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The beeping exists somewhere else. Not in Tom’s room. Not in the house. Somewhere it doesn’t matter, as if it was being played on a radio by a neighbour. Then the sound rushes into my mind. Beeping. Beeping is part of the machine. Beeping means you have to do something. Fix something. Beeping. I open my eyes. It’s okay. Usually it just needs an adjustment. If he moves his arm in the wrong way, it can set if off. Sometimes the pump is set a little too high. I pick up a torch from the bedside table and stumble to Tom’s room.
My boy is asleep, the scrap book covering his arm, pencils scattered across his bed. The lamp by his bed is still on. The beeping continues, I press a button on the machine and the sound stops. I pick up the book very slowly so I don’t wake him. And there is blood. There is blood covering his arm. There is blood soaked into the scrap book. There is blood covering his pyjama top. And my mind freezes. It doesn’t tell me what to do. It doesn’t say, ‘Keep calm. It will be okay. You know what you need to do. You have been trained’. It doesn’t say, ‘You have killed your son’. It doesn’t say, ‘This your fault’. It says nothing. There is no help and I am alone.
I stand and wait, looking at my boy. I don’t know what to do so I do nothing. Then one tiny part of me wakes up. I wash my hands with alcohol solution. I put on a pair of latex gloves. I take three packets of gauze and rip them open. I place them on the table next to the machine. I cut six pieces of tape and stick them to the table. I pick up some gauze. I stop the machine. I look at my boy’s arm. Despite my efforts to tape it securely, a needle has slipped out and blood is streaming down his arm. How much blood does a small boy have? In a moment of insanity, I wonder if I can put his blood back into his body. I place the gauze on the hole and put the needle on the table next to me. Then my boy wakes up.
He blinks his eyes a few times and yawns. ‘Daddy? What’s happening?’
‘Hello, boyo. It’s okay. Just fixing something up.’ I surprise myself with the calmness of my voice.
He blinks again and looks around the room. Then he looks down at his pyjamas.
