Breakeven

Chapter 28

I stayed at Adams bedside all night, talking to him, praying he would be alright, analysing every moment of the past weeks and wondering what I could've done differently to avoid this from having happened.

Mark and Rina stayed with me for a few hours but at around 4am I insisted that they go home and get some rest.  Danny hasn't come back, I have no idea where he is, or what he's doing and I'd love to say that I don't care, but I do.

I rested my head on the side of Adam's bed, holding his little hand in mine, just waiting on a sign that he was getting better.  Sleep must have taken over.

I was woken by Mark and Rina coming into the room, I sat up a little startled.

"How is he?" Rina asked as she sat down next to me and wrapped her arms around me.

"No change" I whispered, barely having the energy to speak.

"We brought you this" Mark said as he handed me a cup of coffee.

"Thanks" I smiled as I took the cup from him and put it on the bedside table, not wanting to be rude but also not even thinking about drinking it.

"We brought you a few bits as well" Rina said as she put a small hold-all down on the floor. "Has Danny been back?" she asked, I could see the look of annoyance on Marks face.  I shook my head.

"Kay, I know you don't want to think about this right now but the social worker is asking to speak with you" Mark said, the sympathy on his face was almost unbearable. "She's not going to leave until you see her"

"But what if Adam wakes up?" I asked, my heart breaking at the thought of him waking up and neither me nor Danny being here.

"We'll sit with him, and I promise we'll come and get you if there's any change" Rina told me comfortingly.

I nodded and stood up from my seat. "I'm just going to go and talk to the lady, Auntie Rina and Uncle Mark are going to sit with you son" I said as I kissed Adam.

Mark smiled at me encouragingly as I went to walk out of the room.  As I opened the door I saw Catherine sat on one of the seats outside the room making notes in a notepad.

"You wanted to speak with me?" I said as I approached her.

"Yes Mrs O'Donoghue, shall we go somewhere a little more private?" she said as she stood up and put her notebook back in her bag.

I followed her to a small room just a few doors down the corridor.

"Take a seat Mrs O'Donoghue" she said gesturing to one of the chairs.

"Please, call me Kay" I mumbled as I sat in the chair.

"First of all, let me thank you for coming to speak with me, I can see that this isn't an easy time for you, but I'm glad that we can have this discussion to establish the risk to Adam in his current home circumstances.  Let me assure you that this conversation will be completely confidential and I need you to be honest in answering my questions" she started, I was already struggling to comprehend what she was saying.

"What do you mean, the risk to Adam?" I asked as I tried to process her words.

"Well, it would appear that Adam took illicit drugs whilst at the family home with his father.  When Mr O'Donoghue brought him in it appeared that he too was under the influence.  My role here is to establish the circumstances at home to determine if the risk is sufficient that Adam should be placed on the child protection register."

"What?" I blurted out as my hand rubbed over my face, I couldn't believe what I was hearing.

"Mrs O'Donoghue, Kay, I don't want to make any assumptions, from what I've seen since you arrived here you clearly care for Adam.  I just need to establish what went wrong to result in your son being in here having taken an overdose.  Your husband..." She paused as she looked through her notes "...Daniel, was unwilling to answer any questions and therefore I am struggling to put together the whole story."

I looked at her blankly, I really couldn't process everything that she was saying to me, but I realised the seriousness of the situation and knew that I had to answer her questions.  I also realised that we were starting this discussion from the point that I am not a good mother, I needed to be able to persuade her otherwise.

I answered her questions honestly for the next 45 minutes opening up more than I would have liked to a complete stranger, telling her things that I haven't even told my best friends.  But her questions kept coming, every time I thought I had told her everything, she asked something else.

"Are we nearly done here?" I suddenly asked.  Catherine looked a little shocked by my question as she looked up from the notes she had been frantically writing as I spoke. "Look, I don't want to be rude, I've tried to answer your questions but I just want to get back to my son."

She put her pen down and nodded sympathetically, "I think I've got enough here to get started, I will however, be recommending that Mr O'Donoghue has no further contact with Adam until our investigation is concluded.  You need to ensure that this happens."

I could feel my anger rising, how dare she even suggest that I attempt to stop Danny from seeing his son.  Don't get me wrong, I could kill him for putting us in this situation, but I know that Danny loves Adam and whatever has happened, I know that it would never have been his intention to cause any harm to our son.

"No way" I replied, Catherine stared at me with a look of shock.  "If you're looking for someone to blame for this then keep looking, when my little boy wakes up he's going to want to see his mum and his dad and I'm not about to put myself in a situation where I have denied his dad from being there.  I can promise you, I won't let anything else happen to my boy, but I will not stop Danny from coming to see him." I said with utter determination in every word.

"Can I ask where Mr O'Donoghue is right now?" she said with an underlying tone that let me know that she was well aware that I had no idea where Danny was.

"I don't know where Danny is right now, I don't know if he'll come back here, but I can assure you that if he does, I won't be the one to stop him from seeing his son." I replied as I stood up to leave the room. "You know where I am if you have any more of your questions." I said as I walked out.

I was shaking as I left the room and felt like I needed a minute to calm down before going back to Adam.  I walked outside to get a breath of fresh air and as I sat on the bench at the hospital entrance I lifted my phone and rang Steven to check how the girls were today, he reassured me that they were fine and tried to offer some words of comfort to me, knowing that I was struggling but not knowing that I was on my own.  I spoke briefly to Jessica, she was clearly worried about her brother but I tried to reassure her that he was getting the best treatment.  I'm not entirely sure if I was reassuring her or me.

I took a deep breath and prepared myself to go back inside and sit with Adam, but as I looked up I saw a very dishevelled looking Danny walking towards me.