Ella Harper - Pieces of You.

We went in together, almost bumping into a youngish doctor – or was he a consultant? He had some notes in his hand and he was talking to a nurse. They were in the way of the bed and I couldn’t see Luke.

‘Mrs Harte? I was just about to come and find you. I’m Dr Wallis, Luke’s consultant.’ He seemed surprised to see me, but he was calm and pleasant.

I squeezed Dee’s fingers. My terror was barely contained; it simmered just below the surface. I could feel the blood pumping round my body, was suddenly aware of its ebb and flow.

Dr Wallis turned to me. ‘This will probably be shocking for you, but I’m going to talk you through what happened to Luke tonight, okay?’

I think I nodded.

I stared past him, trying to catch sight of Luke. When I did, I felt as though I’d been knocked sideways. He didn’t look like himself at all. His lovely face was caked with dark, dried blood, especially round his mouth. Someone had tried to clean him up but there had obviously been more important things to tend to.

‘Luke was brought into A&E some hours ago,’ Dr Wallis was saying. ‘He was assessed by the trauma team and he was immediately referred to the general surgery team. The most life-threatening condition that needed to be dealt with was Luke’s ruptured spleen.’

A ruptured spleen. I searched my memory, trying to recall Luke’s study notes, the ones he used to recite aloud before exams. A ruptured spleen was dangerous but it might heal on its own or it could be removed.

I glanced at Luke again. His body was still, bizarrely so. Luke was never still; he was constantly talking, laughing, goofing around. He had bandages binding almost every limb, halting him, keeping him inert. He looked completely broken. Broken; as though he was made out of china, not from bones and organs and skin. What the hell had happened to him?

The specialist’s voice swam into my consciousness. As well as the ruptured spleen, Luke had several broken bones, including ribs, both legs and collarbone. Damage to the spine, full extent of damage not yet known. A head injury resulting from a shaft of metal from the front grill of the lorry sticking out of Luke’s head like a chocolate flake in an ice cream cone. Surgery to remove the metal.

‘Luke also had a cardiac arrest when he was brought into A&E,’ Dr Wallis said gently. ‘We think this was as a result of hypovolemic shock, brought on by his ruptured spleen. Spleens bleed like you wouldn’t believe,’ he added, ‘which in turn means there is a high risk of this kind of heart attack.’

‘This kind of heart attack?’ Dee asked, looking dazed. ‘Is there more than one kind?’

Dr Wallis smiled at her. ‘Yes. But I won’t bore you with the details of the other kind. The only other thing I must add, Mrs Harte, is that we are monitoring Luke closely as he is at high risk of developing a blood clot. We call it an embolus,’ he said, I think for Dee’s benefit. ‘Luke has undergone extensive surgery and now that he is immobile and in a comatose state, this is something that can be a concern.’

Really? A possible ‘embolus’ was cause for concern? Jesus. My brain couldn’t compute any of this. I flinched inwardly from the onslaught of information; I had to break it down. Broken bones could be mended – or operated on, worst case. The spleen had been dealt with. Comas were beyond my comprehension though, not something I could drag from my memory bank.

I walked slowly to the bed. Luke was hooked up to lots of machines. They were beeping intermittently, overlapping one another with shrill monotony.

I reached out a hand. It was shaking horribly. I wanted to touch him. Would he feel cold to touch? No, how silly. His chest was rising and falling rhythmically, accompanied by artificial sucking and blowing noises, which would have sounded comical, except that they were anything but. I took Luke’s hand. It was warm. Warm, but motionless. I gripped his hand, willing him to respond. His face remained immobile, his eyelids not even fluttering at the touch. He wasn’t Luke.

Dr Wallis was still talking. ‘The next few days will be critical. How Luke responds to his injuries early on will be a key indication of his overall recovery, but there is much for him to get through. If he stays in the coma for a few days or more, we’ll probably run a CT scan. This rules out bleeds or infarcts.’ His expression, when my utter bewilderment gave away how little I was following, was apologetic. ‘As traumatic as this is for you to see, Luke’s coma is probably helping him right now.’

I nodded. That I remembered. The coma was protecting Luke from the pain – it was the body’s way of shutting down and coping. The specialist murmured a few more words to Dee, then left. The nurse stayed. Protocol in ICU; I knew that.

‘He’s going to be all right,’ Dee said, putting her hand on mine. Her voice sounded artificially bright and I knew without turning round that she was crying. ‘He’s going to pull through and when he does, he’s going to tell us to stop being so silly and emotional.’

‘He … he doesn’t know about the baby, Dee.’ My chin quivered. ‘Should I tell him about the baby? What do I …? I don’t know what to do.’

‘Oh, darling.’ Dee bent down and curled her arms around my neck.

I felt her rest her face against my hair, her cheeks wet. I swallowed, twice. I could feel something rising up inside me and I knew that, when it took hold, it was going to overwhelm me. I willed Luke to wake up and make my world right again. He didn’t and it wasn’t.

My heart clenched. I had lost our baby. I had lost our baby and my best friend, the one person I needed to talk to about it, was lying in a coma. I needed Luke’s arms around me. I needed him to tell me it was all going to be all right, even though I knew it wasn’t. I just wanted to hear his voice.

When Joe – Luke’s paramedic partner – urgently dashed in and started telling me what had happened, I found myself unable to be brave any longer. Hearing Joe’s earnest, apologetic account of the ghastly details, I broke down and sobbed.

Thirty minutes later, Patricia arrived at the hospital. Inside Luke’s room, she stopped abruptly in front of the bed. She wasn’t prepared … she hadn’t known what state he would be in. Lucy had left her a garbled message and, as soon as she had received it, Patricia had pulled on some clothes and driven to the hospital. But she hadn’t expected this – she hadn’t anticipated seeing her son looking as though he’d been broken in half and battered with a hammer.

Patricia felt hysteria coiling up inside her. My boy. My beautiful boy .

‘What happened? How could this have happened?’ Her voice became shrill even though she wasn’t sure who exactly she was addressing. A nurse looked up. She was unperturbed by the emotional outburst and seemed about to speak, but when someone else entered the room she placidly returned to her notes.

‘Mrs Harte. I’m so sorry.’

Distraught, Patricia turned. The young man who had just entered the room was vaguely familiar, but she couldn’t place him. She willed her brain to catch up.

‘I’m sorry. Have we … do I know you?’ Patricia noticed that he was wearing the same teal outfit Luke wore. He was a paramedic.

‘I’m Joe, Luke’s partner,’ the man explained. He was pale and his uniform was streaked with blood.

Patricia stared at it, sickened. Was that her son’s blood? She put her hand to her mouth. She was in danger of throwing up all over Joe’s trainers if she didn’t concentrate with every fibre of her being. Patricia turned away. She focused on Luke again, trying to make sense of everything.