Human Remains

nurse took me into a quiet room ‘just for a moment, while we make Mum comfortable’. She asked if I’d had anything to eat or drink, and would I like a cup of tea? I said no first, and then I changed my mind. I’d been warm downstairs in A&E but now I was unaccountably cold. She left me. I closed my eyes again, sitting back in a chair that was the most well-padded of all the chairs I’d been in tonight. I could sleep here, I thought.
    The door opened again. It was the nurse, a mug in her hand.
    ‘Do you want to come with me?’ she asked. ‘We’ve got her all settled now.’
    Mum was in a side room, freshly dressed in a new gown that was much looser around her chest and shoulders. She was lying still and, even though she was in exactly the same position as she had been in A&E, she did look more comfortable. She had a drip going into her arm but the oxygen mask was gone. She looked peaceful, although her breathing was loud, as if she was snoring.
    ‘There we are,’ the nurse said. ‘You must be shattered. I can get you a zed bed, if you’d like to try and get some sleep.’
    ‘No, thanks,’ I said, not wanting to put her to any trouble. There was a chair like the one in the other waiting room. I could sleep in that.
    ‘I’m waiting to see someone from Palliative Care,’ she said. ‘They should come along soon and explain what’s going to happen.’
    ‘Thank you,’ I said.
    ‘If you have any questions…’ she said. ‘Anything at all?’
    I should have had a hundred questions, but for now I couldn’t think of anything. She put the tea down on the cabinet that separated the comfy chair from Mum’s bed.
    ‘Are you alright?’ she asked. ‘I know that’s a silly question, sorry.’
    ‘Hm?’ I looked up at her.
    ‘It wasn’t your fault,’ she said. She put a hand on my arm. ‘These things do happen, you know – awful things. It’s hard to come to terms with sometimes.’
    ‘I guess so.’
    She was so kind; I felt tears starting. I ran a hand through my hair. My scalp felt itchy, my hair lank. ‘Thank you,’ I said.
    After that the nurse left, and it was just me and Mum.
    I slept for a few minutes at a time, upright in the chair. I must have slept properly at one point because when I woke up someone had put a blanket round me. I closed my eyes again and when I opened them it was almost daylight outside. The blinds were drawn but there was light coming through them.
    Mum hadn’t moved. I stretched and moved the blanket to one side, then eased myself up out of the chair. I felt dizzy for a moment, then when it passed I hobbled stiffly over to the window and pulled the hanging blind to one side to look out, over the car park at the back. There were spaces. It was a grey day, dark clouds overhead. The trees at the far end of the car park were moving, so it must have been windy.
    I went back to the chair.
    At seven o’clock I went downstairs and out through Reception into the fresh air. There was still a crowd around the smoking area. I wondered if it was the same people. My phone had just enough battery left for me to leave a message for Bill and another one for Kate. Then I went back upstairs to Mum’s room. Nothing had changed.
    At about nine o’clock I went for a walk through the hospital. It was bustling now, people walking up and down corridors with a purpose. Trolleys, people pulling relatives backwards in those rear-wheel-drive wheelchairs, kids in pushchairs. I went to the café near the front entrance but the smell of food made me feel queasy, so I went into the shop and bought a bottle of water and a bag of boiled sweets. That would do.
    I walked all the way down one corridor, past the clinics, past X-Ray, down to Oncology and the double doors at the end. Then I turned around and walked all the way back. After that I gave up and went back upstairs to the Stroke Unit.
    At half-past ten a woman from Palliative Care finally came to see me. She was a nurse but dressed in smart trousers and a green jumper, a chunky necklace. By that time I think the news had sunk in that Mum was going to die. The sound of her breathing had changed too. The snoring got louder and then gradually it seemed to quieten for a while, before changing to a regular, short gasp.
    ‘The morphine drip will make her more comfortable,’ the nurse said. ‘She’s just in a very deep sleep right now.’
    ‘How long will she be like this?’ I asked.
    ‘It’s difficult to say,’ she said. ‘It might be a