Page 100 of Spiralling Skywards: Fading
“Mr Delaney?” She held out her hand and looked between me and Luke. I held out mine and moved to stand. “No, please. Sit down. This must’ve of all been an awful shock for you.”
I sat and nodded my head.
“This is Luke Carter, Sarah’s brother.”
“Luke, hi. I’m Molly Dalglish, and I’ve been looking after Sarah.” She looked between us for a few seconds, and I swore my heart stopped beating the entire time.
“Okay, so we’ve got Sarah stabilised. Preliminary blood test results show that she took somewhere between eight and ten tablets. We’ve administered a reverse anaesthetic and that’s brought her around somewhat. Her BP is okay and everything else looks good. She’ll probably remain asleep for the next few hours, during which time we’ll keep monitoring her. She will probably be a little groggy for some time after that.”
She drew in a deep breath before asking, “Any questions?”
“Is she gonna be all right? Long term I mean. Are there gonna be lasting side effects?”
“I’d like to give you a definite no, but until she’s fully conscious, I can’t do that. Early indicators are, physically at least, that she’s gonna be fine.”
“Can I ask?” Luke interrupted. “The tablets she took, are they the same as Ambien?”
She nodded. “They were Ambien, from what we could tell from the packaging, made and distributed in the States.”
Luke turned to me. “They’re mine. She must’ve gone to my place and taken them.”
“You know how many were in there?” The doctor asked him.
“Only about six or seven I think. I can’t actually be sure, though.”
“Excellent. That’s even better. Obviously, the fact that she mixed them with alcohol didn’t help, and because we weren’t absolutely sure what we were dealing with, we administered a charcoal solution and pumped her stomach as soon as she arrived at the hospital.”
She had gone to Luke’s and taken the tablets. Did she know she was gonna do this? Planned it? And then something struck me.
“She kissed me goodbye.”
“Excuse me?”
“Last night. Before we went to sleep. She kissed me, but instead of sayinggood night, she saidgoodbye.”
“I told her about the tablets last night,” Luke stated.
I dragged both my hands down my face and shook my head.
“I don’t understand. I don’t fucking get it at all. Why? Why the fuck would she do this? Surely this can’t all be over what happened with the dog?”
“Sarah will receive a full psychiatric assessment tomorrow, but would you have any idea right nowwhyshe would’ve done something like this. What happened with the dog?”
I shook my head.
“There was an accident last night. The dog escaped from the house just as Sarah was pulling onto the drive, and he was hit. He didn’t make it.”
“Well, that might’ve just been a tipping point. Anything else?”
“She has seemed a little bit down in the past, but what I’ve seen of her lately, she’s been a bit brighter.”
I stared at Luke for a bit. “You think she’s been down in the past?”
“Yeah, I do. After the twins were born and then after Lucas was born especially.”
I pulled on the lobe of my ear and thought about this. Being a bit down was not the same as being suicidal.
“She’s always tired, but we have four kids. I just . . .” I let air puff out loudly from my lips. “I just thought that was how it was when you were running around after four kids all day.”
