Chapter Fourteen
Hours turned into days, days turned into weeks, and still Jean did not emerge from the coma. Teddy was not allowed to move into her hospital room, but he stayed at her side every second he was allowed. At night, when the doctors forced him to leave his wife's side, he returned to their empty home, incredibly lonely. He surrounded himself with the eleven portraits he had painted of his wife, staring at her visage. Surrounding himself with the portraits made him feel only slightly less alone.
He began working on the twelfth portrait of his wife the day after she slipped into the coma; the portrait portrayed the way she had looked just before she had been hit by the rock that had flown through the window. He knew that it had been Sandy that had thrown the rock – he knew it even though he knew that he would never be able to prove it.
She had been in a coma for two weeks when he finished the twelfth portrait, and he began the thirteenth portrait, showing her as he remembered her from the first time they had met. A month had passed from the day she slipped into the coma when she entered her sixth month of her pregnancy. The day that he finished the thirteenth portrait was the day that she emerged from the coma.
Teddy was by her bedside, as usual, when she began to stir. He ran to the hallway, calling for a nurse, before rushing back to her side, taking her hand.
"Jean? Jean, sweetheart?" he asked, stroking her cheek lightly as her eyes fluttered open.
"Teddy?" she asked, her voice hoarse from disuse.
"I am right here, my darling," he said, smiling down at her, tears of happiness slipping down his face. The nurse and Jean's doctor rushed in and began taking her blood pressure and testing her reflexes. They shooed him from the room and he stood outside in the waiting room, pacing nervously. An hour later the doctor emerged from her room and called out his name.
"Mr. Lloyd?"
Teddy rushed to him. "Yes?"
"Your wife would like to see you," the doctor told him. Teddy tore down the hall to his wife's hospital room.
"Teddy," she whispered, stretching out her hand to him. He ran over to her and took her hand, holding it to his cheek. "Teddy, what happened?"
"Someone – I am quite sure that it was Sandy – threw a rock through our window and it hit you on the head," he said. "You then slipped into a coma for a month."
"A month?" she gasped. "I've been here for a month?"
"Yes, you have," he said, stroking her hair back from her face.
The nurse came in. "Mr. and Mrs. Lloyd?" he asked. They looked to her.
"Yes?" Teddy said.
"If you'll just fill out these papers, Mrs. Lloyd can be discharged," the nurse said, handing Teddy a clipboard with several forms.
Half an hour later, Teddy was pushing his wife out of the hospital in a wheelchair. They returned to their home, and he brought her up to their bedroom.
"Teddy, I don't know if we can live here anymore," she whispered. "Sandy knows where to find us – I'm afraid that she will come back and do something even more horrible."
"We'll go to a hotel," Teddy said, pulling a few suitcases out of the closet. He began to throw some clothes into the suitcases and quickly finished packing. "I'll be right back," Teddy said, going downstairs and putting the suitcases in the boot of the car. When he returned, his wife was waiting in their bed. "Just a few more trips, my dear," he said, gathering the portraits of his wife together and loading them into the boot as well. When he returned after his third trip to the car, his wife was sitting on the edge of the bed waiting for him.
"Ready, my dear?" he asked her, and she nodded, holding out her arms to him. He picked her up and brought her downstairs, bringing her to the living room so that he could gather together her coat, hat, and shoes. When she was finished putting on her things, he helped her up and they walked slowly to the car. They drove off to find a hotel outside of Edinburgh.
After driving for half an hour, they found a small, cosy hotel just off the main road. Teddy pulled up to it and helped Jean out of the car. They went inside and registered for a room. When they received their key, Teddy helped Jean up to their room before getting their suitcases out of the car. When he returned, he found his wife curled up in bed, sound asleep. He set the suitcases down at the foot of the bed and locked the door, before taking off his socks and shoes and getting into bed next to his wife. She snuggled up next to him immediately, even though she was still asleep. He wrapped his arms around her and slipped off to sleep easily for the first time in over a month, content now that his wife was back with him at last.
Sandy went by the hospital and was told that Jean Lloyd had been released. Sandy took the tram to Teddy and Jean's house and snuck around to the back yard to look through the windows. The lights were off, and no one was home. She opened the back window and climbed into the house. The downstairs was somewhat cluttered, as was usual, so she walked upstairs. When she entered their bedroom, she stopped in surprise. Clothes were strewn about the room; the bedcovers were pulled back; and the room was in disarray. She walked to the open closet door and peered inside – it was empty.
Sandy screamed in frustration. How could they have just left? She ran downstairs to the kitchen and took all the plates and glasses out of the cabinets, smashing them against the walls. She would return every day until they returned, and she would make sure that Jean regretted crossing her.