A short story by Joanne Barker, to mark World Encephalitis Day*.
After my daughter told me her brother, Jack, was dead, I went for a walk and forgot all about it.
I regret that now.
I’d been rummaging around in the hallway cupboard when the call came. My new mother-in-law had given me a black and white, soft wool, bobble hat at Christmas, and this would be its first outing.
It wasn’t really my idea of fun to go for a walk in the dark at 8pm on a cold January evening but my second marriage triumphed through compromise. Remembering not to sweat the small stuff, but knowing it was often the small stuff that could make or break a relationship.
With my head squeezed between the coats and bags that I always promised myself I’d tidy up the moment I had time, I didn’t hear the first rings of the landline.
“Hello? Hi Lizzy. Yes, she’s just here. Hang on a minute.”
Jon hastily thrust the handset towards me, as though it were hot metal he might drop at any moment.
“It’s your daughter.”
His tone expressed a sad resignation that his suggested trek, down to the small hollow of our tiny village and up the other side to the church, was at risk.
I took the phone, attempting my best ‘don’t worry, I’ll be quick’ eyes. I couldn’t even convince myself.
“I’m so sorry mum, I don’t know how to tell you this.” The fear in Lizzy’s voice was palpable.
I took a deep breath.
My 25 year old daughter had been making more and more calls, that were in turn increasingly anxious and erratic. She was full of worries and seemingly endless problems that she wanted me to resolve.
I usually did resolve them but not without stopping whatever I was doing and spending many minutes talking this once confident and independent young woman away from the latest cliff edge.
Two days before, I’d persuaded Lizzy that her neighbour was not spying on her as part of an ongoing, twisted, road rage revenge, after a small bump in the apartment block’s car park.
When she saw his vehicle parked in the city centre the next week, she sent me a photo of his number plate, convinced he was following her to work.
My previously vivacious daughter was turning into someone afraid of their own shadow. What was she going to tell me now?
“He’s dead!”
“Who’s dead?”
“Jack! I saw the accident. The crash.”
“Slow down, Lizzy. What accident? What did you see? How do you know it’s Jack?” I asked.
“It’s a blue car. The way he goes to work. It looks like his car. He’s dead mum. I drove past it. The accident. Just now.”
In another time, another place, I would have immediately panicked. Somehow, I was still calm. Still collected.
“Let me check Lizzy.”
With one call ended, I started another.
“Hello!?” Jack was definitely not dead.
“It’s mum. You ok?”
“I’m putting my socks on!”
After convincing Lizzy her older brother was alive and well, I went looking for Jon. He was in the living room sipping on his whisky, his slippers back on his feet.
I cajoled him into his boots once more and out the front door and towards our destination view point. I felt a chill that reminded me my hat was still somewhere in the cupboard, its tag in place.
My husband’s warm hands wrapped around mine, as he pointed out Orion’s Belt then, nearby, the band of stars that make up the Milky Way. The constellation that you could never see when you first looked. You had to look, look away, and then look again, to discover what was right in front of your eyes.
*In February 2022, my then 25-year-old daughter was diagnosed with autoimmune encephalitis. This followed behavioural changes, anxiety, seizures, psychosis and a week of madness when she narrowly missed being classed as mentally ill. We knew something was terribly wrong as her body shut down but we had no idea what was happening and nor did the doctors. It took a Google search, followed by a test of brain electrical activity and a lumbar puncture, to discover the truth. Thankfully, the right diagnosis led to the right treatment from dedicated medical staff and she’s now fully recovered. The sad fact is that others are not always so lucky.
Joanne Barker Author Events 
Leave a comment