"Right. Tell me what's going on with Danielle." Ronnie shot at the nurse, trying to keep her emotions in control and managing mostly, she once again just came across as the 'Ice Queen'. Cold, calculated, vicious.
"Ronnie, take a seat. Please. I know you're worried about Danielle. She needs you to be strong for her. She needs her mum to be calm and to look after her." Nicola's voice was calm but also stern, she was taking her authority and letting Ronnie know wordlessly but in no uncertain terms that she wouldn't be seeing Danielle until she was calm. Ronnie reluctantly sat and wrapped her arms around herself waiting for the details to be given to her.
"I, I understand. Please, I just want to know Danielle's alright." Ronnie stumbled over her words as she suppressed her urge to threaten the nurse if she didn't tell Ronnie what was happening with Danielle immediately. Her fists clenched and unclenched in her lap, fingers turning white, crescents becoming indented into her palm where her nails pressed in to her flesh in fear and frustration.
"Danielle got quite distressed during the night. I've just come on shift so it was the night staff who looked after her then but I'm her named nurse for today," Nicola began. She was speaking slowly and carefully making sure that Ronnie didn't miss a word, if she was honest she was worried about how the woman would react to even the smallest thing given her outburst at her own sister. As a nurse she had dealt with families in all sorts of situations and on the whole it got easier, there were few situations that still put Nicola on edge but somebody with such a temper, someone so volatile was likely to, even if they did it with the best of intentions.
"What do you mean distressed? Why's she on oxygen? Did she do something? Did…did she…" Ronnie's hand roamed the air and she searched her mind for possible explanations. Fingernails picked at her cuticles as she sucked in a breath, knowing she was not the one with the answers.
"Well she started getting pain in her arm from the surgery but there are only certain pain relief methods that we could give her because of the overdose. It meant that she was still feeling some pain in her arm and I think she's still quite confused and upset about a few things." The nurse paused for a moment, her eyes flickering back and forth between each of Ronnie's looking to see how she was reacting to the situation. Nicola had braced herself to perhaps have to get others involved.
"So you just left her in pain?" Ronnie barked, her tone was accusing and disbelieving at the things she was being told. She felt like some sick irony, almost twenty years ago she had let her baby leave her sight and look what had happened, all the pain, all the heartache and now once again in a hospital she had let others talk her into letting her daughter go, just like before and once again only pain had come from it. Ronnie felt like she could trust nobody, that there was no-one on her side.
"We gave her a localised anaesthetic into her arm and she had gas and air until that took effect. But she was, well she was feeling quite guilty and distressed about what she had put herself and everybody else through. She's quite confused and feels a lot of pressure on her. She expects herself to have answers for everybody and she got quite upset that she doesn't have them." Nicola spoke carefully once again, making sure to word her replies and details carefully, she had learnt in her time working with families that no matter what has happened parents are likely to blame themselves and she had to work against this, try to form her responses to place as little blame as possible.
Ronnie listened intently to the words, holding herself back from lashing out like she wanted to. Although Ronnie knew the nurses, the hospital, they were all there to help Danielle she still felt anger towards them, they were keeping her from Danielle, keeping details from her, keeping them apart and filling the role that should be hers.
Ronnie's mind was reeling with thoughts of Danielle upset and in pain all over again. The confusion, the pressure, that was yet again something Ronnie was placing on her. She wanted to have been there to comfort her, to stop the pain, to take away all the fears and make sure that Danielle knew that nothing, not a single thing was her fault.
"Did anyone talk to her, did you tell her it's not her fault?" Ronnie asked meekly. It almost sounded like a plea. "Is she alright?"
"Yes, the nurses on shift made sure to talk to her and yes she's fine. She just worked herself up and because her breathing was still shallow and repressed from the overdose, her panic made it more difficult for her. There was still a high level of slow acting toxins in her system so we increased the IV and had her on oxygen. She's settled overnight and has just fallen asleep about an hour ago. The oxygen isn't necessary any more but it just makes her a little more comfortable so we're leaving it on whilst she's asleep." The nurse smiled as she finished, trying once again to reassure Ronnie that Danielle really was in no danger.
Ronnie's mind suddenly turned on the offensive once again. It wasn't true anger, it hadn't really been true anger at Roxy either. With Roxy though there had been an underlying resentment, Amy, Jack, all the past, but now it was merely to stop her mind from focusing on guilt and worry. Anger was so much easier.
"Why didn't anybody call me? I should have been there with her? If she was upset or more ill. I wanted to be here but…I should have been here. Why didn't anybody call?" Her voice sounded pleading but by the end had become cold as Ronnie shut down her emotions, they were too hard. Keeping her guard down for Danielle, it was needed and what she wanted to do but she didn't know how much more she could go through in such a short time. It wasn't just Danielle who was in pain and as much as Ronnie cared more about Danielle than herself, not being with her meant that Ronnie's own pain came to the fore.
"Uh, the nurses offered but Danielle asked that they didn't call anybody." Ronnie's face immediately fell into one of rejection. Danielle had shut her out again. Danielle didn't want her. Ronnie wondered how she could ever fix this, she wanted so much to make it all better but Danielle wouldn't let her in. She wouldn't let her help even though Ronnie knew that Danielle needed her help. She needed somebody.
"I think she just didn't want to worry you," Nicola said reassuringly. She had no idea if it was true but knew that the woman staring into the middle distance, locked in her own head, needed to hear the words.
Ronnie cleared her throat trying to compose herself. She wanted to ask more questions but there were none to ask. Her questions were all for Danielle but how could she ever ask them now? How could she ever put more pressure on her fragile daughter when she had reacted this way? Ronnie's eyes fixed themselves on the window. Outside she watched as cars passed along the road outside, a group of teenagers in school uniform standing beside the bus stop across the road. Normal life, all passing by, moving on and Ronnie was powerless to stop it, powerless to do anything.
"So when can I see her?" Ronnie's gaze didn't move from the window, she just stared, her face emotionless.
"Well it's best not to wake her as she needs rest to recover. Hopefully getting some rest will help her sort out her feelings as well. We've asked Christine, the psychologist Danielle spoke to before, to have another word with Danielle today." Nicola paused for a moment and watched as Ronnie sighed resignedly as she stood from her chair, arms folded and facing to look out of the window.
"Maybe you and Danielle could speak to her together, I know that Danielle was speaking about you and I know that she's feeling guilty about upsetting you." Nicola couldn't see Ronnie's face as she remained staring out of the window, her back to Nicola and arms folded across her chest.
Talk to a psychologist, let out her darkest thoughts and secrets to a stranger? Ronnie blanched at the thought. Revealing her emotions to Danielle, Ronnie had prepared herself for, she almost welcomed it. But another person, a stranger being added to the equation wasn't something that Ronnie had really considered. If she honest with herself she was frightened of the prospect. For Danielle? She'd do it. No question about that. But Ronnie was only now realising that this could be as much about repairing herself as it would be about repairing Danielle and their relationship.
"I won't wake her. But I'd like to be with Danielle please." More a request than a question, but Ronnie turned herself to look at Nicola as she spoke. The flowers she had brought for Danielle were laid on the table where Ronnie had placed them. Both reverential and discarded in equal degree, a strange parallel with Ronnie, herself both reverential and discarded by her beautiful daughter. Well meaning, but perhaps unwanted.
Nicola gave a small smile and told Ronnie that she would go and check Danielle quickly and speak to the ward sister. In reality none of it was needed and she wanted mother and daughter to be able to spend their time together, but for Danielle's sake she wanted to give Ronnie some time to calm down.
Left alone in the room Ronnie reached into the bag of presents she had brought for Danielle, she brought out the large stuffed cat that she had bought, after all Danielle had had a cat, she had asked for her cat in her drugged up daze. Ronnie wanted to prove to Danielle and to herself that she was trying, that she knew her baby, even if it was only in tiny ways. She hugged the cat to her chest, the beanie cat under her chin and down onto her stomach, she wrapped her arms around it. She was desperate to find comfort somewhere.
No tears, just a fraught struggle for comfort and hope from anything at all. Whilst Ronnie couldn't hold her little girl to her chest she would still try to in an indirect way, in any way. She held the toy like a newborn, the memories spilling forward, brought up by their miraculous reunion, of the day of their painful separation, their first separation.
So much held inside, not just for Danielle but for Ronnie too. They were both perilously close to the edge and they needed each other to cling on to, to heal each other, to save each other, to keep each other hanging on. But the past, for them both could destroy everything, they could destroy each other.
"Danielle's still asleep but why don't you go and sit with her?" Ronnie hadn't even noticed Nicola coming back into the room. She stood to go and rejoin her child once again. This time she wasn't letting go. This time she wasn't letting anything come between them. Not even each other.
