noteful | 9 June 1989, Morning

Meg feels like she’s been at the hospital in Winchester for a week.

In reality, it hasn’t even been a day yet.

Kim is on her way; Deirdre called once Meg finally stopped crying. Meg had initially suggested making the call herself, but when Deirdre said she’d take care of it, Meg hadn’t pushed it. Sometimes, after all, it’s about letting people do things for you, and Meg suspects her mother needs something to do.

Meg is discharged after breakfast and one final check in with the doctor. Her arm is still in its sling, but she’s taken the bandage off her cheek. Her mother has brought clothes for her, grabbed in a rush from the things Meg left in her closet when she went off to Montreal. Her suitcase is . . . well, wherever Alain’s car is, she supposes.

Fortunately, Meg hasn’t grown much since grade nine, when she last wore these clothes. Unfortunately, there’s a reason Meg hasn’t worn them in five years. And on top of that, Deirdre has brought her a red and green plaid pleated skirt she wore at Christmas and a pale purple eyelet blouse, with ruffles.

“I thought it was white,” Deirdre tells her, apologetically, as she helps Meg dress, which is hard to do on your own when there are buttons and zippers and a sling.

“It’s okay,” Meg says. It’s clean, which is more than Meg can say for the dress she had on yesterday.

Her mother had watched her do no more than pick at her breakfast, so Meg is not surprised when John and Deirdre take her straight to the hospital cafeteria as soon as she’s discharged.

She’s hungry, and she needs to eat, she knows that, but she has no appetite. She picks tomato soup, and asks for a mug to drink it out of, because it will be easier than trying to use a spoon with her left hand. And because drinking something isn’t quite as unappealing as eating something is. She doesn’t miss the glances her parents exchange when she asks for coffee, or when she opts to drink it black.

(It’s a way Meg never took her coffee, even back when she drank it, and it’s the way Alain takes his. Though that’s not why she does it. Or at least, she doesn’t think it’s why she does it. It just seems the thing to order.)

They spend some time in the waiting room, with the Gagnés. The conversation goes in fits and starts, and Meg finds herself spending most of it filling in vocabulary and translating as necessary. Unlike their sons, Jean-Guy and Micheline Gagné are not fluent in English. And unlike their daughter, John and Deirdre Ford are not fluent in French.

Luc sits a little way away, arms crossed tight in front of him, slumped in his chair, eyes nearly closed. Meg hadn’t thought he was paying any attention to the rest of them until she shivers in the over-air-conditioned room, and he gets up, shrugs out of his jacket, and drops it over her shoulders.

It smells like stale cigarette smoke, but it’s warm, and it’s not like adding a denim jacket big enough for two of her really makes this outfit any weirder. Meg looks up to say, “Merci.”

“He would kill me if I let you get sick,” Luc says, and goes back to his chair and his slumping.

In the early afternoon, they’re finally allowed to see Alain. He’s still unconscious, it’s still not clear when (and Meg can’t quite keep her brain from adding or if) he’ll wake up, but he’s in a stable if still critical condition. (Though Meg, the doctor's daughter, knows that critical is inherently unstable. Still, she'll take it over something like critical and wildly erratic, at least for now.)

They're supposed to visit two at a time, but when Meg and all three of the Gagnés come in together, they get what they are warned is a temporary blind eye. Meg says thank you.

In truth, she might as well have waited. She hangs back in the corner, not willing to ask Micheline or Jean-Guy or Luc to make room for her closer to Alain. She feels rather like she’s intruding just being there. Twenty minutes later, she’s about to excuse herself from the room, Luc looks up at her, and then says, “Maman, Papa,” and nods towards Meg. They all turn to look at her, and Meg is about to apologize for being in the room, when Micheline nods, and stands up. “Bien sûr,” she says.

“We’ll give you a moment,” Luc tells her.

“Merci,” Meg says. This time Luc just nods, and follows his parents out of the room.

Meg sits down in the chair Micheline has just left, and takes Alain’s good hand in hers. She doesn’t talk to him, because as much as she would like to believe that he would hear her, she doesn’t. And she can’t think of anything to say beyond You have to wake up, I need you to wake up, please wake up, anyway. And he would, if he could, Meg knows that. So what’s the point in asking?

So after a moment, Meg pulls the chair up as close to the bed as she can, and she leans so that she can lightly rest her head against his right shoulder. And she closes her eyes, and tries to tune out the beeps and whirls of the equipment all around him, tries to focus just on his scent and his heartbeat and the Alain-ness of him.

Tries, for a moment, to pretend this is no different than any other time she’s closed her eyes and put her head on his shoulder.

She doesn’t come close to succeeding.