a long time coming out. Teddy didn’t get enough oxygen to his brain while Toby was being born. He’s got…learning difficulties.’
I pondered this last piece of news with a sinking heart. I might be experiencing a vivid dream, but I was still here, living this life until I awoke, and it seemed to be getting more complicated by the second. How could I be capable of being a mother to all those children? Especially a child with special needs. What sort of wonder woman had this Lauren been? I hoped I would wake up soon, because if Dr Shakir was right and this was somehow real, I seriously doubted that I would ever be able to match up to her.
I suddenly felt very tired. Something in my face must have alerted Grant to my impending exhaustion, and he stood up quietly. ‘I’ll take the children home,’ he said, stooping to plant a kiss on my forehead. This time I didn’t turn my face away, but he must have seen the flicker of apprehension in my eyes because I saw the sorrow etched upon his face.
‘I hope the children won’t be upset not to see me,’ I murmured guiltily.
‘They’ll cope for now,’ he answered firmly. ‘We all will. Look,’ he added, ‘can I bring them back this afternoon, when you’ve rested?’
I nodded, wishing I had the courage to refuse him, but it seemed so petty when the children were obviously missing their mother so much, and anyway, I told myself, I might have woken up by then.
As the door closed behind him, I lay back against the pillows with a groan. ‘You’d better be wrong, Dr Shakir,’ I mumbled to the ceiling. ‘I’m Jessica, not Lauren. I’ll wake up soon and prove I’m still me.’
Grant returned later with a huge bunch of flowers that the nurse put in a large vase next to the small vase containing the flowers one of the girls had brought me earlier. Nurse Sally, as she liked to be known, had extracted the flowers from the child before the family had left, promising her I would get them.
‘Sunflowers, my favourite!’ I exclaimed when Nurse Sally had left us alone together.
Grant looked intently at me, hope lighting his features. ‘You’ve always loved them,’ he whispered, taking my hand. Do you remember that month-long holiday we took in Provence, before we had the children? Those fields of towering sunflowers seemed to go on forever and we filled all the jars and vases in the villa with them. ’
‘I love sunflowers in my real life,’ I replied stubbornly. ‘The life where I’m not married and have no children.’
‘Stop it, Lauren,’ Grant said, abruptly letting go of my hand. ‘There is no other life!’ He closed his eyes for a moment, as if to contain himself, then opened them again, and even though I hardly knew him I thought he looked drained and weary. ‘I’m sorry, sweetheart. I’m struggling with this as much as you are. I don’t know what to do.’ He sank down onto the visitor’s chair and ran a hand tiredly over his eyes. ‘I can’t bear it that you don’t remember us,’ he said quietly. ‘All those years, all the experiences we’ve shared, the loves, the sorrows, the energy we’ve put into our children. If you don’t recall any of it, it’s as if it’s all gone, it might as well never have happened. I feel like I’ve lost you.’
He leaned towards me, but I instinctively pulled back from him and he regarded me with haunted eyes. ‘I love you, Lauren. When they called to say you’d been rushed in here, and that your heart had stopped, I thought you were dead. Have you any idea how that feels? I thought I’d lost you forever, and I realised I couldn’t bear it. When the doctors said you’d live, I was so, so grateful. But you’re not really here with us, are you? I’ve lost you after all.’
I stared at him in dismay, not wanting to hurt this stranger, but unable to help him either. It was bad enough that I’d unwittingly arrived into this nightmare, but now I had this man’s distress to cope with too. Why wouldn’t I wake up? I’d never dreamed so long and so realistically before; not even when I’d eaten cheese or indulged in spicy foods before going to bed. Once, when I’d eaten a particularly hot curry when out with my girlfriends, I had dreamed strange haunting dreams on and off all night; but never anything like this. How long would it last?
I looked into his tortured face, saw the tears not far away, and realised that while I was here I was going to have to deal with the situation as best I could.
‘I’m sorry, Grant. I didn’t want any of this to happen,’ I told him quietly. ‘It isn’t anyone’s fault. I understand that you want things to be like they were before, but they can’t be. I don’t remember being your wife. I don’t want to be Lauren. There’s nothing I can do about it.’
He stared at me with tear-filled eyes, then rose from the chair and came to perch on the edge of the bed. He took my hand in his and squeezed it, and it took all my willpower to leave it where it was.
‘You’ll stay with us, though, won’t you?’ he asked. ‘You won’t leave us?’
I was still desperately contemplating my answer when the door opened and Nurse Sally shepherded the children into the room.
‘Mummy!’ they shrieked, bounding towards us.
‘Careful now,’ Grant admonished them, rising awkwardly and sniffing back his tears as the children climbed around us on the bed. ‘Don’t forget Mummy’s not well.’
Feeling like I was watching myself in a strange play, I let Grant introduce the children to me. The children had been told I’d lost my memory and seemed to find it amusing that I didn’t remember who they were.
‘Sophie here brought you the flowers,’ he told me, smiling proudly at his elder daughter.
‘Thank you, Sophie,’ I said, taking in the long chestnut hair so like her father’s, the frank green eyes.
‘Nicole made you the get well card.’
‘It’s lovely,’ I told her with a smile. ‘You got my hair just right.’
‘It was what it looked like when the lightning got you,’ she answered. ‘It stuck up just like that and sort of glowed.’
I felt as if someone had punched me in the stomach.
‘You saw it?’ I asked in dismay. ‘You saw the lightning strike me?’ Nurse Sally’s question about who I’d been with at the time of the accident echoed in my ears.
Nicole nodded. ‘It was awesome!’
‘Nicole!’ Grant scolded his daughter, ‘Don’t make it sound as if you enjoyed seeing Mummy getting hurt.’
‘I saw it, I saw it,’ cried one of the twins as he jumped at the end of the bed, narrowly missing my feet and causing waves of pain to shoot across my back. ‘Mummy was on fire!’
Grant looked as if he were about to chastise the boy I assumed was Toby, when a sorrowful little voice from the corner piped up. We all stopped talking as the second twin repeated sadly, ‘That isn’t Mummy. My mummy’s gone, and she’s here instead!’
A hushed silence filled the room. We all turned to where a small red-headed boy stood eyeing us from the doorway, tightly holding a soft, brightly coloured ball.
‘What did you say?’ I asked softly.
‘Mummy’s gone. She caught fire, and now you’s here. I want my mummy!’
And Teddy began to cry.
I realised I was clenching my hands together so tightly that the beautifully manicured fingernails were digging painfully into my palms. My breath, which had left my body in a rush with Nicole’s revelation, was having trouble drawing back into my lungs. The fact that it seemed Teddy could see me, Jessica, and not his mother changed everything.
The boy’s comment had first filled me with a sick kind of dread that this wasn’t just