Could It Be Magic?. Melanie Rose

do for Lauren.

      ‘Did you all enjoy Chessington World of Adventures yesterday?’ I asked them.

      ‘We went on some really cool rides,’ Nicole said. ‘Daddy wouldn’t let us go on the really big ones, but Sophie and me went on the Vampire Ride!’

      ‘Toby and Teddy were too small,’ Sophie put in with a twinge of disappointment. ‘They only wanted to go into the Bubbleworks and to Beanoland.’

      ‘I drove Daddy in a Tiny Truck,’ Toby put in excitedly, ‘and in Beanoland we fired foam balls and went on the Bash Street Bus.’

      ‘Did Daddy go on it?’ I asked with a smile.

      ‘I had to go on all sorts of things,’ Grant said with a playful grimace. ‘Most of the rides require a parent to accompany young children, and it wasn’t easy with the twins being too small for a lot of the bigger rides.’ He gave me a wan look. ‘It would have been easier and more fun if you’d been well enough to come, Lauren. We missed you.’

      I turned my attention to Teddy. ‘Did you have a nice time too?’

      He twisted the toe of his shoe into the floor and wouldn’t answer.

      ‘You know he finds those sorts of places a challenge,’ Grant said with a sigh. ‘Remember when we took the children to the local fair last year and he spent the whole time with his head hidden under my jacket?’

      I stared at him blankly and there was a short silence as everyone realised they’d forgotten I didn’t remember anything about anything at all.

      ‘Is Mum coming home today?’ Sophie asked into the silence.

      ‘It may be possible, depending on the result of the MRI scan and as long as there will be someone at home to look after her for the next few days,’ Dr Shakir said.

      ‘I’ve taken the week off work anyway,’ Grant said. ‘And Lauren’s sister Karen has said she’ll come to stay for a couple of days next week.’

      Dr Shakir looked at me. ‘What do you think, Lauren? Are you ready to go home, even though your memory has not yet returned?’

      I didn’t like to say that if the return of my memory were the criteria for going home with the Richardsons, then I’d be in hospital forever. Lauren’s memories were not available to me. I would have to start fresh from here, or else I’d have to persuade them to keep her sedated in hospital for the rest of her life in the hope that under the influence of a drug-induced sleep I never had to return here.

      Studying each of her children in turn, I decided I’d give it a go, for their sake. A heavily sedated mother was really no mother at all, and I felt they needed a mother desperately, each in their own special way.

      Dear God, I thought, as I watched Toby bouncing on the end of the bed and the girls chatting animatedly about yesterday’s outing. Is that why I’m here?

      Grant brought in a fresh change of clothes for me that afternoon, when he returned with the children for a second visit. He told me he’d got rid of the ones I’d been wearing when the lightning struck.

      ‘They were all burned, Mummy,’ Nicole told me, her eyes as large as saucers as she remembered the incident.

      ‘And your shoes were melted,’ Toby added. ‘I carried them to the ambulance for you, but they were squished.’

      I didn’t want to dwell on the horrible reality of Lauren’s burns, which I now believed had actually killed her.

      ‘Don’t forget I still haven’t been given the all-clear from Dr Shakir,’ I reminded them gently.