On the front, the air was bracing. A fresh westerly breeze was struggling to clear some cloud built up, the air warm and moist with salt spray. As they walked, Stuart talked of Tessa looking forward to seeing Eyran. They'd plan something special for New Year's Day when they were all together.
And it was there, walking with the warm Pacific breeze buffeting them from one side, ruffling their hair, that the dam of Eyran's emotions finally broke and he started weeping. He mumbled, 'I miss my mom and dad,' as Stuart pulled him into an embrace. Then something about remembering Mission Beach where they all used to go for the day together, the words partly muffled against Stuart's chest and then finally lost among the sobbing and the noise of the surf.
'I miss them too. Terribly.' Stuart said, but it sounded so lame; empty consolation. Stuart felt the small body quaking and trembling against him, and inside he felt his own sorrow rising again, tears welling; but this time it wasn't just for Jeremy, but for the strength of spirit and zest for life in Eyran that now also seemed lost. Bitter tears and silent prayers on the mist of the Pacific surf rolling in, willing that the next days and weeks might see some improvement, bring back the Eyran he remembered.
Eyran awoke in the middle of the night; eyes blinking, adjusting, consciousness searching in that first moment for a reason.
Had he dreamt again, or had a noise perhaps disturbed him? He didn't remember any dream, and no sounds came except the faint swish and sway of trees outside his window as he held his breath and listened intently. He tried to judge if the wind was rising, a storm brewing; but the movement of the branches remained gentle and steady, soothing and swaying, white noise to lull him back to sleep again.
Was he still in the hospital or at his uncle Stuart's house? He looked at the light coming in through the window and tried to pick out shapes in the room. Faint light from a watery moon: the hospital room had been brighter from street lamps outside, the window larger, and the two large trees his side of the hospital he could never hear moving for the thickness of the glazing. Sometimes the days in the hospital and those in England seemed to merge, then suddenly he would be back once again in his room in San Diego, joy and surprise momentarily leaping inside that everything in between had been a bad dream — before the shapes and shadows in the room slowly fell into place.
The nightmares and the time awake had sometimes been difficult to separate: the friendly face of his uncle Stuart, voice echoing, telling him his parents were dead; doctors with tests and monitors, smiling faces telling him that everything was going to be alright, his uncle was coming to see him, explain. 'You'll stay with us now, we'll take care of you. Everything's going to be fine, Tessa's looking forward to seeing you.' The rhythm of the band pumping through his body, people cheering, smiling as they clinked glasses; everyone seemed so happy except him. And so the sleep became a welcome release, transported him back where he wanted to be: the warmth of the wheat field where he might meet Jojo and they could look for his parents again.
The first dream had been two nights after awaking from the coma. The doctors said that he'd been asleep for nineteen days, but he couldn't recall anything, not even the accident; the last thing he remembered was his mother reaching back, soothing his brow, staring at her blonde hair as he sunk back into sleep.
Only when he saw Jojo in the dream, did fragments of the other dreams start coming back to him, that they'd been on this adventure before of trying to find his parents. After the dream by the pond, there had been another with him and Jojo pushing their way uphill through thick woodland and bracken. Jojo had said that there was a clearing towards the brow ahead, and from there they would see his parents waiting for him in the valley below. After thrashing through, a light had shone ahead and Eyran could see the trees and bracken thinning, see the clearing, and he ran expectantly towards it, hardly feeling the barbs of the bracken pricking his legs. But as he finally burst free into the light, he awoke.
Since that night, he'd willed himself back into the dream each time before sleep to try and reach the brow and find his parents. Though there had been no more dreams with Jojo, only one with him alone sitting in a stark hospital corridor waiting for news on his parents from one of the rooms, expecting Jojo to come out at any minute and say that he'd finally found them. But in the end it was uncle Stuart and a doctor, faces forlorn, eyes sad, saying there was nothing that could be done, the doctors tried their best… but your parents are dead. Dead! He'd hid his face and his tears momentarily in his hands, and when he'd looked up again the corridor was empty, his uncle and the doctor had gone. He began to fear the entire hospital was empty — that he was the only one there. The last thing he remembered was calling out for Jojo, but no answer came except the hollow echo of his own voice from the corridor walls.
And so all he was left with was the stark solitude of those waking hours; and sometimes those hours seemed like the nightmare, and the hours asleep and his dreams — the possibility of meeting Jojo and being able to find his parents — became a welcoming and warm reality.
Familiar objects had been placed in his room — his computer, the Daytona racetrack and Baywatch posters — to make him feel at home, as if nothing too much had changed. But unless they could tell him that they'd made a mistake, that his parents were alive and had survived the accident, none of it held any meaning for him. Uncle Stuart and his wife Amanda and Tessa — who tried so hard to play with him and cheer him — became little more than vague, background voices. He was always trying to remember, play vivid scenes in his mind of how it was: picnics on Mission Beach, a visit to DisneyWorld, hot dogs at the Chargers game, going fishing on his father’s boat. Sometimes he could hear his father or mother speaking, recall whole phrases and sentences. The other voices around became an intrusion.
Eyran wondered how far it was to Broadhurst Farm. Four miles, five? He got up and walked towards the window. He left the light off so that the faint moonlight might pick out objects in the garden and the field beyond. A large oak and two elms had lost nearly all their leaves; only two large fir trees at the end of the garden moved with the wind. The hedgerow separating the garden from the farmer's field beyond, Tessa's climbing frame, the rockery and pond — even small objects became clear as his eyes adjusted. The field beyond was still indistinct, except the faint silhouette of the line of trees on its brow. He wondered if he closed his eyes and willed it hard, if his mind could sail across the farm fields to Broadhurst Farm, put an image in his mind so that when he went back to sleep his dreams might take him there again. But he wasn't even sure which way it was. Was it over the ridge ahead, or over more to the west?
The moon was a watery half through faint mist and cloud. For a moment he thought he saw the dull shapes of figures moving beyond the garden — but as he looked more intently, they were no longer there. It was just the shadow of tree branches moving on the breeze. He closed his eyes and tried to imagine the wheat field beyond the hill, let his mind drift until it was before him. But he'd never been there at night, felt too frightened to let the image linger, and he tried to cast his mind back to how he remembered the wheat field in daylight, running through the sheaves with the warm sun on his back.
But the image never came, it remained dark and cool; shades of grey under the pale moon. And the field for him in that moment became yet another symbol of death, something that could only serve a purpose in his dreams if he could recall it in daylight. Perhaps he would ask his uncle Stuart to drive past Broadhurst farm the next day.