Music from Home by Geraldine O'Neill

Author:Geraldine O'Neill [O'Neill, Geraldine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: QuarkXPress, ebook, epub
ISBN: 9781781991114
Publisher: Poolbeg Press
Published: 2013-03-06T15:36:38+00:00

Chapter 23

It was five in the morning when the house phone rang.

On hearing it, Maria’s heart started pounding. She sat bolt upright in bed then she checked the time on the clock on the bedside cabinet. She listened as Diana’s footsteps went quickly down the stairs, but she could only hear the murmur of her voice as she spoke and nothing of the conversation. Then, all the dreadful possibilities racing through her mind, she climbed out of bed – wearing the green satin pyjamas that Diana had lent her last night – and went to the top of the stairs.

Diana was coming up towards her, her face white and expressionless. “It was the hospital . . . they want us to go in.”

Maria felt the same strange calm descending on her that sometimes came when she was worrying about her father late at night. The calm that helped her through her worst times.

She turned back towards the bedroom. “I’ll get ready.”

“The roads will be empty at this time of the morning,” Diana said. “So we can go quickly.”

Maria did not answer. She went back into the bedroom to pull on the same clothes she had worn last night.

They hardly spoke on the drive in. When they arrived at the hospital public car park there were only two other cars.

As they went towards the main door, Diana said, “The nurse I spoke to said to go straight to Reception and they will take us up to the ward.”

Maria slowed to a halt. Now they were so close she needed to prepare herself. “What did they tell you?”

Diana looked straight ahead. “That he is in a . . . a deep sleep . . . and they are concerned.”

“But that could be a good thing. He might feel a lot better when he wakes up.”

“Yes,” Diana was nodding her head slowly. “Hopefully he might feel better.”

There was a nurse waiting for them in Reception and Maria saw Diana’s face tighten when she asked them to follow her into a consultation room where the doctor would speak to them. As they walked along, Diana reached back and took her hand in hers and held it tightly. They went down a corridor and when the nurse showed them into the room, there were two doctors already sitting at a table waiting to see them.

The doctors stood up and shook Diana’s hand and then Maria’s, and it crossed her mind that they probably thought Diana was her mother. They all sat down and there was a silence for a few moments and then Maria heard one of the doctors saying he was very sorry, but that they had done everything they could.

Diana gasped and said in a whisper. “What exactly are you saying?”

Maria felt a rushing in her head and ears and couldn’t quite make out what anyone in the room was saying. She shook her head to make herself concentrate and then she heard one of the doctors explain there had been a problem with bleeding immediately after banging his head.

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