Chapter 7
7
LOUISA
‘I’m sorry.’ As soon as Mr Whitelaw said those words, I knew what was coming. Less than half an hour ago, I still had hope. I didn’t realise how much hope I’d been holding on to, until it was snatched away, and I’d give anything to turn back the clock to who I was just thirty minutes ago. Tom’s constant insistence that the doctors will be able to cure my cancer has driven me insane, because it’s meant a complete refusal from him to discuss what will happen if they can’t. But what I hadn’t grasped until this morning was just how tightly I was clutching at straws too, just different ones to Tom. I’d forced myself to be more realistic and face the prospect that they might not be able to make this go away completely, but what I’ve been holding on to far more than I knew, was the belief that it could be held at bay. If not indefinitely, at least for a good long while.
I should have known the cancer wasn’t playing fair, given how much worse my symptoms have become. I’ve tried to pretend that the obvious yellow tinge to my skin could just have been down to me catching the sun, but it’s in the whites of my eyes too. The pain in my side has started to make me catch my breath sometimes, and the over-the-counter medication I’ve been taking no longer seems to touch it. I’m losing weight too and sometimes I have to force myself to eat anything at all. Despite all of that I was still managing to cling to hope, until Mr Whitelaw told us that it wasn’t good news and the look on his face made it obvious just how bad it was.
‘It’s moving fast and aggressively. Given the extent of the spread, particularly to the liver, surgical intervention wouldn’t be appropriate at this stage.’ He didn’t say the word pointless, but I heard it all the same and it felt as if there wasn’t enough air. There was going to be no miracle, and all my worst fears came flooding in. My children would lose their mother, and I was going to lose everyone I loved. Even as I looked at the doctor, trying desperately to find a reason to latch on to some of that hope I hadn’t known I had, it felt as if my life was already slipping through my hands and there was nothing I could do to stop it. I couldn’t stop the tears from coming either, and it was impossible to catch my breath to ask the doctor any of the questions that were screaming inside my head, yelling at me that there must still be something they could do, but he’d anticipated at least one of them. ‘You’ll need to start a course of chemotherapy to see if we can shrink any of the tumours and then we can look at whether surgery might be an option.’
‘So you’re saying your suspicions were right and it’s incurable?’ Tom’s voice caught on the last word and I wanted to tell him to shut up and stop asking questions that I didn’t want the answers to. No good could come from knowing just how bad things were, but when Mr Whitelaw confirmed that there was no chance of me ever being cancer free, I started to retch. I wasn’t actually sick, probably because I’d hardly eaten a thing since my first meeting with Mr Whitelaw. Terror at what this meant made my stomach contract over and over again. My kids needed me to be the mum I always had been, not some shadowy version of that, dying in front of their eyes. This shouldn’t be happening; it wasn’t fair, and the idyllic childhood I’d so desperately wanted for them had been ripped to shreds. I was never going to be well again. I was never going to be me again, and the last shred of hope I’d had was gone.
I didn’t take in much after that and I couldn’t even bring myself to acknowledge Mira’s offer to schedule a meeting so that we could talk through all the side effects of the chemotherapy, and answer any questions I might have. All I wanted was to get out of the hospital, so that I could breathe properly again. It felt as if my lungs were on fire after what seemed like hours in an airless room being bombarded with the worst possible news. But even now that I’m outside, it still feels as if no matter how deeply I inhale, I’ll never be able to get enough air into my lungs again. I’m breathing faster and faster to try to stop it feeling like I’m suffocating, but every breath I take seems to make it worse and I’ve got an almost overwhelming need to claw at my neck.
‘Lou, you’re scaring me, shall I go and get someone?’ Tom puts his hand on my arm. The fear he’s just described is as evident on his face as it was in his voice. I manage to shake my head. I don’t want any doctors; they can’t do what needs to be done. I want to tear open my skin, reach inside and pull out all the cancer. Or just set myself alight to burn it all away. I fight to slow down my breathing, reaching out to grab the handrail on a barrier that separates the car park from the road and try to steady myself.
‘Do you need any help?’ A woman who looks to be in her mid-twenties stops beside us. She’s heavily pregnant and a bitter stab of envy hits me in the gut as I look at her. She’s got so much to look forward to, bringing a new life into the world, all her dreams for the future wrapped up in the promise of what’s to come. I want to ask her if she knows how lucky she is, and to tell her to count her blessings every single day she gets to spend with the child she’s carrying, because one day – without any warning – it could all be taken away. I want to tell her about my babies, how they’ve been the greatest joy of my lives, and how much I’ll miss the weight of them in my arms, the smell of their hair when they nuzzle their heads into my neck, and the sound of their laughter. That uncontrolled, joy-filled laughter that I’m terrified will be stolen from them by losing their mum. But I don’t say any of that. Instead, I shake my head and mumble, ‘No thanks,’ watching as she moves slowly towards the entrance of the maternity unit and a future filled with endless possibilities.
A car pulls out of a space to the left of me, another one pulling in almost straight away, and there are people coming and going all around me. Some of them look serious, some are smiling, and on the other side of the car park a shout of laughter fills the air. People are getting on with their lives, as if nothing has changed, but for me everything has changed.
I’m know I’m not supposed to give up, that I should cling on until my very last breath and hope that the chemo will slow things down and allow me to have surgery. But I’m not ready to be hopeful, and I’m definitely not ready for Tom to tell me that’s what I need to be. I can’t even think straight. All I want to do is to escape my own body. I hate the thought of this poison spreading inside me, turning everything toxic. It’s like I’m possessed by a demon; that’s what the cancer feels like, and suddenly I know where I want to be – where I need to be – and it’s what’s allowing me to breathe again.
‘I’m going to St Martin’s.’ As I utter the words, Tom’s eyes shoot open and I can guess what he’s thinking: that I’ve really lost it now. I’m not a church kind of person, and I’ve only put any faith in the existence of God a handful of times in my life, but I feel in my bones that it’s where I need to be, even if I have no idea why.
‘I’ll drive us.’ I’m shaking my head almost before Tom makes the offer.
‘I want to be on my own for a bit, so I can try to process everything. I just need you to drop me at the edge of the village on the way back home.’
‘Lou, I really don’t think that’s a good idea. I can’t stand the thought of you being on your own with all of this going through your head.’ Tom sounds desperate and I don’t want to cause him any more pain than he’s already in, but I feel as if I need this every bit as much as I need the oxygen that’s refilling my lungs.
‘Please, I won’t be long, and I promise to call if I need you.’ I look at my husband properly for the first time since we saw Mr Whitelaw. He looks exhausted. There are new lines etched on his face that weren’t there a few weeks ago, and a sadness in his eyes that hurts my heart. I can’t think about what the weeks and months ahead might do to him, because I need to believe that he’ll get through it. He has to, for Stan and Flo. Taking his hand, I hold it as if my life depends on not letting go and for a moment it feels as though it does, but then I release it anyway. Maybe it’s a metaphor for the parting neither of us wants, that will come far sooner than either of us expected, and finally Tom seems to understand.
‘Okay, but promise you’ll keep your phone on and, if you’re not back by one, I’ll be coming to find you.’
‘Thank you.’ It’s something I’ve said to him thousands of times, although I’ve never meant it more than I do right now. But as I turn to walk away, he catches hold of my wrist.
‘I love you so much, Lou, you know that don’t you?’ His eyes have filled with tears, and I nod, not able to answer because I’m scared if I do that I’ll start crying and I’ll never be able to stop. ‘You’re the best thing that ever happened to me and the thought of losing you?—’
He can’t finish what he’s saying and the first sob escapes as I step forward and he pulls me towards him. Within seconds my hair is wet with his tears, and he’s oblivious to the people around us, but I can see the looks we’re getting – sympathy, curiosity and relief on the faces of the people who pass us by, that it’s not them going through whatever it is Tom and I are facing. I wish I could say something to comfort him, but it’s as if I’m frozen inside. I can’t allow myself to feel everything there is to feel all in one go, it’s just too much. If I let myself worry about Tom as much as I’m already worrying about the children, I’m scared I’ll fall apart completely. So many times, since the diagnosis, I’ve tried to talk to Tom about the future, and about what happens if I’m not here. If he can’t accept that that I’m dying after what Mr Whitelaw has just told us, I don’t think he ever will. But now is not the time to try and get him to talk. Instead, I let him cry it out, until finally it seems there’s nothing left.
‘You’ve never given me any reason to doubt how much you love me, and I love you so much too.’ Even as I say the words, it’s as if I’m on some kind of auto pilot. It’s not that I don’t mean them, but if I let myself feel them, I’m afraid I’ll spiral out of control. Instead, I squeeze Tom’s hand again, before letting it go for a second time.
‘I promise I’ll be back by one, I just need some space to process everything.’
He nods in response, the torment in his red-rimmed eyes making my throat burn with all the emotion I’m desperately trying so hard to contain. I feel like an unexploded bomb, where one false move could prove catastrophic and I’m just praying my instinct that St Martin’s will bring some kind of peace holds true, because I’ve got no idea how to carry on if it doesn’t.
St Martin’s is where Tom and I married, almost five years after we met, following in the footsteps of my grandparents, who would have been married for seventy-two years this year, had they still been alive. It would be an outright lie to say they never argued; good-natured bickering was the backing track to their marriage, but somehow it was always done with love. A typical exchange would go back and forth. Nan would complain about Gramp’s complete inability to put anything away, and he’d tell her it was because he couldn’t think straight, after she’d kept him awake all night with her snoring. Then she’d say, ‘Talk about the pot calling the kettle black, you snore like a saddleback pig,’ before doing an impression that made them both laugh. It was their love language, and I’d much rather have emulated that than the quiet distance that grew between my parents for years before they split up, then got back together, then split up, before finally getting back together again. They can’t seem to stay apart, but I sometimes think it has more to do with co-dependency than love.
My admiration for my grandparents’ relationship meant that choosing to marry in St Martin’s had been almost a foregone conclusion. Tom had grown up in Castlebourne and I’d spent so much time here as a child, that it felt like home. Castlebourne had been mine and Holly’s safe place, an idyllic village buried deep in the Kent countryside, surrounded by the vineyards and orchards of the Garden of England. We’d spend warm summer days paddling in the stream that meandered through its centre and passed by the ruins of the medieval fortress which gave the village its name.
Castlebourne is where I fell in love with Tom too. Somehow, in all the time I’d spent here visiting my grandparents, our paths had never crossed, but the moment I saw him at the wedding event, I felt a connection that seemed crazy given the circumstances. I can even pinpoint the moment my feelings changed from an initial strong attraction to something else. The wedding coordinator had got all excited about the parallels between our jobs, and she started telling me that Tom was a bit of a local celebrity, having won some awards.
‘It’s really nothing.’ A hint of a blush coloured Tom’s cheeks and looking back I think that’s probably the moment I fell in love with him. ‘I started off making some short documentaries on YouTube and I got picked up by the channel I work for now. It’s not as exciting as it sounds and the biggest compliment I’ve ever had was when someone called me the Poundshop Louis Theroux.’
When Tom laughed, I did too, but despite somehow knowing how easy it would be to fall for him, I’d never cross that kind of line with a man who was engaged to someone else. It wasn’t until Abigail ended her relationship with Tom that he and I got to discover just how many interests and values we shared. He tracked me down on Facebook and I’d been as surprised as I was thrilled to get his message, especially when he told me that his engagement was over.
Tom has never said anything derogatory about Abigail, just that they drifted into a relationship because they were both so busy and it was convenient. I didn’t read too much into that until the last few weeks, but now it terrifies me that he could get into a relationship on that basis and, because of that, it’s hard to trust that any person he brings into the children’s lives in the future will be right for them. I think it’s a big part of the reason why the what-ifs started as soon as Mr Whitelaw told me I had cancer, and I tried to picture my children’s future with a me-shaped hole in it.
My own experiences as a child have only served to heighten the fear I’ve felt for Stan and Flo since that moment. Neither of my parents had any serious relationships with other people during the periods when Mum left to try and get sober but my dad came close a couple of times. One morning I went in to see him when I woke up, to discover a woman I’d never met before pressed up against him, their legs tangled together and her mahogany-coloured hair fanning out across both their pillows, the smell of stale booze and even staler bodies almost overwhelming. I had to stifle a scream at the sight of her. When they eventually emerged from the bedroom, he introduced Linda to me and Holly. She planted a kiss on my face with lips covered in a thick gloss that stuck to my cheek, even after I furiously wiped it off. She started hanging around a lot, cooking for us – if that’s what you could call heating up frozen pizzas and nuggets. She wasn’t horrible, but I still hated her. I hated the way she was always hanging off my father, not caring whether we were in the room when she started snogging him like a teenager in the back row of the cinema. I didn’t want this strange person in my father’s bed, in our flat, or in our lives. The first thing I told my mother about the next time I saw her was Linda. I wanted her to somehow make this woman disappear from our lives, and she did, by coming home for just long enough to make Linda a distant memory, before Mum left again too. But I won’t be there to do that if Tom meets someone the children don’t like after I’m gone.
What if the person Tom meets turns out to be like Linda, or worse still, like Billie; someone who sees their own children as little more than an inconvenience, and God knows how she’d feel about someone else’s. I can’t bear the prospect of a woman like that being stepmother to my kids. But even when I was focusing on my deepest fear – that my children might be unhappy – I wasn’t really picturing myself as gone, not completely. I was there as an observer, at a distance, unable to intervene, but somehow still around, like I was watching on a closed-circuit TV in a neighbouring room. It’s only now the doctor has confirmed there’s no chance of a cure that I realise I hadn’t really accepted the idea I might actually die from this. I’d focused on the horror of what would happen if I had to leave my children, but I didn’t allow myself to think about the finality of it all. Part of me pictured myself as a version of my mother, coming and going from my children’s lives at will. But I won’t be able to do that, and I won’t be able to see what’s happening, not even from a distance, let alone be able to do anything about it. I’ll be gone, forever, and I’ve got no idea how to continue to live in the meantime. Tears are choking in my throat again, because I know I have to find a way to keep living while I’m dying; I can’t waste a moment of the precious time I have left with the people I love, but I’ve never felt so lost, or so alone. I don’t even know how to begin to cope with this.
Running a hand over the flint wall of the church, I desperately try to focus on the here and now. It’s something I read in one of the pamphlets Mira gave me about mindfulness as a way of coping with what’s happening. I’m supposed to think about five things I can see, four things I can hear, three things I can touch, two things I can smell and one thing I can taste. But as soon as I turn to my left, I spot an overgrown grave, marked by a worn-away headstone, denoting the final resting place of someone even time has forgotten. My breathing gets ragged again and, just like at the hospital, the air won’t seem to get into my lungs. Holding on to the wall, I close my eyes, concentrating on the roughness of the flint surface until the feeling of panic isn’t quite so intense.
When I finally think I might be able to take a step without my legs collapsing underneath me, I move towards the heavy oak doors at the entrance to the church. Pushing inside, the coolness envelops me and immediately I feel a little bit calmer. I’m not religious and I’ve got no idea if there’s something more than this life, but whatever atmosphere is pervading the building, it’s what I need right now.
As I take a seat at a pew towards the back of the church, the simplicity of the whitewashed walls is somehow helping to quieten the racing of my thoughts. I’m still not sure why I’m here, but I know I don’t want to leave. So many important moments have happened in this place. Our wedding, the children’s christenings, the sad goodbyes to my beloved grandparents. Holly didn’t marry in Castlebourne in the end. Jacob took her to Vegas and persuaded her that they should get married out there, without any of her family or friends to witness their big day. I know it’s not what she wanted, and she tried so hard to make him happy, but in the end nothing she did was ever enough. It’s so unfair that he has a child now and she never got that dream. The thought stings my eyes, but I’ve got to blink back the tears, I can’t let them fall. I’m too afraid to cry again, in case I can’t ever stop.
‘Louisa.’ The sound of my name feels completely out of place, in a way I don’t think it ever has before. At least not to this extent. I look up to see Kate, the church Reader, concern etched on her face. ‘Are you okay? You look really pale.’
I try to form the words ‘I’m fine’, to utter the meaningless response everyone wants to hear, even when it couldn’t be further from the truth. Instead, I shake my head and something very different escapes my lips.
‘I’m dying.’ The blunt words make Kate gasp, but they are true even if they haven’t been said to me directly. Mr Whitelaw told me that if there are things I want to do, I should do them now. The horrors of Google revealed the brutal truth that the average prognosis for someone with advanced pancreatic cancer is eight months if the chemo works, or less than four months if it doesn’t. I wanted to stand up and scream, to tell him that I need at least forty years to do all the things I want to do, and even that won’t be enough. I want every moment owed to me in the average life span I should surely be entitled to. I nodded along when Mr Whitelaw suggested that I should do everything I want to do before it’s too late, like it was easy advice to follow, instead of being so blisteringly unfair that sometimes I’m scared the anger will overwhelm me completely. I’m holding so much in, despite blurting out the words that make Kate recoil as if she’s suffered a physical blow, but she regains her composure quickly.
‘Oh Louisa.’ Kate is at my side in seconds, her soft voice even more gentle than usual. I’ve known her for years; she grew up in the house next door to my grandparents, where her father and stepmother still live. I wouldn’t call her a friend, exactly, but right now I don’t need the complication of someone who loves me, whose feelings I have to protect in ways that mean I can’t be honest about my own. I need someone I can be straight with, but who’ll care enough to want to help me, and I can’t think of anyone better than Kate.
‘I’ve got pancreatic cancer, it’s incurable and aggressive too. Spreading fast.’ My explanation sounds matter-of-fact, as if I’m describing a problem a work. But if I let myself connect with the meaning of the words I’ll never be able to get them all out.
‘I’m so sorry.’ As Kate takes my hand, I almost tell her that’s what all the medical staff have said, and none of them can do anything to really help me, but my bitterness at all of this is just one of the things I’m desperately trying to keep locked inside. And there are no words that can help. I’m not sure anything can, now I know just how bad things are, but that’s what I need to work out. Maybe I should join one of the support groups Mira mentioned, in case someone there has the answers about what the hell to do next. Except right now I can’t think of anything worse than being surrounded by other dying people. Since my diagnosis, cancer seems to be everywhere. It probably always was, but I didn’t notice it before. But my new-found personal experience has only heightened the awareness that it exists.
I’ve read more online about cancer since my first meeting with Mr Whitelaw than I ever thought possible. Every article and blog post I read seems to shame me for being so bitter about my diagnosis. Almost every person writing about their ‘cancer journey’ says that they never asked, ‘Why me?’ but instead only thought, ‘Why not me?’ I wonder what makes me so different from them. The why me is what screams inside my head every time I look at the children, or Tom, or Holly. Or even at my own reflection in the mirror. There are people who’ve committed horrendous crimes, who could have been given this cancer instead. How can that possibly be fair? Maybe I’m just not as brave or as selfless as all those other people detailing their cancer stories online, but I’ll never ask the question why not me? , because I already know the answer. I’ve got people who need me, the same people I can’t bear the thought of leaving, and that should be enough to make it clear to the universe why it shouldn’t be me. But then I guess that means it shouldn’t be anyone. Most people have someone who needs them, or loves them, and those who don’t have suffered more than enough already. So instead of saying any of that, I give Kate what I imagine is a more acceptable response.
‘I’m sorry too.’
‘Have they said…’ Kate hesitates for a moment, before giving an audible swallow. ‘How long?’
‘No, but even if the treatment works, I’ve probably got less than a year.’ A sob catches in my throat as the reality hits me again. ‘I might not even make it until Stan’s fifth birthday, and a year or two after that he won’t even remember who I was.’ It’s a recurring thought I’ve had that I’ve tried to push down inside me so many times, but it won’t go away. The idea that I might become nothing more than a second-hand memory to the little boy I love with all my heart is so agonising that I couldn’t even begin to describe how much it hurts. But the thought just won’t stop torturing me.
‘You’ve got to think positively.’ Kate’s words are so earnest and I know she means well, but I snatch my hand away. The rage I feel about the situation is threatening to boil over and I’m not sure I even want to try to stop it.
‘How the hell am I supposed to think positively about being told that I’m dying and that I’ll be leaving my kids and everyone else I care about?’
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…’ Even Kate’s neck has gone red. ‘I just meant you can’t give up hope. Miracles can happen.’
‘But mostly they don’t, do they? Mostly shit just happens.’ I know I’m lashing out and I wish I could believe that a miracle might still happen, but I might as well have stuck my fingers in my ears when Mr Whitelaw was speaking if hoping for some kind of divine intervention is my only plan. Pretending it’s not happening won’t make it go away. I need to find a way to deal with it that doesn’t ruin whatever time I have left. But I’ve still got no idea how I’m supposed to come to terms with my own death. It seems impossible. It is impossible. My children can’t be motherless. They can’t. The idea terrifies me, but so does the alternative, and I’m already jealous of the woman who might one day fill that role. I don’t want them to forget me, but I don’t want them missing me so much that it blights their lives either. I don’t know what to do and I’m starting to panic again, my breath getting caught in my chest, as I look back at Kate. ‘I’m scared.’
‘Of dying?’ Her voice is so quiet, I have to strain to hear, but I shake my head, trying to take a slow deep breath and release it again before I speak.
‘No, yes. I mean of course I’m scared about that, but I’m more scared of what happens afterwards.’
‘I believe that, after all of this’ – Kate gestures around us, her face suddenly flooded by a light that seems to come from within – ‘there’s a joy we can never know in life, a freedom from pain and all the burdens we carry with us, and that we’re reunited with all the people we’ve loved and lost.’
‘I’m afraid I don’t believe I’ll be sitting up there on a fluffy white cloud having a catch up with my grandparents. I wish I did, but that just feels like bullshit to me, especially now.’ I know I’m being rude, dismissing Kate’s beliefs the way I am, especially given where we are, but I don’t care. Maybe this is as close as I’m ever going to get to feeling what Kate describes, a freeing up of earthly burdens, including the need to politely nod along with something I don’t believe is true. But she hasn’t understood what I meant, and I need her to. ‘I’m not talking about what happens to me after I’m dead. I’m talking about what happens to everyone else, to all the people I love, but most of all to Flo and Stan. It’s all I’ve been able to think about since the moment they told me I had cancer. At first I still had hope that it might be curable, and focusing on them was a weird kind of distraction from facing the fact that I might die. Only now they’re telling me there’s no chance of a cure, and that dying isn’t just a possibility any more, it’s a certainty. I’ll be gone soon and all the power I have to try and make things right in my children’s lives will be gone with me. How can I accept that, and how the hell am I supposed to tell them I’m going to have to leave them? They’re not nearly done needing me, and I’m not nearly done being a mother. I can’t do it, I can’t do it, I can’t do it.’
I’m sobbing now, white-hot fear washing over me again, and I’m choking on my own tears. I widen my eyes in terror, suddenly unable to find my voice, but I’m begging Kate to help me nonetheless. My chest is so tight it feels like my heart’s exploding and I wonder if a heart attack is going to take me, before the cancer even gets the chance.
‘Louisa, you need to breathe.’ Kate tells me what I already know, but I find myself nodding as she puts her hands on my arms, so that looking at her is almost like looking at my reflection. ‘Copy me and take a slow breath in and then out again, like this.’
Kate follows her own instruction, taking one hand off my arm and then raising it slowly, before lowering it down at the same rate.
‘That’s it, we just need to keep breathing, in and out, in and out.’ She raises and lowers her hand again in time with the words, until the feeling that I’m about to pass out finally lifts and I remember how to breathe without visual and verbal guidance.
‘Felt like a heart attack.’ My words are faltering and she nods.
‘Panic attacks are like that. I got them a lot after I lost my mum.’ Kate takes my hand again. I remember when that happened. Holly and I must have been about eleven, and Kate a couple of years older than us when her mother was killed in a boating accident. Heat prickles my skin; she must hate me for being so scornful about her views of an idyllic afterlife where she’ll be reunited with her beloved mum.
‘I’m sorry. What I said about after we die, I—’ As I start to apologise, Kate squeezes my hand more tightly.
‘Don’t be sorry. I shouldn’t have tried to make it all sound…’ She pauses and gives a half-smile. ‘I’m struggling to think of a better word than heavenly, I’m afraid. But I can’t even begin to imagine what it’s like to be in your situation. Losing Mum so suddenly was really hard, but at least she didn’t have to grieve for what she was losing too. I wish there was something useful I could say, but it just feels like every time I open my mouth I mess up.’
‘No, you don’t.’ I try for a smile too, but I can’t quite manage it. ‘And I think there is something you might be able to help me with, but it’s asking a lot.’
‘Whatever it is, if I can do it, I will.’
‘I want you to tell me what it was like to lose your mum, in as much detail as you can. The things that helped, and the things that definitely didn’t. I want to know how you felt when your new stepmum Irene came into your life, and how you think your father handled all of that.’ I can see a myriad of emotions passing across Kate’s face already, but then she nods. She understands why I need to know this, even if neither of us have any idea what I’ll do with the information. At least not yet.
‘I can do that and, if it helps, I’m sure Dad and Irene would be happy to talk to you too.’
‘Thank you, I might well take you up on that.’ Leaning forward, I hug Kate. She feels solid and warm, and a tiny bit of the unrelenting fear about what happens ‘after’ lifts a little. She’s survived what Stan and Flo will have to face, and she’s still here, doing good things, and living a life that gives her the kind of peace I’m not sure if I’ve ever really known. Whenever I see Kate, she seems happy. No, happy is the wrong word, but she certainly seems content with the life she’s built for herself. That’s what I want for Stan and Flo, for Holly and Tom, and for my parents, after I’m gone. Maybe Kate will prove me wrong, and there’ll be an afterlife where I’ll have more contentment than I’ve ever known too, up there somewhere on a cloud, with Nan and Gramps. But facing whatever future I have left will be so much easier, if I know the people I love most can find their way back to some kind of contentment, when they’re left in the ‘after’ without me.