly open. Emily’s head tentatively appeared from behind it. “I’m sorry, I know I should wait until he got home but—Paul, you’re awake.”

She flung the door the rest of the way open so that it bounced off the door stop and she 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 a mixture of anguish and relief on her face but 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.

“I thought you were going to wait until he got home.”

With a shrug, Will said, “You know what he’s like. He insisted.”

Delicately put, I thought.

Emily turned back to me and said, “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 try and get her attention. “Hey. Ems, hey. Look at me.” She raised her eyes to mine, blinking to clear the tears which were forced to run down her cheeks. “It’s not your fault, okay. It’s not 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 that were there and they all said the same thing. And, as the police said, their recollection of events is probably more reliable than yours since they weren’t directly—”

“What about after 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.

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.”

The exam took about ten minutes and the paperwork for the discharge about the same again. The nurse and an orderly helped me into a wheelchair and then into Will’s car. Emily never left my side. Back home, I was ordered to wait in an armchair in the lounge and given a stool to rest my foot on so that my leg could be kept straight—not that I could bend it even if I wanted to, the cast saw 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.

The doorbell rang and Vicky answered it (Will had gone back to his office). “Mrs Liddington, please come in.”

“Thank you. I won’t stay long. I understand Paul’s home.”

“Yes. In the lounge, go through.”

She came into the lounge, took one look at me, started crying and walked out. She returned a few minutes later when she’d composed herself, at which point she sat in the armchair next to mine and reached for my hand. She didn’t say anything, she just held my hand.

After an age that would have seen continents shift, she fought back the tears and said, “The Funeral is on Wednesday.”

I nodded my understanding.

“Eleven a.m. at St. James Church opposite the cemetery. There’ll be a wake at The Victory—”

“I’m not going.”

“To the wake? Well, I suppose that makes—”

“To the funeral.”

“What?” said Emily, sitting on the sofa where I used to sit with Clarissa.