The Vasquez Baby

She gave a tortured groan and curled into a foetal position, her thoughts so agonising that she just wanted to remove them from her head.

‘Are you in pain?’ The doctor leaned towards her, frowning. ‘I can give you something for it.’

Not for this type of pain. Faith squeezed her eyes tightly shut. ‘It’s all a hideous mess.’

‘Your head? It’s nothing that time won’t heal. Your hair will cover the scar.’

‘Not my head,’ Faith muttered. ‘My life.’

‘She’s obviously worrying about her head—how’s the wound, nurse? Everything healing?’

Realising that no one was remotely interested in how she really felt, Faith kept her eyes closed, wishing they’d go away and leave her alone.

‘Last time I saw it everything was healing beautifully,’ the nurse said briskly. ‘It will be a very neat scar.’

On the outside, maybe, Faith thought to herself. But on the inside it was a deep, ugly gash that would never heal.

Clearly oblivious to the true extent of his patient’s trauma, the doctor gave a nod of approval. ‘You’ve made a remarkable recovery considering the condition you were in two weeks ago. We need to start talking about discharging you.’ He cleared his throat and glanced at the chart again. ‘You need to go home to family or friends. You can’t be on your own at the moment.’

Faith’s lips were so dry she could hardly speak. ‘I’ll be fine on my own.’

Just saying the words intensified the sick throbbing in her head.

How had she ended up at this point?

The doctor gave an impatient sigh. ‘You haven’t given us details of your next of kin. There must be someone. Or do you think it’s possible that you are suffering some degree of memory loss after all?’

Faith opened her eyes. ‘My parents died nearly three years ago and I’m an only child,’ she said wearily, wondering how many times she had to repeat herself. ‘And my memory is fine.’ Unfortunately. Given the nature of her memories, she would have paid a great deal for a serious bout of amnesia. Nothing too dramatic. As long as she lost all knowledge of the last couple of months, she’d be happy.

She wanted the whole nightmare erased from her head for ever.

But in her case it wasn’t forgetting that was the problem, it was remembering.

She remembered everything and the memories tortured her.

All she wanted to do was cover herself with the duvet and just sob and sob and the fact that she felt like that was terrifying because it was so unlike her.

Where was her energy and drive? What had happened to her natural inclination to fight problems with grit and determination?

She’d always been resilient. Life could be tough, she knew that.

But although she’d always known that life could be tough, she’d had no idea it could be quite this tough.

Panicked by how truly awful she felt, she rolled onto her back and stared up at the cracked ceiling—but somehow the cracks looked like the curve of a beach and soon the images in her head were of a laughing, naked woman and a spectacularly handsome man.

She gave a groan of denial and covered her face with her hands. It didn’t matter what she did or where she looked, the memories were everywhere. She felt drained and empty, lacking the physical or emotional energy to drag herself out of the dark pit of despair that was sucking her down and down.

In the bed opposite, an old lady rambled and muttered, confused and disorientated by her surroundings. ‘Doctor, doctor!’

Muttering something under his breath to the nurse, the doctor turned. ‘Yes, Mrs Hitchin?’ His manner and tone were a study of exaggerated politeness. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘You can marry me, that’s what you can do!’ The old lady’s tone was sharp. ‘No more messing me around! Do what you promised to do and stop running away from your responsibilities.’

The nurse covered her mouth with her hand to conceal the laugh and the doctor’s face turned a deep shade of beetroot.

‘You’re in hospital, Mrs Hitchin!’ He raised his voice and separated each syllable, as if he were speaking to a very slow child. ‘And I’m a doctor!’

‘Well, I’m glad you finally made something of yourself.’ The old lady waggled a finger at Faith. ‘Don’t believe a word he says to you. Men are all the same. They want all the fun and none of the responsibility.’