Prologue #2
The doctor had paused for a long moment. He hadn’t needed to look down at the test results or refer to the X-rays fanned out on the desk before him. He’d locked eyes with Adam.
‘Bad,’ he’d said quietly. ‘It’s bad.’
The minutes slid silently into hours. Staff changed shifts and the corridor outside Adam’s room grew quieter.
‘Talk to me,’ Adam said, as I lay pretzelled against him.
‘What about?’
He gave a ghost of a smile. ‘Anything. I just want to hear your voice. Tell me what you thought of me the first time we met.’
‘That’s easy. I thought you were a bit of a knob. Far too overconfident.’
He gave a low chuckle, which turned into a worrying coughing fit.
His lungs were compromised now. His breathing was no longer silent.
There was a rasp to it that I knew wasn’t going to go away.
I did as he asked, telling stories that all began with the words ‘Remember when . . .’ They made us smile, they made us cry – but that was okay too, because we were doing it together.
And ‘together’ was a luxury we wouldn’t have for much longer.
Almost as if he sensed the dark avenue my thoughts had turned down, Adam’s arms tightened around me. It was after midnight and the hospice was silent except for the occasional quietly trodden footsteps travelling the corridor.
‘Lily, I have something I need to ask you. Something I want you to promise.’
‘More promises?’ I said, trying to keep my voice light, but there was something about his tone that made the hair stand up on my arms. There had been a whole collection of things he had wanted me to promise over the last days and weeks. Most of them were pretty doable.
‘Promise me you’ll remember to get the car serviced regularly.’
‘You’re worried about the car?’ I’d asked incredulously.
‘I’m worried about you. I don’t want my time in the afterlife ruined by stressing about you driving around with dodgy brakes.’
Behind the humour in his eyes, I had seen the genuine concern.
‘Okay, babe. I promise I’ll visit the garage regularly.’
But not every promise was so easy to make.
‘Promise me you’ll still take that trip to Australia next year like we planned.’
I’d shaken my head sadly at that one. ‘I don’t want to do that without you. That was our dream.’
Adam had taken my hand between his and squeezed it gently.
‘It’s still our dream. And when you stand on the top of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, I’m going to be right there beside you. That’s my promise.’
I kind of liked that, so I’d said yes to that one too.
‘Go on then,’ I said to him now in the quiet of his hospice room.
‘This one is really a two-part promise, but it’s the most important one that I’ve asked of you.’
He looked so serious as he stared down at me. It was almost as though he already knew how I’d react.
‘Okay. Whatever it is, I promise I’ll do it,’ I said, gently running my fingers over his furrowed brow.
‘Good,’ Adam said with a slow nod. ‘Because I want you to find Josh and fix things with him.’
‘No.’ The word shot out of me before I had a chance to censor it. ‘Absolutely not,’ I added for extra emphasis. I struggled in his arms but his hold on me was surprisingly strong, in every sense of the word.
‘I need to know you’ll be alright when I’m gone, Lily. You need to go to him.’
‘No, I don’t,’ I said, gentler this time but just as firm. ‘I will be alright, sweetheart. I’ve told you that. I will be sad, and my heart will be broken for a very long time, maybe forever, but I do not need to go and find the man whose last words to me were that he never wanted to see me again.’
‘That was my fault,’ Adam said, his voice cracking.
‘I chose you, not Josh,’ I reminded him, pressing a kiss on his lips, which felt as dry as sandpaper. ‘I will always choose you. In this life and the next.’
Adam shook his head and one of the machines he was attached to started to beep alarmingly. He was getting agitated, and that was the last thing I wanted.
‘Please, Lily. For me. Go and see him. Listen to what he has to say. And then, when you’ve heard it . . . forgive him. And then forgive me.’
‘You’re not making any sense,’ I said, my voice wobbling. Was this the beginning of the end? They’d warned me that Adam might become confused, or even delusional, and instructing me to go to the man who I’d turned down to be with him was about as deluded as it got.
‘You don’t have to understand now why I’m asking you to do this, but you do have to promise me you’ll go.’
My sigh was long and heartfelt. ‘Alright. If it means this much to you, I’ll do it.’
‘And don’t wait too long. Go to him soon. Promise me.’
‘I promise.’
There is probably a special place in hell for people who lie to someone who’s dying, and I was already halfway there.
It happened in the dark, middle-of-the-night hours, when so many warriors finally lose their fight. I knew it was getting closer by the worried expression in the eyes of the nurses as they came in to check on him.
I struggled to slip out of the bed but a senior nurse, one I’d never really warmed to, stopped me from getting up by placing a firm hand on my shoulder.
‘You’re fine just where you are,’ she said quietly.
The lump in my throat was almost impossible to swallow past.
‘Would you like someone to stay in the room with you?’ She turned her head and nodded to a shadowy corner. ‘We could sit quietly over there.’
I shook my head. ‘I think I’d like it to be just the two of us.’
Her hand was back on my shoulder, gently squeezing it.
‘That’s okay. I understand. You can buzz if you change your mind.’
Adam fought to keep his eyes open for as long as he could; fought to stay with me for every single second we had left. But his body was struggling, and I was hurting him by wanting him to hold on a little bit longer, just for me.
‘Close your eyes, sweetheart.’
‘I don’t want to. I want to see you.’
I leant up and gently kissed him again. ‘I’m there behind your eyes, whether they’re open or closed.’
‘You are and always will be the love of my life, Lily.’
‘And you are mine.’
His eyes closed briefly. ‘Please remember what I asked tonight.’
‘I remember. I remember everything,’ I said. That much at least was no lie. There were some things that would stay with me for all time.
‘I am going to close my eyes now,’ he said, his voice so weak I could hardly hear it.
‘Good idea.’
‘I’ll see you soon, Lily.’
‘You sure will.’
But that was the second lie I told him that night.
Fifteen minutes later, the gap between his breaths grew longer and longer, and then quietly, with that was uniquely his, Adam Tennant – my husband, my best friend, and the love of my life – simply stopped being.
I stared down at his face which, for the first time in months, looked free from pain. From the corner of his eye a single tear had escaped and sat on his cheekbone like a dropped diamond. I bent down and gently kissed it away.