The Accident by Victoria Bowmer

​A&E was quieter than she’d expected. Anna sat in a booth watching the waiting area whilst a middle-aged nurse with fat arms took her blood pressure. The pallid fluorescent lights hummed and blinked. Anna observed a redheaded boy of about nine being wheeled in and positioned next to the vending machine. He didn’t look up as the porter applied the brake. He was bent double flicking his fingers over his phone, fringe concealing his eyes. His left leg was strapped into a rigid plastic boot and stuck out horizontally. The tip of his pink tongue poked out as his concentrated on his game. She automatically thought of Daniel and then told herself to stop. She hadn’t expected him to be so difficult to love. During the horrendously drawn-out adoption process the part that she hadn’t doubted was her capacity to love; be it Daniel or any infant. On reflection she realised she’ d somehow romantically absorbed the idea that love was powerful enough to fix the cracks in a neglected child, like in a Disney film. Stupid. Mike, her husband still subscribed to the idea but it was different for him. Daniel saved most of his hostility for Anna. In school his behaviour was better for Mr Haigh, the teaching assistant than for his teacher. He despised Miss Thomas and had kicked her shins until they were blue on their first meeting. She pictured Daniel the day before, out in the garden, his dinosaur t-shirt stretched adorably over his fat little tummy but he stood on pane of glass from the greenhouse – testing to see if it would crack under his weight. Always testing. She watched, too weary to tell him to stop, until eventually the glass cracked and Anna ran over to prevent him from picking up a jagged shard. If she had some ‘mum friends’ that she could talk to it would be better, she envied the women she saw in the Organic coffee shop on a Tuesday morning. They would sit around the scrubbed wooden tables eating flapjack and nodding sympathetically at each other’s stories. Anna quickly realised it was impossible to maintain this type of relationship when Daniel invariably nipped or punched their children when agitated. Sitting around drinking coffee while Daniel played quietly with a train track wasn’t a realistic expectation anyway. Anna’s old friends from work didn’t understand, they would offer naïve solutions, as though her lack of resourcefulness was the issue. The nurse took the rubber cuff from her arm and wrote on the chart. “ You look like you’ve done ten rounds with Muhammad Ali, love,” she said sympathetically. “Try and rest now, “ and she carefully moved a clump of stiff, bloody hair from in front of Anna’s left eye and tucked it behind her ear. Anna liked that. It felt like a gentle stroke. She tried to sit back so that the pillow supported her back then winced from sharp catching pain in her shoulder. Looking down at her cycling tights she noticed they were torn from thigh to the calf, and through the rip a patch of smarting scarlet road rash. It made her feel hot and sick, she’d never been good with blood. When she’d been wheeled in she had noticed her reflection in the dark glass door. Dried blood the colour of rust streaked her ash blonde hair and stained her pink fluorescent top. The dark smudges under her eyes and the deep furrow between her brows made her look older than her thirty-eight years. A few years ago people used to comment that they thought she was in her midtwenties but she hadn’t heard that in a while. She was still slim but had begun to look rangy. Slim and thin were different things, she recalled how her mum used to say ‘Face or body…you can’t have both together. Fat body - young face, slim body - old pinched face.’ Her mum was emphatic about that. Her bike liberated her, though only for a few hours a week. The exhilarating sensation of careening down the hill out of town coupled with the idea that nobody really knew where she was, made Anna feel like she used to, before becoming a mum. That mood was short-lived though and she was always home in time for the difficult bedtime battle. A doctor came in and pulled the curtain shut. She introduced herself as Dr Aziz and began her examination. She had long, tapered fingers like Anna imagined a pianist would have. Anna stared at the ‘Zero Tolerance’ notice to distract herself from the pain of being touched. Perhaps she should put one up at home – not that Daniel could read yet. The week before, when his TV time was up, he furiously slammed his compact body into hers and she’d scalded her hand with peppermint tea. Dr Aziz wasn’t as gentle as her delicate fingers suggested. Anna winced as she pressed the area above her eye too hard. In the ambulance they seemed concerned about her head but Anna felt pretty certain from the throbbing pain it was her shoulder that she’d busted. She was thankful they only examined her head superficially. If they knew she could’ve braked and swerved but didn’t. She hadn’t intended to break bones and or skin her leg but a night away from home, maybe two, being looked after. Another nurse came in, younger and efficient. “Do you want us to call anybody to tell them you’re here? “ gesturing towards Anna’s smashed phone on the side table. “No, don’t worry, “ Anna replied. ‘”It’s no trouble at all,” “No there isn’t, thanks though.” Anna closed her eyes to signal the end the discussion. She knew she’d be left alone in a while, once they’d made her comfortable. They would probably bring her something to eat and a cup of tea later. The nice nurse might get it. The doctor left and she listened to the nurses chatting about what take-away to order when they went off-shift. It was soothing listening to their voices. Anna relaxed.