Wild Fiction

Rebecca felt her heart thumping against the inside of her ribs. Her hands felt wet and clammy and a fear cramped in her stomach. She ran down the corridor until she came to the nurses’ room and burst in.
‘What happened to the woman in room two twenty?’ she asked in between short breaths.
The two nurses in the room looked up at her from the magazine they were reading together.
‘She’s gone into...are you family?’ one of the nurses asked.
‘Yes I’m family.’
‘What’s your relationship to her?’
‘I’m her sister. My name’s Rebecca.’
‘I’m very sorry Rebecca but this afternoon she slipped into a coma. We moved her back to intensive care.’
Rebecca sat down on a nearby chair, put her head into her hands, and wept. One of the nurses came over, sat next to her, and put an arm around her.
‘Can I see her?’ Rebecca asked looking up from her hands.
The nurse bit her lip and shook her head.
‘When can I see her?’ Rebecca said.
‘You’ll have to phone and find out what state she’s in. I’m very sorry.’

Chapter 71

Rebecca phoned twenty times a day for the next three days. Finally, the hospital told her she could come in and see Genevieve but not to expect anything.
Genevieve was still in a coma but her condition had stabilised. Rebecca sat next to her, watching the ventilator pump air into a hole in her throat. She held Genevieve’s hand and cried. The nurses had to tell her to go home at the end of visiting hour.
Rebecca returned every day for the next four months. She cried a lot in the beginning but then brought in books to read to Genevieve. During her allotted time in the afternoons, she would sit next to Genevieve’s head and read softly into her ear.