An Impossible Dilemma: A Psychological Thriller Novel, page 3
Tears filled my eyes, and I buried my face in the tea towel, unable to hold them back any longer.
"I'm sorry, Vic. I didn't mean to upset you.”
"No. It's not you. Tears are never very far from the surface lately.”
Stephanie hugged me and stroked my hair as uncontrollable sobs escaped me.
"What did the doctor say?"
"We go for the results on Monday." I hiccupped.
Steph nodded. "Okay."
"Come on, the food'll be cold. I made your favourite, lasagne," I said, wiping my eyes on the towel once more.
"Yum. Come on then, what are we waiting for?" The mood suddenly lifted again.
I was so pleased to have her here. Not just for the extra help around the place, but because of the emotional support she would provide. And for the laughs that followed her around everywhere—God knows we needed more laughs around the place.
Monday loomed. I needed to know what was wrong with my baby, but I knew from the bottom of my heart that it wasn't going to be good news.
Chapter 3
Doctor Wilson shuffled the papers on the desk in front of him. He seemed to be avoiding our gaze.
Jonathan’s jaw clenched and unclenched over and over, he had dark smudges under his eyes. Neither of us had slept properly in weeks.
He gave me a tight, half smile and reached for my hand, pulling it onto his lap. He stroked along the top of my knuckles with his thumb.
Emily sat on the floor to the side of us, leafing through a book we’d found in reception.
Unable to sit still, my legs twitched uncontrollably to match my erratic heartbeat. My breath struggled to reach my lungs.
I scanned the room in an attempt to calm myself.
A bookcase held lots of clues to the private Doctor Wilson. The numerous dead fish he’d held up to be photographed over the years indicated he was a keen fisherman. I could tell they spanned a period of time, simply due to the varying degrees of grey in his hair.
A large hunk of driftwood commanded one whole shelf, and I couldn’t figure out why it was important—it didn’t look like anything in particular. Several photo frames showed a pretty dark-haired woman and two teenage boys—his wife and sons?
“Okay then, as you know, the reason you’re here today is for the results of the tests,” the doctor said.
I almost leapt out of my skin as his booming voice broke the silence of the room. “I’m sorry, I was miles away.”
He took a deep breath before continuing. “We have all the results back, but I’m afraid I don't have good news.” He paused, as if waiting for his words to sink in.
Neither of us said a word. Jonathan gripped my hand tighter. I held my breath.
“The scan shows Emily’s cerebellum is shrinking. The cerebellum is also known as ‘the little brain’ an area of the hindbrain that controls motor movement, coordination, balance, equilibrium and muscle tone. It contains hundreds of millions of neurons for processing data, and relays information between body muscles and areas of the cerebral cortex that are involved in motor control.”
“Why is it shrinking?” I shrieked, unable to comprehend his words.
Emily snapped her head around to look at me.
“There could be a number of reasons. Nine times out of ten we never know the cause, but in this instance we do—Emily is not producing an essential hormone called Proteum that's normally produced in a tiny gland at the base of the skull.”
“Can she be treated?” Jonathan whispered.
The room was spinning. How could this be happening to our gorgeous girl?
Emily, no longer interested in the book, glanced from me to her dad and back to the doctor. I realized she was listening to everything, and although I didn't think she'd understand, I didn’t want her to ask questions.
“Is there any chance Emily can go and play in reception? She doesn’t want to listen to all this boring grown-up talk do you, Em?” My voice sounded much brighter than I felt.
“Of course. I’ll get Diane to watch her.” He stood up and walked into the reception, returning with a middle-aged woman with spiky grey hair, laughing blue eyes and a smile to match.
“How about I show you where we hide the best toys, sweetie?” she said to Emily, who had climbed onto Jon’s knee.
She turned her face into his chest.
“Come on, Em, we won’t be long. We need to talk to the doctor for a few minutes, and then we’ll go home to see Steph,” I whispered.
“I’ve got a pretty dolly out here and her name’s Steph. She has lots of different dresses. Shall I show you?” Diane urged.
Emily lifted her head.
“Come on, sweetie.”
Emily took Diane’s hand and followed her outside.
“Thanks, Doctor. I don’t want her to hear what’s coming next.”
“I understand.”
I gripped Jonathan’s hand and braced myself.
“Now, where were we?” Doctor Wilson said.
“Can she be treated, Doctor?” Jonathan asked again.
He shook his head. “This hormone is essential for her development. Without it, she’ll continue to deteriorate. I’m so sorry.”
“I don’t understand. There’s nothing at all you can do?” I asked, my mind in a whirl. This was much worse than anything I’d imagined over the past weeks. My whole body shook. I couldn’t absorb what he was telling us.
“No. It’s incredibly rare. There were a number of trials conducted a few years ago. Attempts were made to transplant from a living donor, a similar procedure to a bone-marrow transplant, but on each occasion the donor died within twenty-four hours. The trials were stopped.”
“What if I donated mine?” I said, grasping at any possibility, my mind racing.
“Even if you could donate yours, it wouldn’t work because, although you do still produce Proteum, you no longer produce the quantities needed for the development of a young girl. Anybody over the age of twenty-five won’t produce nearly enough.”
“Do the donors have to be a match, like with a bone marrow transplant?”
“No—but we’re getting way off track here, Mrs Lyons. The trials were stopped.”
“What about someone who’s already dead, or dying?”
“No. The Proteum needs to come from a living brain to be viable. I’m being purely hypothetical now as I know you’re trying to understand. If a potential donor is brain-dead, the Proteum won't be viable either.”
“So in other words, my daughter is going to die,” Jonathan said, in a flat, matter-of-fact voice.
“I’m afraid so, Mr Lyons—and I’m sorry.”
Hearing the words spoken out loud made my head spin. “How long?” I asked, my teeth chattered, I was shaking so much.
“I’m sorry?”
“How long until she dies? How long do we have?”
“It’s hard to say, as the symptoms vary from person to person. I suggest we do some more tests in two months. It will enable us to see how quickly she’s deteriorating and give us some idea of what to expect.”
I wanted to scream at him—for his pompous, no-nonsense answers—for his calm manner—for his rotten lying mouth. But instead I felt my shoulders sag. An empty hole in the very centre of my being grew larger and more painful by the second. This couldn’t be happening.
The posters on the wall were jumping out at me. One was entitled “Brain Jokes”. I didn’t read any further. Some fucking joke this was.
I looked at Jonathan and noticed he hadn’t moved a muscle, except huge tears ran down his face and dripped off his chin.
“Jon. Jon? Are you okay?” I pulled him to me and held his head to my chest as loud sobs escaped him.
I couldn’t cry. I was numb. My mind raced—there must be a way. We couldn’t just allow our beautiful precious girl to die. There must be something we could do.
“I need a second opinion, Doctor,” I said.
“Of course you do, and all the test results will go to my colleague for a second opinion automatically. However, I can assure you, the diagnosis will remain the same.”
“It’s not that I don’t trust you,” I gulped, “but this is our baby—we’ve got to try everything. We can’t allow her to die without a fight.”
“I understand.”
“So what do we do now? Does she need medication to help with the symptoms?” I said.
“Not at the moment, but once her symptoms progress we can suggest a number of treatments that might help. A speech or language therapist will probably be needed, as she’s already showing signs of this being a problem. She may have swallowing difficulties, but it’s hard to say what Emily’s symptoms will be. No two cases are identical.”
I shook my head in confusion. How could this be true? My insides were churning, and I thought I might unload the contents of my stomach all over the pristine oak desk.
“What causes it?” Jonathan said.
“It’s not clear, but studies show that it’s probably caused by a defective gene passed down from both parents. It often turns out that siblings will also have the same condition.”
“So we gave it to her?” I asked, horrified.
“We think so.”
“If we have more children, they could be the same?” I asked, the room spinning wildly.
“If you have more children together, then yes, they will certainly have this condition.” He shrugged.
“So what now?” My voice sounded flat and alien to my ears.
“There is nothing else, I’m afraid. Diana will give you some leaflets on your way out. If you have any questions, please contact me or my team, and we’ll assist you in any way we can.”
We all got to our feet.
“One last thing, doctor.”
He nodded, “Of course.”
“In the trials—how did the patients react to the treatment?”
“The results were immediate and it was around six months before the symptoms returned. Obviously the trials had ended by then, and no more treatment was available.”
I couldn’t believe what he was telling me. There was a possible chance to cure my daughter but instead they’d stopped all the tests. And although six months wasn’t a long time in the grand scheme of things, I’d gladly give her my Proteum if it would help to buy her more time.
After all, a lot can happen in six months.
Chapter 4
Emily seemed lost in the hugeness of the red leather armchair. She appeared even smaller than she had yesterday, as though she was shrinking before my very eyes.
The concentration on her face was priceless she tried to pull a pair of blue trousers onto a doll. Her trusty companion, Filly, had been propped up beside her in the corner of the chair.
"You ready to go, sweetheart?" I said. My heart breaking as she glanced up at me. Her large grey eyes, too big for her face, were wide with surprise. She'd been so engrossed in what she was doing that she hadn’t noticed us come out of Doctor Wilson’s office.
She looked at Diana and back at the doll.
"I'll finish dressing her for you, sweetie." Diana came around from the desk and took the doll from Emily and smiled. "Did you like the clothes I made for her?"
Emily nodded and also smiled.
"You can dress her next time. It's just our secret though, okay?"
"Okay." Emily smiled again as she stood up. Becoming embarrassed at us all staring at her, she grasped my hand and hid behind my leg.
"Come on, my baby—let's go. Shall we get something to eat?"
"Happy Meal," she squealed, and lifted her clenched fists up to her chin and held her breath, smiling.
“I think we can manage that, can't we, Daddy?" I glanced at Jonathan. He'd not said a word since leaving the doctor's office.
"Course we can. Anything you want, Em."
“McDonald’s, here we come," I said.
I rarely let her eat junk food, but what good had that done her? My baby was dying, and I was damned if I would stop her from having anything she wanted now.
We found a restaurant on the roundabout just before the motorway entrance. The place was full. It always surprised me how children would choose McDonald’s above anywhere else when given a choice.
After nibbling at a burger, Emily walked over to the climbing frame. She stood to the side, watching the other children charging up the steps and launching themselves down the slide.
Jonathan turned to me and reached for my hand. "How are we going to get through this, Vic? I feel like we’re in a nightmare."
I grasped at his fingers, staring into his eyes. I couldn’t tell whose hands were shaking the most. Words were too difficult without crying and I was adamant Emily wouldn’t see any tears. I turned back to watch her.
Emily took tentative steps to the bottom of the ladder, looking at the slide with longing. I knew she wanted to race up them, but she hadn't the energy.
I sidled out from behind the table. “Do you want a turn on the slide, Em?”
She nodded.
I lifted her onto the platform at the top of the ladder, and she slid down the red plastic slide.
"Do you want to do it again, baby?" I held my arms out as she walked towards me.
"No thanks, Mummy." She said, then stuck her thumb in her mouth.
"Do you want anything else? Some dessert, an ice cream sundae?"
Her eyes lit up as she thought about it and then she shook her head, thumb still firmly in place. I could have kicked myself for all the times she asked us for ice cream or to go to McDonald’s and we'd refused. Now we were going to allow her whatever her heart desired and the poor girl couldn't face anything.
I turned back to Jonathan, and he looked away, before hurrying to the bathroom.
This awful situation had hit him hard.
I'd prepared myself for bad news, although I’d not imagined the results to be this bad. But Jon had refused to think about it. He’d convinced himself she would be okay.
I dreaded going home, having to explain everything to Frank and Stephanie. I would be happy to stall the whole thing as long as possible, but Emily's energy was flagging, and she needed to go.
"Don't forget your Pinky Pie, Em." I rescued her My Little Pony toy from underneath the table. She’d been thrilled when she pulled it out of her Happy Meal carton earlier, discarding poor Filly to the top of my handbag.
"Oh!" she gasped, snatching the pink plastic horse from me and holding it to her chest dramatically.
I laughed. An immense sadness gripped my heart and I choked, almost bursting into tears but I controlled myself in time.
Jonathan returned. His face had paled even more, but other than that, he was smiling at Emily, covering his feelings perfectly. "Where to next, my dear?" he said, in a posh accent.
Emily laughed. "Daddy—we're going home."
"Home, James, and don't spare the horses!" He twirled Emily onto his shoulders and galloped out of the restaurant. Her tinkling laughter accompanied us to the car.
She slept all the way home.
“What are you thinking?” Jon asked after several minutes of silence.
“About my mum. For the first time in my life, I wish I’d inherited her gift.”
“You want to be a medium, get visited by spirits of dead people while you’re sitting on the toilet or taking a shower?”
I laughed. “No, you twit. She wasn’t just a medium. She was a psychic. People queued around the block for a reading when I was a kid. There were always women sitting in our lounge waiting for their turn. I don’t remember even one of those women leaving with dry eyes.”
“I don’t know, Vic. Imagine, if on the day you gave birth to Emily, we’d been told this would happen to her. How the knowledge would have tainted every single thing we’ve done over the past five years. Ignorance is bliss, I say.”
“I guess you’re right. What confused me the most growing up is if Mum was such a great psychic, why didn’t she predict her own illness?”
Jonathan shrugged one shoulder. “Maybe you can’t see the future of yourself or close family.”
“Yeah, and like you say, it would drive you demented waiting for things to happen.”
“Anyway, I don’t believe in paranormal stuff. Choose not to believe it. I’d die of fright if a ghost appeared in front of me.” Jonathan shuddered.
I laughed. “I know. That’s why I’ll never watch a scary movie with you ever again. Your screaming frightens me more than the movie does. You big wuss!”
Jonathan grabbed my knee, squeezing it playfully.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” I giggled until he let go.
I felt guilty to be behaving like this while still trying to absorb the awful news. However, our whole relationship had been built on laughter and torment and vast amounts of teasing, making it difficult for us to communicate any other way.
“Besides,” he continued, “if it was true, why has she never come back for a visit? You’d think your mum would move mountains to visit her only daughter. To prove that there is life after death.”
“I guess.” I shrugged. “Dad always said she was with us. He said he could sense her and strange things happened around the house that had to be her doing. But I never saw anything.”
“Yeah, but he did hit the bottle quite heavily after she died, didn’t he?”
“He had to get drunk so he could sleep. He never got over her.” I turned away and gazed through the window, my fingers automatically finding the locket at my throat.
“I’ll make you a deal,” Jon said. “If I go first, I promise to haunt you. So long as you promise if you go first, you won’t even think about haunting me.”
I laughed again, the sadness gone for a few seconds as I imagined myself as a ghost visiting Jon. “I’d make sure I came while you were on the toilet, seeing as that’s your worst fear.”
“Bitch!” Jonathan also laughed briefly.
We reached the farm and sat staring through the windscreen for several minutes. Both lost in our own thoughts, until Emily stirred in the back seat.
"Hey—there you are, Miss Emily. I was about to send out a search party to the land of nod."
