telling her that she was lucky to have Derry on the scene and that he was so different from most guys. He wasnât one to shirk the responsibilities of fatherhood. She knew that, but sometimes she longed for more. Perhaps to feel that his weekly visits to her apartment and his involvement in her life were not just because of the dark-haired bundle of mischief the two of them had managed to produce. Funny, the only female that he could totally commit to was a three-year-old!
She got up to go and made Molly swear to behave.
âListen, Iâm sorry having to call on you like this. Are you sure youâre OK about it?â
âWeâll manage.â
âI donât know what Iâll do if she dies!â
âHey! Come on, donât talk like that. Maeveâs strong. Sheâs a tough Dillon woman. Youâll see, sheâll get through this.â
âIâm not sure if she will,â Kate said, trying to compose herself as she grabbed her car keys and kissed Molly goodbye.
She cursed the heavy traffic and overcrowded roads and prayed that she would soon reach Waterfordâs main hospital and find her mother much recovered. Aunt Vonnie wasnât usually an alarmist but sometimes falls and head injuries looked a lot worse than they were. Her mother could be sitting up in bed talking by now, for all she knew.
At the Wexford lights she checked her phone: still no reply from her older sister. Putting her foot on the accelerator of the Golf she passed a slow truck hauling cattle for the ferry, the animals staring balefully at her.
She eased the car into fifth gear as she followed the Dublin to Waterford road hoping she would make good time. She put on the radio but couldnât concentrate on the news so she switched to her Coldplay CD, the familiar music soothing her.
It was almost dark by the time she reached the city. The shops and banks were shut. The streets were empty as she drove through it and out past the college and the glass factory to the Tramore road to the hospital, where she easily found a spot in the almost empty car park.
âKate! Oh, thank God youâre here.â
Her aunt looked as if she had aged ten years in a few hours. Her naturally curly dark hair was standing on end, her face pale and strained as Kate hugged her tight.
âHow is she?â
âThereâs no change. I keep asking but thatâs all theyâll say.â
âCan I see her?â
âThereâs a nurse in the station there. Nurse Kelly. Sheâs expecting you.â
The nurse was calm and gentle as she explained how they still had not fully ascertained what had happened to Kateâs mother. A massive bleed to the brain but the extent of the damage, and her chance of recovering, it was still far too early to say.
âCan I talk to her doctor?â
Dr Healy had gone home for the night but would be on again in the morning when her mother would be fully assessed by a neurologist and the team.
Nurse Kelly passed Kate a gown and led her into the intensive care ward where her mother lay.
Kate felt a chill pass over as she entered the long narrow room. She was unable to ascertain which of the high narrow beds held her own mother. Fear choked her as she realized they all almost looked like corpses attached to machines that forced air into lungs and monitored every minute change of rhythm and pressure. The nurse led her to the woman in a bed down on the right. It was her mother, her face calm, eyes closed, her skin cold to touch. She looked so different with the colour drained from her skin, her hair brushed back off her face, her grey roots showing. She was wearing a simple printed tie-back hospital gown. Kate automatically bent forward to touch her.
âWhy is she cold?â she blurted out, trying to rub her motherâs arm and shoulder and warm her.
âItâs better she is cool than hot with a temperature. The air here is kept at a regular temperature to