Chapter Forty One
Josh’s footsteps were heavy as he retraced his route down the hospital corridor. He’d been awake for thirty hours straight and couldn’t remember ever feeling this exhausted. He gave himself a shake, managing to spill a sizeable amount of the vending machine coffee he’d just gone to fetch. He was only carrying a single beaker as Lily was currently nil by mouth. He didn’t count the tiny slivers of ice chips that he’d been gently sliding between her lips, like a parent bird feeding its fledgling.
He fixed a smile on his face as he approached the door to the room she’d been allocated. He didn’t want her to see the concern that was etched like wrinkles on to his face. Today was so much harder than he could ever have imagined.
For about the thousandth time, he wished there was a way that he could magically swap places with her. He was strong, ridiculously sturdy. He could take it. What he couldn’t take was seeing the woman he loved in pain like this.
There was probably a whole range of powerful analgesics Lily could have taken to make this whole thing easier, but she’d refused them with a vehemence that had surprised him.
‘I don’t want to be drugged up to the eyeballs or spaced out,’ she’d said with an odd expression on her face, as though she was hearing an echo from her past.
Josh considered pointing out that the doctors weren’t trying to get her hooked on hard drugs, but decided he’d be better advised to let Lily decide how she wanted to handle everything. She was the one going through it, and it didn’t really matter how many books Josh had read in anticipation of today – and he’d read a lot. Nothing could ever really prepare you.
One of the nurses slid into the room in his slipstream, giving him a quick smile before going over to check on her patient. Mercifully, Lily had drifted into a much-needed light sleep in his absence. Josh looked down at her with the same gut-wrenching pull of love that had tugged at his heart for almost all his life.
He was still staring down at her when the nurse plucked a tissue from the box beside the bed and pressed it into his hand. Josh studied it as though he had no idea what it might be or why he’d been given it, until the nurse lightly touched her own dry cheek with a forefinger. He shook his head. How had he not realised he was crying?
‘How are you doing, Mr Metcalf?’
It didn’t seem to matter how many times he’d told them to call him Josh, they never did.
‘I’m fine.’
‘You’re looking a bit tired,’ the nurse said sympathetically.
Josh shrugged, and every muscle in his neck protested at the movement. That’s what happens when you spend an entire night in an uncomfortable hospital chair beside your wife’s bed, he thought.
‘It’s taking so long . . . is that normal?’ he asked, hearing the question in his own head and feeling vaguely horrified in case the nurse thought there was somewhere else he needed to be. Josh had no intention of leaving Lily’s side for a second longer than he had to. It would probably take a SWAT team to get him out of her room.
‘It can be quite protracted,’ the nurse said, biting her lip as though apologising for Nature, who had her own agenda as far as these things were concerned.
The young woman left, with a promise to bring Josh some toast, which he already knew he wouldn’t be able to eat. He eased himself slowly on to the chair, trying very hard not to wake the woman sleeping in the bed. Even though he knew he should probably let her rest, Josh couldn’t resist reaching out for the hand he’d held a thousand times before.
The fear that he wouldn’t be able to do that anymore shuddered through him like a bomb blast.
Lily’s hands were still beautiful, long fingered, with perfectly shaped oval nails, but the skin was thin now, marked with the passage of time. It was no longer smooth, and beige splodges marked the space across her knuckles, as though she’d been carelessly painting something in a particularly ugly shade of brown.
His own hands bore similar age spots.
Josh threaded his fingers through Lily’s, annoyed with himself when it caused her eyelids to flutter open, and yet also pleased because the time left to look into her eyes was slipping away faster than sand in an hourglass.
‘Hello, you.’ Her voice sounded the same, or at least it did to his ears. Like musical notes of a favourite song, the cadence was a balm on his soul.
‘Hello, beautiful.’
Lily smiled gently at the endearment, which he still used even though her seventieth birthday had been and gone several years ago.
‘How are you feeling?’ he asked, almost too scared to hear her answer.
‘Better. I think I’ve turned a corner,’ she said, and from God only knows where, she managed a wicked twinkle in her eyes.
She was lying, obviously. They both knew that. But she was stronger than him . . . and was handling this awful situation so much better than he was. And perhaps with good reason. ‘It’s not my first rodeo,’ she’d told him sadly ages ago, when they’d both realised how this was going to end.
Behind him, Josh heard the sound of the door being gently eased open, and assumed it was yet another member of the hospital staff, until a strong hand was laid on his shoulder. It squeezed gently, somehow imbuing a hundred different emotions into the flexing of the digits. The one Josh felt most powerfully was love.
He looked up into Adam’s face and smiled.
Todd leant past him and bent down to Lily, dropping the lightest of kisses on her cheek.
‘Hey, Mum, how are you doing?’
‘Peachy,’ Lily said, her face softening the way it had done for over forty years whenever she looked at her son.
The first time Josh had witnessed the phenomenon had been in a room not dissimilar to the one they were currently occupying. A slippery, squirming infant, still slick with blood, as though he’d fought a battle to get there, had been placed into Lily’s outstretched arms and her face had transformed into an expression that Josh had thought only angels wore. He’d never seen anyone fall in love before, never witnessed the moment when one soul connected with another and formed a bond that could never be broken.
Josh had always suspected it would be that way for Lily the first time she laid eyes on her child. What he hadn’t known – what he’d never even dared to hope for – was that it would be exactly the same for him. But it had been.
Todd reached into the canvas record bag slung over his shoulder and passed Josh a large leather-bound book. ‘I think this is the one Mum was asking for.’
Lily’s eyes had once again fluttered to a close. It was happening all the time now.
Josh took the photograph album from his son’s hand and looked down at the unfamiliar book, fairly sure he’d never seen this particular volume before.
‘It was at the back of Mum’s wardrobe and not in the loft with the others,’ Todd said with an indulgent shake of his head. ‘Incidentally, there’s an awful lot of stuff up there.’
‘You say stuff, I say memories,’ Josh replied, his eyes going to the hospital bed. ‘Pretty amazing memories,’ he finished, his voice a little hoarse.
Lily’s eyes were still closed, but her parched lips curved into the semblance of a smile. Josh lifted the hand he was holding and pressed a kiss on to the hot, dry skin. Todd, who’d had a front row seat to a love story so powerful that not even his mother’s passing would end it, felt something begin to unravel within him. He was horribly afraid that if he started to cry now, he might not be able to stop.
He had no idea how his father was going to cope with losing her. He had no idea how he would either. All at once Todd wished he hadn’t told his wife, Lucy, that it would be better if she and the twins stayed at home. He needed them now, and he suspected that Josh might too. The man sitting opposite him, who’d never fathered a child of his own, had turned out to be a pretty amazing dad and grandfather.
‘Have you eaten anything today, Dad?’ Todd asked now, his expression darkening with concern as he studied the older man properly.
‘I’m not hungry, son,’ Josh murmured, his own eyes fixed on Lily’s face. He knew every line, every freckle, every curve. He knew when she was in pain, however much she attempted to hide it. And it was bad now. Really bad.
Lily’s eyes fluttered open and scanned the room as though looking for someone.
‘Lucy and the girls are at home,’ Todd said in a rush, the panic of a ticking clock on its final countdown making his voice sound strange.
‘Can you go and get them?’
Todd’s eyes darted from his mother’s face, the skin scarily translucent, and then flashed to Josh’s and finally to the clock on the wall. His reluctance to leave was etched into every feature.
‘Please, Todd,’ Lily said, her voice more of a croak now than it had been just an hour earlier.
‘Okay,’ Todd said, getting to his feet, and crossing to the door on legs that appeared weirdly jerky. ‘But it’s going to take me a while to get there and back.’ He paused as though waiting for one of his parents to object, but neither did. ‘Alright then. I’ll be as quick as I can.’
He went to leave but paused for a long moment with one hand on the doorknob. Slowly he turned back around, and Josh saw the tears coursing silently down his cheeks. Todd returned to the bed and Josh stepped aside as his son gently slid his hands beneath Lily’s bony shoulders and hugged her before pressing a kiss on to her cheek.
‘I love you, Mum.’
Lily’s face was serene as she stared up at her only child. ‘I love you too, Todd. To the moon and back.’ They were the words she always used to say to him as a child before leaving his room each night, and if Todd didn’t get the significance of why she was saying them now, Josh definitely did.
As the door of the room closed, he heard Todd’s broken sob before his hurrying feet carried him away.
‘He didn’t need to be here for this,’ Lily said, her eyes burning with an intensity that was greater than even the pain Josh knew she was in.
‘Let me get someone to come and see if they can give you something,’ he begged, his hand hovering over the call button.
‘No, my love. I don’t want to miss a moment of being here with you.’
‘What can I do?’ Josh asked helplessly, knowing he was surely letting her down by crying again, but he just couldn’t help it.
‘Nothing. You’ve done it all. You’ve given me everything I ever wanted or needed. All I need now is to know that you’re here.’
‘Always,’ Josh said brokenly. He bent his head to the bed as though praying, even though he knew that this time it wouldn’t be answered.
‘Do you want to look at the photograph album?’ Josh asked, his hand already reaching out for it.
Surprisingly, Lily shook her head. ‘It’s not for me, my love, it’s for you,’ she said, her voice noticeably weaker. ‘Look at it,’ she urged, her eyes already closing.
Josh did as she asked, his hands not entirely steady as he began turning the pages. By the third or fourth he knew why Lily had asked Todd to bring this album, which Lily must have secretly compiled from hundreds of old prints. Unlike their other albums, which featured family members, beloved pets, and friends, this one held photographs of only two people: Josh and Todd.
On the opening page was their very first photo together, taken when Todd was only minutes old. They spanned his early weeks and so many firsts that Josh could hardly see through a mist of tears. First tentative steps, with Todd’s pudgy little hand gripped firmly in Josh’s. There they were again at the local swimming pool when the instructor had slipped off Todd’s armbands and launched him towards Josh’s open arms. He laughed out loud at the snap that captured him running like an idiot behind Todd’s bike as the little boy pedalled it unaided for the first time.
They looked nothing like each other. Todd was, and always had been, the image of his biological father, Adam, but the triumphant expressions on Josh and Todd’s faces were identical in snap after snap.
By the time Josh had travelled the pages of father and son cub camps, Saturday morning football practices, and holding the runner-up trophy together as though it was the FA Cup, Josh knew why Lily had made this album and why she had waited until now to give it to him.
‘You’ve been a wonderful dad,’ Lily said, her hand reaching once again for Josh’s. ‘You couldn’t have loved him any more than you did, it simply wasn’t possible. And I wanted you to have this’ – her eyes dropped to the album – ‘to remind you that there are so many good things still to come for the two of you. Todd’s going to need his dad now, and I need to know you’re going to be there for him. I need you to promise me you’ll be strong. I can’t be there for him and our amazing grandchildren, so I’m relying on you to be there for both of us. Will you promise me you’ll do that?’
‘I will,’ Josh said, drawing in a deep breath as though needing to find one last draught of strength to get through what he had to say. ‘But I need you to promise me something too.’
Lily turned her head on the pillow, and even that slight movement caused her pain, he could see it in the way she flinched.
‘I know you’re worried about me, but I want you to promise me that you’ll stop doing that.’
‘I can’t,’ Lily said simply.
Josh gave a ghost of a smile. He’d expected that would be her answer. But he had absolutely no idea what her response would be to his next request.
‘I want you to promise me something else. I want you to go and find Adam.’
Lily’s eyes were impossibly wide as she looked at her husband, who was gently nodding his encouragement.
‘I need to know that when we say goodbye you’re not going to be on your own, because I couldn’t bear the thought of that. But I know Adam will be there to look after you . . . He’s been waiting for so long to be with you again, Lily. This is his time now. Promise me you’ll go to him.’
There was shock on Lily’s face, but it was lost under the weight of what she felt for this man who’d spent almost his entire life loving her.
‘Find Adam. Make sure you let him know that you forgave him a long, long time ago, and that everything worked out exactly as it was meant to.’
Josh leant forward, pressing his lips to Lily’s for what he now knew would be their very last kiss. ‘Let him love you again, Lily, but never forget that I do too, so don’t go rushing too far ahead, because when the time is right, I’ll catch up with you. That’s my promise.’
The shadows grew longer as the day slipped slowly away, and as it did Josh kept hold of Lily’s hand. He knew it so well. Blindfolded he would find it among a thousand others.
He’d held it for the first time when they’d climbed the sycamore tree.
It had gripped his as Todd came into their world . . . and completed it.
And he’d held it with pride and love when he’d slid a gold band on her finger.
This was the hand he’d been born to hold.
And he was still doing so when Lily’s eyes found his for one last smile that Josh locked away in his heart like a gift, before she left him with a breath as soft as a sighed farewell, or a gentle hello.