A Hope for Emily

“I know it does.”

He clears his throat, straightens. “Anyway, I came here to see Emily, but I also came to see you.” His gaze lifts to mine, resolute and still so bleak. “I’m sorry, Rachel. I’m sorry I wasn’t a better husband. A better father.”

“Oh, James…” My throat is too thick and aching to get any more words out. I shake my head and manage, “Don’t.”

“I have to say it. I’ve been thinking it for a long time. I told myself if I was upfront with you about everything, if I showed up for Emily, then I was doing a good job. I was doing more than most men would, even. But all along I felt I was failing, and that just made me dig in even more, and act as if I was right. As if I was some martyr.” The sneer in his voice is unmistakeable.

“I think I was the one acting like a martyr.” I shake my head again, forcing the ache in my throat to ease. “We both made mistakes, James. We both tried our best. What more can we say than that? What more can we do?”

“Do you forgive me?” His look is so pleading that I feel ashamed. Did I make him feel this guilty? Did I bully him into this corner, with my wild accusations, my fierce sense of self-righteousness?

“There’s nothing to forgive, but if you need it, then yes, I forgive you. And I’m glad you’re here.”

Silently he reaches for my hand, and I take it. We lace our fingers together over Emily’s bed, and both of us gaze at our daughter.

The next day Dr. Rossi sits down with both of us, a look of sorrow on his face that I realize I’ve been expecting. It’s been almost three weeks since Emily started the treatment, and there has been no change in her status, no improvement in the scans of her brain.

“In fact,” Dr. Rossi says, looking at us both, “her brain function has decreased since she’s been here. Only slightly, but I see a definite downward progression. I’m sorry.”

“So the treatment isn’t working?” James sounds incredulous, even though this is exactly what he predicted would happen. There are no surprises.

“The nerve stimulation techniques we have been researching appear to be more effective with traumatic brain injuries,” Dr. Rossi says in his careful, hesitant English. “And not as much with degenerative neurological conditions, where the decline is less reversible.”

Even undiagnosed conditions, where the ignorance can feel like hope, if you let it. Or it can be defeat. “So what are you saying?” I ask. My voice feels as if it is coming outside of myself. “Are you saying we should stop?”

“I am recommending an end to the treatment, yes.”

There is surprisingly little to say after that. Dr. Rossi talks about travel arrangements, and I say something about contacting the air ambulance service. I feel numb, as if I’m hovering somewhere above the room, watching this play out.

At some point James takes my hand, and we walk back to Emily’s room. We stand at the foot of her bed and gaze down at our beautiful daughter, her blond curls spread across the pillow, her lashes fanning her cheeks. She’s so little, so precious, so still.

This isn’t the end of her life, not yet, but it is the end of my hopes. Emily will be transferred back to the palliative care unit, and that’s what it will truly be. Palliative care, a wait till the end, whenever it comes.

“Do you remember how she liked to turn on the light switch in the mornings?” James asks softly.

I can picture it—Emily safe in his arms, reaching out one hand to flick on the switch in the morning, bathing our kitchen in a warm, electric glow.

“She was so proud she could do it.”

“And she’d always say the same thing—”

“Dark in here,” we say together, in the sing-song voice Emily used to have. “Light.”

We both smile and laugh softly, and then the tears come, spilling down James’ cheeks, a sob ripping out of me. He puts his arms around me, and I rest my head on his shoulder. Neither of us speak; we just let each other cry.

We spend the afternoon with Emily, sitting by her bed as the world rushes around us. James handles the phone calls to the air ambulance and the children’s hospital back in Boston, and I am glad for him to do it. I can’t be the strong one anymore.

My thoughts drift and ebb, memories pulling at me and then letting me go, until I am just sitting in the sunshine that has come after last night’s wild thunderstorm, watching my daughter’s face.

Eva has made herself scarce since James’ arrival, and so in the early evening I tell James to go be with her, back at the guesthouse. “She needs you,” I say, and he looks discomfited.

“We haven’t been…”

“She needs you.”

He goes. Alone in Emily’s room I watch the shadows lengthen and the hospital begin to quiet around me. Whatever visitors have come are leaving now, nurses and doctors clocking off. I’ve been here so many times before; I know the rhythms of the day and night in a hospital the way I know how to breathe.

And it is strange to think that one day, perhaps one day soon, this won’t be my life anymore. I won’t be sitting by Emily’s bed, talking to her, being with her, dreaming of when she’s better. I won’t wake up in the morning to rush to the hospital, and I won’t come home at night, simply to fall into bed.