Chapter 27
Twenty-Seven
“Father, please forgive me.”
—“I Pray the Gods Forgive Me,” The Wooden Horse, Act One
Jonah decided the reason Dexter never told him about the car came down to one very simple thing: he couldn’t actually drive.
He somehow managed to stall each time they came to a stop, didn’t seem to understand the concept of lanes, and blamed the
other drivers for the mistakes he was making. Jonah, however, remained quiet in the passenger seat, deciding instead to focus
on the sounds of the radio rather than Dexter’s incessant road rage.
They’d said barely more than ten words to each other since getting in the car apart from when Dexter asked Jonah for help
with directions. Eventually Jonah fell asleep, his head resting against the window, neck at an uncomfortable angle when he
woke to Dexter slamming his hands on the horn and swearing profusely at a little old lady who could barely see over the steering
wheel of her car. He snuck a glance at the GPS; they were still two hours away from the hospital, but so far he’d not had
any calls from his mum or Penny to say he was too late, which gave him hope he might get there to talk with his dad one last
time.
Saying goodbye seemed like an odd concept; he’d said goodbye to his dad in so many ways since his diagnosis.
He’d said goodbye to the memories his father could no longer recall and tried to keep them safe in a neat box he tucked away in the recesses of his own mind.
He’d said goodbye to their conversations, the ones they had back on summer nights in the garden as the sea crashed against the bottoms of the cliffs.
And he said goodbye to the fit man who once competed in the dad races on field days and always won, lifting Jonah up into the air and yelling in triumph as the other dads still attempted to cross the finish line.
Jonah sniffed and wiped some tears from his eyes, looking out the car window at the darkness whizzing past them.
“There’s tissues in the glove compartment,” Dexter said, jerking his head toward the handle in front of Jonah’s knees.
“Thanks,” Jonah mumbled. He opened it to fish out a brand-new packet of tissues and pulled one out to swipe across his nose.
“Sorry. I know I look gross right now.”
“You always look gross, so no change there.”
Jonah narrowed his eyes at him but managed a smile. “I can always count on you to make sure I never forget just how shit I
look.”
“You sure can.” Dexter kept his eyes on the road, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel and bobbing his head along to
the music on the radio.
“You can stay at my mum’s house and sleep once we get there,” Jonah said, knowing they hadn’t discussed any logistics with
their middle-of-the-night expedition. “Not that I’m expecting you to stay or anything.”
“Thanks. I’ll probably need to get some rest before driving back. If . . . if you’re okay with me heading back, that is.”
“Dexter, I still can’t believe you’re actually driving me. Of course I don’t expect you stay. Especially after . . . well . . .
you know.”
Dexter cleared his throat and clicked off the radio, the comfortable backdrop of the music suddenly gone. “I know now isn’t
the time for us to be talking about this, but I just need you to know I haven’t gone behind your back. Not with anything.
I’m not interested in messing around in relationships, Jonah.”
Outside they passed a family of trees, all of them reaching out to each other, branches intertwined, bodies barren, the leaves
already turned to brown and fallen away.
“You want to know what I do on Mondays?” he asked seriously.
“Every morning at ten I have an hour session with my therapist. Then my mum calls me for our weekly check-in, which usually lasts about eight minutes on average as she fills me in on the lives of the half sisters I’ve never met.
” He kept his eyes focused on the road. “Then I have to clean the house because I need to do something after that call that doesn’t make me feel like absolute shit because she ran away and left me.
I thought maybe I could try something to calm me, which is why I went to yoga, but then you were there and I squashed your dick, so cleaning seemed the safer option. ”
Jonah wanted to reach out and place his hand on his knee, but he couldn’t, not now, not now things were frozen between them.
“I think . . . maybe we both have some issues with trust, Dexter.”
Dexter allowed his eyes to drift from the road for a second as he looked at Jonah. “What do you mean?” he asked, his eyes
already back on the road.
“It’s what it all boils down to, isn’t it, because why not tell me that before?” Jonah asked carefully.
“Stephen said therapy was a waste of time. And he hated the cleaning, said I was neurotic.”
“I’m not Stephen.”
“And I’m not Edward.”
Jonah tensed at the mention of his name, flashbacks of Wes walking toward him back at the Persephone, fingers curled in a
fist, and the pain following shortly afterward. “I think maybe you’re right.”
“About what?”
“I can’t be with someone until I sort myself out.” Something inside of Jonah stung, a physical pain he didn’t know he could
experience. He watched as Dexter swallowed thickly, and he wanted to kiss him, he wanted to touch him and beg him to hold
him until everything felt okay again. But once the storm passed, would there be trust? Dexter didn’t deserve Jonah’s insecurities
forced on him, and Jonah didn’t deserve it from Dexter either.
Dexter clicked the radio on again, and they listened to a woman drone on about illegal aircraft for twenty minutes until a song finally came on.
“Afternoon Delight.” At three forty-eight in the morning.
Jonah looked at Dexter only to see him glance back at him with a smile.
They fell back into a somewhat comfortable silence and watched the countryside pass them by.
The beeping of his dad’s heart monitor reminded Jonah to stay awake. He’d never felt so exhausted, but he saw his mum asleep
in the chair next to the hospital bed and knew one of them needed to stay awake to hold his dad’s hand. He’d relieved Aunt
Penny of her duties, and she left the hospital reluctantly, but he could see just how tired she was too. She took Dexter with
her, instructing him to follow her back to the family house on the edge of the cliff where he would no doubt sleep in Jonah’s
old bedroom and wonder how the hell he ended up in Cornwall with a man he just broke up with.
Jonah held his dad’s hand in his and looked down at the IV poking out from his skin, the surrounding area mottled and bruised,
his hand skeletal, old, so terribly old. The selfish part of Jonah wished he would wake up so they could talk. It didn’t matter
what topic his dad chose, he would talk to him about anything for hours if it meant he could just hear his voice. But he knew
he just needed to be grateful he made it in time, that he was there, by his side in case the worse thing really happened.
“The man you came here with is handsome,” his mum said, pulling Jonah’s attention away from his dad’s peaceful, sleeping face.
“I thought you were asleep.”
“I seem to only close my eyes for fifteen minutes before I remember where I am and I find my eyes are open again, looking
at him, making sure he’s still breathing.” She sat forward and yawned, her own body frail. She seemed decades older than she
really was. “How did we get to this point, hey, sausage?” She took his dad’s other hand into hers and carefully stroked his
fingers.
“I still can’t understand how he’s deteriorated so quickly.”
“He’s got fluid in his lungs. Pneumonia does that.”
“I feel like I’ve failed him.”
“No,” she said sternly. “No, Jonah Penrose. You’ve failed no one.”
Jonah sucked in a shaky breath. “I’ve failed you. I should have been here.”
“Jonah.” His mum sighed. “Your father and I, we watched you grow up here, we saw you develop passions we could never have imagined you would get into. And we saw how talented you were, no, are, and we wouldn’t ever dream of holding you back.
Things have been pretty bloody shit here recently, but that’s not because
you’ve been in London.”
“But you’ve not been okay.”
“You’re right, I haven’t,” she admitted. “I’ll hold my hands up and say I’ve been an absolute mess since your father got ill.
But no one gives you a handbook and says this is exactly how you should act when your husband no longer remembers who you
are.” She stopped for a moment. “Actually, they gave me some pamphlets.” She smiled and shook her head. “But a piece of paper
doesn’t hold all the answers. And neither does a bottle of wine.”
Jonah sat back in his chair, letting go of his dad’s hand now that his mum was awake and keeping up the contact. “I never
thought this would happen,” Jonah said. “I never thought about losing him. It just didn’t seem like a possibility.”
“No one likes to think about their parents no longer being about. I remember when your Nanna Rose passed away, I felt like
someone took away my lungs, like I couldn’t possibly go on without my mum living down the road. But, I did. I kept breathing,
because I had you and your dad and people surrounding me who held my hand and let me remember her in different ways.”
“You mean the rosebush you planted then killed?”
She let out a loud laugh, then clapped her hand over her mouth as his dad stirred. “Oh, shut it, you,” she whispered. “Nanna
Rose would have appreciated me trying. It wasn’t my fault that bloody bush was intent on dying.”
“Roses?” his dad mumbled, slowly opening his eyes, blinking up at the lights above him. “Someone plant a rose?”
“No, Mum killed the rosebush,” Jonah said, leaning forward to take his hand again.
His dad turned his head slightly to look at him, and for a few seconds no expression settled on his face, before he finally smiled and squeezed his hand. “Oh, hello, boyo.”
“Jonah came all the way from London to see you,” Jonah’s mum said, smiling as she looked at her husband fondly. “We had to
tell him, what with you coming into hospital.”
“That’s a long way,” his dad said solemnly, his voice hoarse. “I’m only being dramatic. No need for you to come up.”
Jonah shook his head, his nose scrunching slightly as he tried not to cry. “It’s fine, I got a ride because I’m so famous
these days.”
“Are you, now?”
“Oh, yeah, totally.” Jonah laughed.
“A handsome man drove him here, Bill,” his mum cooed, and Jonah could tell she was trying to lighten the atmosphere, because
she, too, could hear how exhausted he sounded.
“A handsome man! What’s his name then?”
“Dexter.”
His dad’s lips drooped as he considered the name. “Huh. Does he like maths?”
“Oh, I don’t think so, not particularly. Why?”
“Dexter sounds like someone who enjoys an equation.”
Jonah let out a snort and shook his head. “No. Well, not this Dexter, anyway.”
“Is he your boyfriend?” his dad asked, something hopeful in his eyes, and Jonah couldn’t say no. He couldn’t say that, actually,
they broke up several hours ago because they were both insecure idiots who couldn’t separate past hurt from their present
relationship. So Jonah nodded instead.
“Yeah.”
“Good . . .” His dad hummed and licked his lips, though they remained dry. “My son, he needs to settle down, maybe you can
talk to him and tell him to get his finger out his arse and find a nice man.”
“Bill, what are you—” his mum started, but Jonah shook his head gently, and she stopped.
“I’ll have a word,” Jonah said. “Anything else you want me to tell him?”
“Yes,” his father said, then coughed wetly, spittle clinging to the edges of his mouth. “Tell him I’ll leave the landing light
on for him so it’s not dark when he gets home.”
All the air left Jonah’s lungs. The landing light. He left it on whenever Jonah went out with his friends like a lighthouse
calling him home, and Dad remembered, he remembered the tiny little gesture and provided it to him again now, something Jonah
had forgotten about finally falling back into place.
“Okay. I’ll tell him.”
“And tell him . . . tell him . . . tell him we can play the piano when I get home . . . the song . . . what’s the song again?”
“‘You Win Again.’”
“Yes. The Bee Gees.”
“That’s right.” Jonah placed his other hand over the top of his dad’s and closed his eyes for just a moment, pretending they
were in the garden back home, the grill on the BBQ hot, sausages cooking beneath the blistering summer sun while the sprinkler
watered the vegetable patch.
“How does it go?” his dad asked, his eyes heavy but focused on Jonah.
Jonah took a breath and quietly recited the song to him, the tune one he could never forget, and he was there—a child again,
sitting at the piano with his dad, their fingers dancing along the keys, and laughing each time his dad got the lyrics wrong.
He sang to him, and they strolled along the beach as the sun kissed the waves before hiding beyond the horizon; the sea tickled
their ankles as they held their shoes in their hands, knitted jumpers covering their bodies as they talked about life and
the dreams Jonah wished he might someday achieve. Dreams he did achieve. Dreams his father got to see him grasp and make his own. And as he reached the final chorus, his dad’s hand in his,
he was standing outside the Palace Theatre in London having just watched Les Misérables for the first time. And he knew his father would be there, alive in his memories, forever.