The doctor at the hospital told me H’s appendix was the size of a tennis ball when they cut it out, ready to burst. He was lucky they’d got to him when they did, any longer and he could have died. I went through to the ward. H looked shrunken in the bed, like they’d taken out more than his appendix. He had a tube in the back of his hand and one up his nose. The skin around his eyes was almost as black as his hair, his skin almost as white as the sheets. He was slick with sweat. I stayed with him until it got dark. Eventually the nurses shooed me home, reassuring me over and over that he was fine and I could come and see him tomorrow.
I came back the next day after school, and the day after, but it wasn’t until three days had passed that he woke up. It was a busy Saturday and I had to struggle through the morning shoppers to get to the hospital. I was exhausted by the time I got to his ward. I smiled at the nurse on duty, a new girl I hadn’t seen before. H’s bed was the third bed on the right. When I got there, I smoothed his hair and placed my hand on his forehead. He was cooler than he had been for the last couple of days. I sat down on a green chair, bathed in warm autumn morning sunshine. I must have drifted off, because I was woken by his voice,
“Did they take it out?”
“Oh. Yes. You’re ok now.”
“What day is it? It must be Wednesday.”
“It’s Saturday.”
“Saturday! I can’t have been asleep all that time! I don’t remember. What happened?”
He seemed more terrified by the loss of those days than by the operation. But then he’d had more than his fair share of hospitals for a kid his age.
For the next few days he stubbornly refused to sleep, snapping back his eyelids and shaking his head every time he drifted off. He kept asking me what was happening outside, at school, at home, what he had missed, if his classmates had asked about him, who had built the best snowman. On the third day he seemed calmer and allowed himself to doze fitfully. In his sleep, H assumed the look of a startled animal, skittish and twitchy. His arms and legs kicked out, like when a dog is dreaming. I wondered what he was chasing. I stroked his brow as he slept, to calm him.
After two weeks he was allowed to come home. I collected him from the hospital and we drove home. All the way, he scrutinised everything, trees, buildings, people walking their dogs. He seemed reassured that everything looked the same, that the world hadn’t changed in his absence. He went first to his room, and spent a few minutes sitting on the bed, looking around. It was like he was seeing everything for the first time, or playing Kim’s Game. I had the feeling that he was trying to fix the image of all his toys, his clothes, and his furniture in his mind just as they were. I stood in the doorway, watching him closely. Something had changed about H during his time in the hospital. He’d always been a serious kid, but now he seemed somehow disconnected from the world, like he was looking at everything through glass. He seemed a thousand years old. Eventually his eyes came to rest on me. All at once he was a kid again.
“You were there when I was asleep. I wasn’t sure at first that it was you because I didn’t really see you. It was more like a feeling that you were there.”
“That’s good. I was there, you know. Maybe because I was thinking about you so much I could cross over into your sleep.”
“I think that’s right. I’m not sure that if you weren’t there I could have woken up. I think that you reminded me that I had to come back.”
“Don’t worry about it too much. You’re home now.”
I walked to him and sat down on the bed beside him. He leaned into me like he used to when he was younger. I put my arm around his shoulders. We sat there for a while, not speaking. After a while he stirred.
“I’ve been thinking about something.”
H got up, and walked into the hall. I heard him open the store cupboard and the sound of him rummaging around. After a minute, he returned carrying J’s old camera. I had no idea that it was still in there. The case was dusty and battered, but it was a good make. J had never used it much; he never really had the eye for it, but somehow it looked right in H’s hands.
“Do you have any film?”
“I think there’s some on my desk. I’ll go get it.”
“Thanks.”
I went to my room and took a roll of film from my desk draw. As I slide the draw shut again I suddenly had a thought. I pulled the drawer open again and took out the thick stack of papers. Stuff I wanted to deal with later, or didn’t know what to do with but didn’t want to throw out. I searched through and near the bottom I found two black and white photos, taken with the same camera that H had unearthed. Both were of me. In the first, I was standing facing the camera in a simple white dress. I was on a ferry and behind me was an expanse of dark water. The wind had caught my hair and blown it across my face, so anyone looking at the photo would have a hard time knowing who it was. I looked cold. The second photo I hadn’t realised he had taken. I was leaning over the rail of the ferry, looking out to sea. There was nothing in my expression.
I put the papers back into the drawer and then dropped the photos in the bin. Then I went back to H’s room. When I got there, he was fast asleep, the camera, now out of its case, cuddled under his arm like a teddy bear. I slid the door shut and went and made some lunch.