Mind Games

Chapter Two

  The Loss

  Amanda Middleton would never forget this day. It would stay with her forever. Today was the day her baby would die.

  Graham kept saying that Jayne had really died on Monday night, six months ago, when her car had hit that lamp-post on the A6 just outside Chorley. But Amanda knew that her husband was just trying to take the pressure off, to make her feel better. They both knew in their hearts that their daughter would die tonight, when they finally switched off the machines that still breathed life into her.

  Graham and Amanda Middleton sat on each side of their daughter’s bed in the intensive care unit of Preston Royal Hospital. They held each other’s hands across the bed, and held their daughter’s hands as she lay there between them. If it hadn’t been for the pipes and tubes, Jayne would have looked like she was just asleep. That was what hurt the most.

  Jayne hardly had a scratch after the accident. Just a bump on the head, that’s all it was. She was still alive and awake when the ambulance got to her, but on the way to the hospital she had faded into a coma. She had never woken.

  Irretrievable brain damage, the doctors had said. Although Jayne looked alive, it was only the machines that kept her breathing.

  Slowly, Amanda and Graham had come to terms with the idea that their daughter was gone. It had been very difficult. The hospital had provided counselling, and all the doctors and nurses had been very understanding and kind. But for a long time Amanda couldn’t, wouldn’t accept it. Jayne was here, in this bed, breathing. How could they think about switching her off? Even now, Amanda was having second thoughts.

  “I can’t do it, Graham,” she said tearfully to her husband. “I can’t.”

  Graham swallowed. “I know, love. But you have to remember what the doctor’s said. The spirit, the life, that thing that was Jayne, it’s gone. Once it lived in her head, but not anymore.”

  “But I can feel her Graham!” Amanda exclaimed, squeezing her daughter’s hand in her own. “She’s warm, and she’s breathing! This can’t be right.”

  Graham couldn’t answer. Like his wife, he had hoped that this day would never come. Instead he had held on to the faint hope that his daughter would awake, that one day her eyes would open, and their torment would finally end. He had put to the back of his mind all thought of the dreadful alternative. But now they both had to face that alternative.

  Graham and Amanda Middleton stared at one another sadly across the bed. Six months they had been visiting Jayne here in the hospital, and not once had there been any change. Finally, today, they had signed the consent forms that would allow the hospital to disconnect the machines that fed their daughter life and air.

  Doctor Hughes, who they had come to know so well, stood at the back of the room, waiting silently. So far he had said nothing, but now he coughed nervously. “If you want to wait a bit longer, I can leave it until tomorrow,” he said, tentatively.

  Amanda saw the look on her husband’s face, and glanced quickly at Doctor Hughes. His face was as sad as theirs. Amanda squeezed her eyes shut, and shook her head. “No,” she said with renewed strength. “We owe it to Jayne not to let this drag on any longer.” She held her daughter’s and her husband’s hands even tighter in her own as she whispered, “I’m ready.”