Short Story: An In-Between Christmas Part 1 of 6

A young woman tries to contact her comatose father on a mysterious spiritual plane between life and death

Photo by Molly Blackbird on Unsplash

Part One

The overwhelming scent of hospital sterility assailed Sophie’s nostrils, as she sat next to her father’s unconscious body in the intensive care ward. Although she’d spent much of the past month coming to and from her father’s side whilst he lay in a coma, Sophie hadn’t become desensitised to this smell of lingering misery. Amid the steady beep that monitored his heart rate, and the drip of the IV feed, the aroma of omnipresent disinfectant offended her nasal cavities as much as ever.

Sophie’s younger sister Joan sat nearby, staring tearfully at their father. Rain pattered on the windowpanes amid the darkness outside. Sophie glanced from her sister to her father and back again. Despite her sorrow, Joan always managed to look impossibly gorgeous. Her wavy chestnut hair remained immaculate, and she still dressed fashionably, even for this situation. With her stylish brown suede jacket, designer jeans, and high heels, Sophie couldn’t help but wonder at the effort Joan made. Her part-time work as a beauty influencer on Instagram even bled over into this miserable situation.

‘You look fantastic,’ said Sophie.

Joan frowned. ‘Please, for once, spare me the judgemental remarks. I came here directly from a shoot and didn’t have time to change.’

‘How is that a judgemental remark?’

‘I know what you meant. You think my world is shallow and vacuous.’

‘Yes, but that doesn’t mean you don’t look great.’

‘I don’t need you telling me that.’

‘Bloody hell. Someone’s got a stick up their arse today.’

Joan sighed. ‘For God’s sake, Sophie. Why are we even here? I mean, can Dad even hear us? What’s the point of it all?’

Sophie shrugged. ‘Perhaps you should go home. You don’t need to be here to keep me company. I’m sure Malcolm would like to see you.’

‘He won’t be back from the office yet either. Said he had a management meeting that was running late.’

Sophie rolled her eyes. ‘Well, that is important. As regional manager of Pulp Factory Stationary Services, he’s got a lot of serious responsibilities.’

‘What part of spare me the judgemental remarks didn’t you understand, Sophie? I know you think I married the most boring man in Britain, but he’s kind, he’s hardworking, he’s supportive of what I do…’

‘Yeah, all right. I’m sorry.’

‘At least I’m not sitting on a mountain of student debt years after graduation, with no job, sponging off the kindness of Auntie Rose and Uncle Alex.’

‘So now who’s starting with the judgemental remarks?’

‘Why didn’t you study something useful? Why English Literature?’

Sophie sighed. This was a circular conversation she’d had with Joan for years, and she didn’t intend to dignify her with another justification. If Joan couldn’t see the value in studying English Literature, that was her problem.

‘You’ve gone from one shitty job to another,’ Joan continued, ‘and all the time you claim you’re working on some great literary masterpiece that’s going to be snapped up by publishers and make you famous.’

‘I’ve never said that. But I am writing a novel. It’s just taking longer than I hoped.’

In truth, Sophie’s progress on her book had been wildly inconsistent, and she’d barely made it a quarter of the way through the first draft of her manuscript. But she felt increasingly irritated by Joan’s needling remarks. Why was she in such a pissy mood?

‘All I’m saying is maybe you need to move on. Find a different career path. Something else that makes you happy.’

‘Like becoming a kept woman and being an Instagram model?’

Joan looked hurt. Sophie shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, Joan. I shouldn’t have said that. It’s just… I’m finding this really difficult.’

‘Why, Sophie? Why is this difficult? Dad’s not been in our lives since we were children. He’s been in a cycle of AA meetings and relapses on a rinse-and-repeat cycle for years. He doesn’t care about either of us. You know what he was like. Why should we care about him now?’

‘Because he’s going to die!’

Sophie blurted out what the doctor had told her would almost certainly happen in the next day or so. She’d intended to break the news to Joan gently, but her sister’s prickly demeanour had riled her, and now she found it impossible to sugarcoat the truth.

Tears filled Joan’s eyes, but her face hardened. ‘Well, good riddance to the old bastard. Especially after all he did. I don’t know why I bother coming to see him. I’ve had enough. If you want to waste your time at his side, before he slips away, be my guest. I’ve got better things to do. I can’t deal with all this depressing bullshit.’

Joan stood up and strode out of the room into the corridor outside. Sophie shrugged and turned back to her father. Relations with her sister had often been strained, but over the past couple of weeks, they had sniped at one another far more than usual. Perhaps Joan was just lashing out, unable to admit her own feelings about their father, and the tragedies of their past. She could hardly be blamed, considering the circumstances that had led to them being adopted by their Aunt Rose and Uncle Alex at the ages of eleven and eight, respectively.

As Sophie stared at her father’s thin limbs, greying hair, and lined, gaunt face, the word skeletal popped into her mind. He was a pale shell of his former self, far from the boisterous, cheerful man he had been whilst their mother was alive.