someone to help me to do the most basic of things: go for a wash, get to the toilet, brush my teeth, wash the undamaged parts of my face without the aid of a mirror. And I’ve had to put on a happy face for my visitors.
The visits were short and pleasant enough, but I always had to let them know that I was ‘O’
‘K’ with what had happened; I was focusing on the positives of being alive; and I wasn’t dwelling on the hair thing, the face thing, the recovering from major surgery thing. After each visit I would sag against my pillows and will myself better so I could go home and at least not answer the door if anyone came who I didn’t want to see.
The taxi driver has left my bag on the top step. Jack is now standing with him up there, paying.
The hospital made it clear that I was going home in a car or in an ambulance – the taxi was the lesser of two evils as the
thought
of an ambulance brought on panic attacks. We sat in the back of the taxi, not speaking, his hand wrapped around mine, while my petrified body did not move, and I kept my eyes closed to avoid seeing any other car that came near us. I’d been extremely relieved when we pulled up outside our house. Our home.
I’m scared to go inside.
When I was lying in hospital, I was desperate to get out of there, to be at home and, now, ‘home’ is where I’ll have to start again. I’ll have to be me with this face and this hair in the place where the other me lived. That’s a terrifying thought.
‘Your parents, Angela, Grace, and my parents wanted to have a welcome home party,’ Jack had told me as he wheeled me to the waiting taxi, ‘but I told them you probably wouldn’t want that. Not right away. I hope I did the right thing.’
‘Yes,’ I’d said, ‘that was the right thing.’
Jack puts his wallet into his back pocket, opens the outer door, then the inner door, to put my bag inside.
‘Good luck,’ the taxi driver says as he passes, an unexpected blessing from a stranger. ‘Take care.’
How many people does the taxi driver wish good luck?
I wonder as I watch the man I married descending the steps to help me.
Random people, hospital returnees, or damaged people who look like they need it?
I suppose I am all three.
A smile overtakes Jack’s face as he stands in front of me, and I smile back. All of this would be so much harder without him. I don’t think I’d have coped as well, would have had some good hours in among the hours of despair, if I didn’t know he was there with me all the way.
May, 2009
‘So you’re Elizabeth,’ Jack’s mother said as we stepped over the threshold. She was beaming, with her arms stretched out inwelcome. She wrapped her arms around me, hugging me close, surrounding me with that soft, intoxicating, talcum-powdery smell of a woman who takes pride in her appearance and has almost always had the money to do so. She had never ploughed her way through the bargain bin in her local supermarket for the right shade of eyeshadow. She was elegantly attired: a fawn-coloured silk shift dress under a cream, cashmere cardigan; fawn court shoes on her feet, although this looked like the type of house where visitors usually took their off shoes. Her light brown hair, streaked with strands of silver, was cut into a stylish bob, and she had gold and pearl earrings in her ears.
She clutched me tight, checking I was real perhaps, then stepped back, her hands slipping smoothly down to take my hands.
‘Let me have a look at you,’ she said, and gave me another wide, genuine smile. ‘You’re nothing like I expected. My son wouldn’t tell us a thing about you. But you’re beautiful.’
‘
Mother,’
Jack said.
‘Oh, shush,’ his mother said, jovially. ‘You should be grateful that I like her. How many young women complain about having a mother-in-law who doesn’t like them? Many, I would wager. But Elizabeth, you have been such a tonic for my son.’ She moved back a little further, still holding onto my
The visits were short and pleasant enough, but I always had to let them know that I was ‘O’
‘K’ with what had happened; I was focusing on the positives of being alive; and I wasn’t dwelling on the hair thing, the face thing, the recovering from major surgery thing. After each visit I would sag against my pillows and will myself better so I could go home and at least not answer the door if anyone came who I didn’t want to see.
The taxi driver has left my bag on the top step. Jack is now standing with him up there, paying.
The hospital made it clear that I was going home in a car or in an ambulance – the taxi was the lesser of two evils as the
thought
of an ambulance brought on panic attacks. We sat in the back of the taxi, not speaking, his hand wrapped around mine, while my petrified body did not move, and I kept my eyes closed to avoid seeing any other car that came near us. I’d been extremely relieved when we pulled up outside our house. Our home.
I’m scared to go inside.
When I was lying in hospital, I was desperate to get out of there, to be at home and, now, ‘home’ is where I’ll have to start again. I’ll have to be me with this face and this hair in the place where the other me lived. That’s a terrifying thought.
‘Your parents, Angela, Grace, and my parents wanted to have a welcome home party,’ Jack had told me as he wheeled me to the waiting taxi, ‘but I told them you probably wouldn’t want that. Not right away. I hope I did the right thing.’
‘Yes,’ I’d said, ‘that was the right thing.’
Jack puts his wallet into his back pocket, opens the outer door, then the inner door, to put my bag inside.
‘Good luck,’ the taxi driver says as he passes, an unexpected blessing from a stranger. ‘Take care.’
How many people does the taxi driver wish good luck?
I wonder as I watch the man I married descending the steps to help me.
Random people, hospital returnees, or damaged people who look like they need it?
I suppose I am all three.
A smile overtakes Jack’s face as he stands in front of me, and I smile back. All of this would be so much harder without him. I don’t think I’d have coped as well, would have had some good hours in among the hours of despair, if I didn’t know he was there with me all the way.
May, 2009
‘So you’re Elizabeth,’ Jack’s mother said as we stepped over the threshold. She was beaming, with her arms stretched out inwelcome. She wrapped her arms around me, hugging me close, surrounding me with that soft, intoxicating, talcum-powdery smell of a woman who takes pride in her appearance and has almost always had the money to do so. She had never ploughed her way through the bargain bin in her local supermarket for the right shade of eyeshadow. She was elegantly attired: a fawn-coloured silk shift dress under a cream, cashmere cardigan; fawn court shoes on her feet, although this looked like the type of house where visitors usually took their off shoes. Her light brown hair, streaked with strands of silver, was cut into a stylish bob, and she had gold and pearl earrings in her ears.
She clutched me tight, checking I was real perhaps, then stepped back, her hands slipping smoothly down to take my hands.
‘Let me have a look at you,’ she said, and gave me another wide, genuine smile. ‘You’re nothing like I expected. My son wouldn’t tell us a thing about you. But you’re beautiful.’
‘
Mother,’
Jack said.
‘Oh, shush,’ his mother said, jovially. ‘You should be grateful that I like her. How many young women complain about having a mother-in-law who doesn’t like them? Many, I would wager. But Elizabeth, you have been such a tonic for my son.’ She moved back a little further, still holding onto my
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