Jane's head throbbed, and her face felt wet. It took her a little while to realise her eyes were closed. When she did open them, the light blinded her.
She lifted her head off the dashboard and checked the back seat for her son. Her breath quickened when she couldn't see him.
She nudged Aaron, trying to wake him up. Blood trickled from his head, but she could see his chest rising and falling. She fumbled with her seatbelt for a moment before it unclipped, freeing her from the seat. She had to put her shoulder into the door to open it. She looked in disbelief at the tangled mess of steel. The van had hit them square, and the two had now formed one insepearable mass.
She continued on, looking for her son. She found him on the tarmac, a creeping pool of blood growing around him.
She heard sirens, dimly, hardly real. Like the image.
She moved towards him, kneeling beside his broken form. His breath touched lightly on her ear as she leant over him, and her breath released.
The ambulance came, and Keiran was taken away with Aaron. Jane rode with a policeman back to the hospital.
He had a neat brown mustache, and an eyebrow that mirrored it a few inches above.
You alright?" he asked. His voice sounded like gravel in a grinder.
"I'm....fine. Shaken up, headache. But my son...do you think he'll be ok?
"I'm sure he'll pull through," the officer replied, wiping sweat from his brow.
"I can't lose him," Jane said, staring out the window.
When she arrived at the hospital, a young doctor with receding hair, spectacles and a sombre look ushered her into a private room. It was homely, in a clinical way. Soft furnishings, curtains, picture. All too precise, somehow.
"Your husband is in a stable condition. He is still unconscious but it appears to be under control. We expect him to wake up in the next few hours."
"And my son?" Jane asked.
"Your son is alive, Mrs Jackson," the doctor began, "but I have some rather bad news. Perhaps you should sit down."
She sat down on the couch in a daze, running over terrible possibilities.
The doctor sat down across from her, and cleared his throat. "Are you sure there isn't anyone you would like to have here?
"Tell me now." Jane said, staring at the doctor.
"You son suffered multiple fractures to the limbs and torso in the crash. His head was largely spared, and this is what has saved him so far."
"Will he survive?"
"He is in a critical condition, however we expect he will recover."
Jane breathed a sigh of relief.
"However, his spinal cord was severed just above the pelvis. He is currently paralysed from the waist down."
Jane vision greyed out, and she slumped back into the sofa.
The following years were a round of appointments, operations and physiotherapy. Jane hoped daily for a miralce, but none came.
Keiran began with homeschool, until he developed enough control of his chair to attend the local primary. He was a bright child, but struggled when he saw the other kids out at play. He consoled himself by spending his day in the library, devouring information about his passion. Planes. He had only flown once, on the way to Disneyland many years before, but the hazy memory still clung to him. His dream was to fly a plane one day.
As Keiran was approaching graduation, they made their usual monthly visit to the doctor. The same young doctor who had met her after the crash sat across the desk.
"Mrs Jackson, I have an exciting proposition for you and your son." he said.
Jane's heart jumped. She barely even dared to hope after so many years of disappointment.
"Your son has been selected for the trial of a new technique," he said. "The surgery is not without risks, but it offers your son a good chance at regaining sensation in his legs. Maybe even walking again, in time."
Jane froze.
"What are we talking about here?" Keiran asked.
"It involves the use of your own stems cells to regrow the damaged parts of spinal cord." The doctor coughed. "Now, I know stem cell research may have issues for some people....."
"I want it. How soon?"
"As you are still a minor, we require permission from your parents."
The pair turned to Jane and Aaron.
"Of course. This really is incredible news."
The operation was scheduled for two weeks later, and Jane held her son's hand all the way into the theatre. She waited outside the hospital, pacing the slabs and breathing the cold November air. Eventually she fell asleep in a chair in the waiting room, surrounded by the clamour of the damaged.
She awoke to the yound doctor shaking her.
"Mrs Jackson. The operation went smoothly, and your son is now awake. You can see him if you like, although he will still be rather groggy."
Jane made her way up to the ward. It felt like sleepwalking. She saw her son laying on the bed at the end of the row, and ran over to him, holding his head in her hands.
"Woah, careful," he slurred. "I'm not superman, you know."
Two months later, and Keiran was making good progress. Jane had stayed at the hospital, watching him taking supported steps. Feeling his excitement at being able to move three of his toes.
After his physio, they returned to his ward before the next session.
"You're doing so well, Keiran," Jane remarked, ruffling her son's hair.
"Easy on the do, ma."
"I really am very proud. Won't be long till you're running the hundred meters."
They chatted for a while, and finally it came time for Jane to leave. As pulled the door into the corridor, something twinged in her chest. Sharp pains ran up and down her arm, and her vision greyed again, like it had when she found out Keiran was paralysed. It faded further, then out to black.
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