Craig was awoken early the following morning by the sounds of his mother screaming as she looked down at her youngest son.
"Hey Mum how you doing?" he asked with what he hoped was a smile, but his face was still so sore and bruised that he wasn't sure if it looked like much of anything.
"Oh my god Craig, are you alright? What on earth happened to you? When did you get here? Why didn't you tell us you were coming?" Frankie bombarded her son with questions as she crossed the room to get a better look at his injuries.
Craig had expected this reaction from his mum, this was just her way. She always had a million questions about everything to do with his life and she had a habit of opening her mouth and just letting them pour out in a torrent. He smiled again as he tried to prop himself up on the bed. He had lain down the previous night, fully clothed, on top of the quilt and had fallen asleep immediately. The combination of the awkward position he had slept in and the cuts, bruises, casts and bandages he was wearing made it difficult and painful to move. He sat up with a grimace as his mother still stared at him, a look of shock etched on her features.
"I'm fine, Mum," he managed to choke out, breathing heavily through the pain as his broken ribs rubbed together. "I had a bit of a disagreement with a flight of stairs," he laughed. He wasn't sure where the words had come from but his mother seemed to believe it. Either that or she was too shocked and worried by his appearance that she hadn't really taken in what he'd said. "I'm really okay," he continued. "Spent a night in hospital in Dublin. They released me yesterday on the condition that I came home where there were people around who could wait on me hand and foot!" he said with a smile.
"You were in hospital and you didn't call?" Frankie yelled. Craig felt his heart pounding. He knew this was hard on his mum; she always wanted to protect him, but the idea of calling her when he was in hospital terrified him. He could've stood the fussing and overprotective bit she'd have done, up to a point anyway, but he couldn't stand the idea of her knowing what had really happened.
"It was one night, Mum." He looked away from her; he couldn't bear to look her in the eye as he lied to her. "They just wanted to make sure I hadn't damaged my brain too much." He looked back as his mum and was slightly frightened by the look of shock on her face. "But you know," he continued, "once they realised I didn't have one to begin with they let me go." He smiled, trying to put his mum at ease by turning the serious subject around and making a joke of it, the way he always did.
Frankie smiled and Craig relaxed for the first time since he'd woken up. He was relieved she seemed to have bought his story, for the minute anyway. She pulled him into a hug and he managed to bite his lip as his ribs protested to the grip she held him in. Despite the pain it was causing, one thing he had really missed was his mum's hugs. Eight months ago he wasn't sure she'd ever hug him again and he was so grateful that she seemed to have accepted who he was and she was his mum again, just like she'd always been. One good thing about getting beaten up, he knew his mum still loved him.