Fragments

Alyson Davis was marking the assignments given to her by her English class earlier that day when the phone call arrived. It was 11.42pm and she was not one for late nights. She rubbed the sentence she’d been reading from her eyes – Teenage pregnancy is a common issue for teenage girls and is becoming commoner each year. She underlined the word ‘commoner’ before reaching over and answering the phone.

“Hello?” She stifled a yawn with her ink stained hand. She wondered for a brief second if it was Courtney, who always seemed to ring at the most inconvenient times.

“Is this Elena Davis’s mother?” a stiff voice asked, one that immediately sent alarm through Alyson’s veins. You hear about these calls, the ones that tell you that your child is either in jail, dead or in hospital.

“Yes,” she answered, hoping nothing had happened – nothing bad. All daydreams of sleep and her bed flew from her head, replaced by fragile emotions that clouded in until all reasonable thought was completely gone.

“Your daughter is in hospital-” Before whoever it was – a doctor or a nurse, maybe – could finish, Alyson interrupted. She knew it, knew something was wrong.

“Which hospital?” Something burned in her veins – something horrible, like a mixture of worry and dread and other awful feelings that surfaced all in a hurry.

“Standpoint Hospital.” That made sense – it was the closest hospital. She needn’t have even asked that question, if she’d thought it through.

Hanging up, Alyson grabbed her keys in a frenzy, forgetting about a coat, forgetting about her husband who was probably already in bed. She drove away with only one thought repeating in her head: Please be okay, Elle. Please be okay, Elle.

Around halfway to the hospital, Alyson had to pull over and rummage around for a tissue. The tears were making the road hard to see and she really didn’t need to arrive at the hospital in an ambulance. As her tears subsided, her thoughts cleared and she reassured herself that maybe Elena wasn’t too badly hurt – a broken limb, a cut that needed stitches. After all, the person hadn’t told her that her daughter was seriously injured.

Calmer, she drove the rest of the way there without a tear dropping. The woman behind the desk told her what room her daughter was in and she searched the sterile halls for it, the room that held her child. Her child, who had never seemed so fragile until now, when the proof that she wasn’t invincible was presented to her in one of the worst ways possible. At least she wasn’t dead.

Finding the room, finally, she entered and then stumbled, staring down at Elle, lying in a hospital bed with doctors around her, examining her, cleaning a wound on her head. One of them, too composed to be human, turned and led a stunned Alyson out. “I’m sorry but you can’t come in yet,” he was explaining but his words were coming up blank. He directed her to a waiting room and she sat down on a hard plastic seat, mind numb, replaying what she’d seen – how Elle looked.

How her eyes were closed so that she could very well be dead.

How her cheeks were so pale, Alyson had wanted to lean over and pinch some life into them.

How there was blood pouring from her forehead or somewhere on her head and was staining the white sheet beneath her.

How red the blood seemed.

Shakily, she pulled out the very same phone she’d received the dreadful call from and dialled a familiar number. By the time her husband answered, she was clutching her other hand to her heart, wishing it would beat out a cure for a mother’s worry.

“Aly? I thought you were just downstairs...” Christopher’s voice sounded sleepy and it took all her will not to hang up and leave him ignorant and believing that their children could never be hurt, not seriously.

“Christopher...” she breathed, relieved to hear a voice that could help her through everything.

“What’s wrong?” Already, he sounded more alert, more worried.

“I’m at the hospital.” Her voice trembled. “Elena’s been hurt, she was bleeding. They won’t let me see her. But I...I took the car so you’re going to have to wait until I come home. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” he replied but the reply was full of the same fear she was feeling, muffled by a see-through mask. Silence followed and neither of them could stand it, so Jamie asked the question he wasn’t sure he wanted answered. “What happened?”

“I...I don’t know. I didn’t ask,” she admitted quietly.

“Will she be okay?” That was the other question he wasn’t sure he wanted answered. What if Alyson said no, she’ll be affected by whatever happened permanently? What if she said yes, she’ll by fine, but they both knew she was lying?

“I don’t know.”