Aftermath (6 page)

Chapter
4

Kerry was relieved when the ambulance finally arrived at the airport and drove onto the tarmac. There was only one tiny plane standing there, the smallest plane that Kerry had ever seen!

“Oh my God, mom!” Saoirse cried, unable to hide her nervousness. “I hope that's not our plane.”

Of course, it was their plane.

The little plane took off with a pilot, a doctor, Maura and the Darcys. It was very cramped on board with hardly enough room for all of them. Kerry was carefully positioned in a stretcher bed on one side of the plane and the others were squashed together opposite her.

She felt strange; a peculiar mix of happiness to be returning home to Cork at last but also a deep sadness at leaving Conor behind. Her worries consumed her; worries about Conor, of course, worries that she hadn't thanked everyone who had been so good to her in the hospital, worries about all the victims of the devastating tsunami and worries about her own recovery. She was filled with determination to return to Japan as soon as was humanly possible and find Conor herself. This was her driving force now, and before the flight home even took off, she was making plans for her return. Thinking about it made her focus wholeheartedly on getting well and fit again.

Kerry slept a lot on the flight. They made several stops along the way to re
-
fuel, after all, the little plane also had a little tank but thankfully the flight was quite smooth and uneventful, so she didn't suffer too much discomfort. Unfortunately, the same couldn't be said for the other passengers who were cramped like sardines! The doctor made sure to move her legs regularly during the flight. Her medical team was very worried about her being in the air for so long. They gave her injections to thin her blood and her legs were encased in a pair of very unattractive elastic stockings which would help to prevent deep vein thrombosis.

Nuala had flown ahead of them and she'd already cleverly released misleading information about Kerry's arrival time in order to throw the press off the track. The media had whipped up quite a storm in Ireland about the story of Kerry and her missing husband. Her family and friends didn't want her to have to deal with the intrusion of photographer and journalists who were desperate to get her exclusive story.

The pilots were very helpful too and were more than happy to help Kerry escape from the paparazzi's prying eyes. They landed and went directly to a hangar, not the arrivals gate, which would have been expected. Kerry was immediately put into an ambulance and driven away to safety. Nobody got any photographs, much to her relief.

Aunt Aisling and Uncle Sean w
ere waiting impatiently at the hospital to see their beloved niece and they were overcome with joy to have her home safe at last. Her aunt and uncle had never been particularly demonstrative when she was growing up. She knew they loved her dearly, but hugs and kisses were not an everyday part of
their lives. They
were very loving in the Irish way; they didn't go around telling each other how much they cared, it was just there. Like most Irish people they weren't comfortable talking about their feelings. There was a lot of love, but not a lot of contact. They'd hug occasionally and didn't say “I love you” to each other every day, but even though she didn't hear “I love you” all the time, she felt it in everything that her aunt and uncle did for her; from her aunt painstakingly ironing her clothes to her uncle cooking her favourite meals. They didn't have much money to lavish her with presents, but they gave Kerry and her sister unconditional love, which was a far greater gift.

That day was different. Seeing their beloved niece, who t
hey nearly
lost, opened the floodgates of emotion for them and they almost smothered her wit
h hugs and kisses! It was
overwhelming. Aunt Aisling asked her a million questions one after the other and Kerry did her best to answer them.

“We tricked those reporters!” she laughed. Anyone would think they were in a spy movie with the delight on her face.

They hugged
and kissed and there was a lot of
happiness in the air, not too many tears, just smiles and lots of love. Kerry was already feeling much stronger when she saw her aunt and uncle and that was the way she'd wanted it. There was no need for them to have witnessed first
-
hand the state she was in only a few short weeks previously.

Returning home to Cork was joyful for Kerry but it also signalled the beginning of her long road to recuperation. She was checked over by X-rays, MRIs, CAT scans, general surgeons, orthopaedic surgeons, gynaecologists and psychiatrist
s
. It was a thorough examination. The doctors unanimously concluded that she was basically fine; she need to remain in bed and wa
i
t for her bones to heal. Her aunt and uncle were at her bedside the entire time. They slept in her room and took care of her; even insisting on emptying her bedpans.

A rehabilitation
therapist
be
gan to work with her and Kerry started
to exercise a little, nothing too strenuous. She missed her running and longed for the day when she could get out in
the
countryside again, letting the fresh air fill her lungs. Her exercise regime consisted of lying in bed and lifting light weights with her arms. She had overhead hanging pulleys which allowed her to pull herself up to strengthen her arms. Her arms were alright, it was her legs that presented the biggest challenge. She couldn't lift them off the bed because she still couldn't open them much. Each day, she would try her best to push them apart a lit
tle more and slowly she began to turn her body. It felt
alien to have such little control over something that she had taken for granted for so long. She had spent the last weeks lying on her back when her natural sleeping position, before the tsunami, was lying on her stomach.

Kerry's recovery certainly wasn't a
quiet one. The media was hovering
around and some journalists were even trying to get access to her room by bribing the nurses! Her phone was ringing all the time. Nuala tried her best to protect
her but still it was an un
pleasant feeling to be hounded. She appreciated all the m
any messages of goodwill and
tried her best to let the bad stuff go.

Kerry usually
considered herself to be quite technologically challenged but she jumped at the chance when Nuala suggested that she might like her laptop to read some of the many emails she'd been receiving from well
-
wishers.
She’d have done a
nything to pass the time which seemed to drag as she lay in her hospital bed, unable to move very far. She was deeply moved by the many emails and letters she'd received from all over the world and she made it a goal to personally reply to every one of them.

The medical sta
ff was
very cautious with her. She begged them continuously to allow her to stand and eventually they rel
ented. They let her stand up whi
le two nurses supported her on either side. It was an amazing feeling to finally be standing on her own two feet again! It would be another week before she was ab
l
e to try standing again and then she
was
able to use a walker. She was getting stronger every day. She'd built up her muscles with the exercises she'd done from her bed, but she was utterly exhausted after just a few minutes of standing on the same spot. The next time, she took her first shaky steps and still she was exhausted from the effort.

“It's
strange,
” she said to Maura. “I've
walked every da
y of my life and never even given it
a second thought. I haven't walked for many weeks and I find myself having to focus on e
very single step, trying to force
myself forward.”

“I kno
w. It's amazing how much we
take for granted,” Mau
ra agreed. “I can see you putting
all
your energy into simply placing
one foot in front of the other. I feel sor
ry for your poor hands with the
pressure you're forcing
on them.”

“I can't help it. I'm gripping and pushing down so hard on the walker that I'll need to wear gloves soon for prote
ction or else I’ll
be covered in blisters.”

It wasn't long until she graduated to crutches and was walking tentatively along the hospital corridors.

“I can do more. I can do more,” she insisted, but her rehab nurse advised her not to rush her recovery. She badly wanted to get well fast so she could return to Japan to find Conor.

Kerry decided that it was time to start reading the newspapers and searching online to see if she could find any piece of informat
ion that might lead her to her husband
. Her friends and family had shielded her from the media for long enough and now it was time to take action. Every day she was getting stronger physically, mentally and emotionally. It was time to start facing reality, whatever that reality might be.

When she first started reading the newspapers she realised the full magnitude of what had happene
d. It was horrifying to read about
some of the atrocities that occurred in the aftermath of the tsunami. The newspapers reported that evil hu
man traffickers abducted some of the
lost and orphaned children. They were kidnapped from the street and some were actually removed from
the hospitals and shelters! The
poor, misfortunate, innocent children were being offered f
or adoption on the black market but
they were the more fortunate. Others were sold as sex slaves or used to harvest organs. There were no words for such people, only utter contempt. The more Kerry read, the more she wanted to return. She wanted to find Conor.

Time was passing and still, occasionally, there would be a wonderful story about someone who had survived, someone who was found and reunited
with their loved ones. Kerry prayed
that her husband would have the same miracle.

Visitors came to see her every day. Her little hospital room was a hive of activity and everybody made sure that she was never alone. Friends and family came from far and wide and she was del
ighted to see everyone. Her uncle
cooked her favourite food and brought a tasty dish every day. She was glad because she
was
getting tired of the bland hospital food. Saoirs
e and Emer visited her most days. Kerry
had insisted that they return to school and college, she didn't want them falling too far behind in their studies. She knew their dad would have wanted their lives to remain as normal as possible.

Maura was with her all the time. She was like an angel and was the centre of Kerry's support network. She brought some of Conor's clothes to the hospital; his old tee-shirt that he wore to bed and still smelled of him and his shabby winter coat that he refused to throw out no matter how much Kerry nagged him. Maura brought photographs and the children brought the presents which they had planned to give him for his birthday. Conor's parents visited her too. They talked about Conor and Kerry knew that they had little hope of finding him, but still, for her sake, they tried to be positi
ve. Nobody wanted to upset her
. It was obvious that she was doing her utmost to stay positive.

When she was alone, which was rare, she would put on Conor's tee-
shirt and his old winter jacket when
it felt like her husband's arms were wrapped around her for a moment. She could still smell his particular musky scent when she buried her face in the material. Those were the only times when she allowed herself to cry.

Kerry continued to recuperate steadily. At night, before sleeping, she lay in her bed listening to healing music. The music was beautiful, powerful and cleansing and helped to ease the ache in her heart. The hospital's psychologist came to see her regularly. He thought that overall she was doing well but she was still having problems adjusting to loud, unexpected noises. Anything that even vaguely resembled the noises she'd heard during the tsunami still absolutely terrified her. Her heart would pound in her chest when she heard a sudden bang. The doctor tried to explain to that her reactions were perfectly understandable considering everything she'd been through. The noises were triggering her memories and responses.

“I feel like I'm about to have a heart attack,” Kerry told the doctor
, after one particularly bad panic attack
. “The sensible part of me knows that the noise is probably something simple but I can't help almost jumping out of my skin sometimes!”

“It's normal,” the doctor advised. “When you hear the sounds, don't ignore them. Focus on the noise and try to analyse it. Look around and try to find out what exactly caused the bang.
It will probably be
something like a door slamming or maybe someone dropping a plate or a cup. Don't try to block it out; that's when your fear and imagination will take over. Analyse the sound, face the reality of the noise and it will become easier for you.”