Chapter 49
JIYA
“I’ll be right there,” I said, grabbing my keys before the call had even properly ended.
My heart pounded as I rushed to the car, my hands trembling slightly as I started the engine.
The drive to the gallery barely registered—I arrived in less than a minute, my breath shallow, my chest tight with a fear that had become constant.
I found him exactly where he said he would be… drained and leaning against the wall like even standing had become too much.
My heart broke all over again.
I rushed to him, slipping my arm around his waist as he leaned into me, his weight heavier than it had ever been before. I supported him, guiding him slowly toward the car.
I could feel it now.
The weakness… the fragility… the way his body no longer listened to him.
By the time I helped him into the passenger seat, my hands were shaking. I closed the door gently, standing there for a second, just looking at him.
At what was happening to him.
At what I was losing.
The changes had come so quickly after our wedding.
He could barely keep any food down anymore. The meals I made, the ones he used to enjoy, now sat untouched or half-eaten. His frame had thinned so much that it terrified me every time I noticed it again.
And I noticed it every day.
I was losing him.
My husband.
The man I loved.
And there was nothing I could do to stop it.
That helplessness… it broke me every single day. But I couldn’t fall apart.
Not in front of him.
Not in front of the children.
So I held myself together.
For him.
For Lucas.
For Emma.
Taking care of someone who was dying… especially when that someone was your husband… was something no one could ever truly prepare you for.
It wasn’t just physical… it was emotional, mental, constant, and relentless.
I saw it in my reflection some days—the exhaustion etched into my face, the way my eyes had lost their brightness, the dark circles that refused to fade no matter how much I tried to rest.
I had become hyper-aware of everything when it came to Cole.
Every movement.
Every breath.
Every win, no matter how small.
I made sure he had everything he needed from the moment I woke up to the moment I fell asleep.
And even then… it never felt like enough.
There were not enough hours in the day. Not enough time.
I created schedules—meticulously planned, carefully balanced—trying to make sure I could be everything all at once.
A wife.
A mother.
A caregiver.
A business owner.
I refused to let anything fall apart.
Not when so much already was.
But there were moments… moments when I couldn’t hold it in anymore. When the weight of everything pressed down too hard. I would lock myself in the bathroom, turn on the tap just enough to mask the sound, and let it all out.
I cried.
I broke.
I cursed.
I asked questions I knew had no answers. Why him? Why now? Why us?
He didn’t deserve this. Not after everything he had already been through. Not after he had finally found peace. Found us. A man who had lost his family… who had rebuilt himself from nothing… who had chosen to love again. And now he was being taken away.
From me.
From our children.
It wasn’t fair.
None of it was.
“Do you need any help?” Jack’s voice pulled me back to the present.
I was at the restaurant, moving through my routine, checking on things, making sure everything was running as it should. I hadn’t even realized how tired I must have looked until I saw the concern in his eyes.
“No, I’m fine for now,” I replied, forcing a small smile.
“You don’t look it,” he said gently. “You’ve lost weight. Are you even catching any sleep?”
I exhaled slowly, pushing the exhaustion down where it belonged. “I manage what I can,” I said. “Don’t worry.” I paused for a second before adding softly, “Cole’s the one in pain. I wish I could do more for him.”
Jack’s expression softened.
“Being there for him during this time is the best that you can do,” he said. “You’re doing more than enough already.” His hand came to my shoulder in a comforting squeeze. “I’ll come over to help you out,” he added, pulling me into a brief hug.
I nodded, leaning into it for just a second longer than I normally would.
Because even the strongest people needed something to hold onto sometimes.
Cole still tried to go to the gallery on the days he had the strength, but those days were becoming fewer. More often than not, he slept late into the afternoon, his body refusing to cooperate no matter how much he willed it to.
I began to measure our time not in days anymore, but in moments—good ones and bad ones, each one slipping through my fingers far too quickly.
“Easy, honey,” I whispered one morning as I sat beside him on the bed.
I gently lifted his leg and turned it over the edge, careful not to hurt him, then did the same with the other.
His body felt lighter and heavier all at once—lighter because he had lost so much weight, heavier because of what it meant.
I wrapped my arm around him and helped him sit up, my movements slow, deliberate, as if I could protect him from the reality of what was happening just by being careful enough.
“Can you open the curtains, please?” he asked softly.
I nodded and stood up, walking over to the window. When I pulled the curtains apart, sunlight flooded the room.
The sky outside was a clear blue, dotted with soft white clouds drifting lazily in the breeze. It looked like one of those perfect days—calm, beautiful, untouched.
I wished we could step into that world and leave everything else behind.
He came downstairs that day and stayed there until evening. He sat with the children, watched television, and even managed to eat all three meals at the dining table. Moments like those felt like victories now, ones I held onto with everything I had.
But a week later, even that became too much.
He stopped going to the gallery altogether.
He stayed at home, and I adjusted everything around that.
I brought in a wheelchair so he wouldn’t have to strain himself walking, and we installed a stairlift so he could move between floors without exhausting himself completely.
Every change we made felt like another quiet acknowledgment of how much things had shifted.
There were moments when I would sit beside him, feeding him slowly, watching his face as he tried to swallow, and I would wonder what to say.
I knew he was suffering.
I knew talking would only tire him more.
So I stayed quiet.
Sometimes I wondered if that was the right thing to do.
Other times, I felt like I didn’t know what I was doing at all.
There were days when I moved through everything on instinct—showering him, helping him shave, assisting him with the simplest tasks, feeding him, making sure he was comfortable—like I had become a machine programmed to keep going no matter what.
And then there were moments when it all caught up to me. Was I doing enough? Was I doing this right? Could I be doing more?
I had never taken care of someone who was dying before.
And I was scared.
Helping him with everyday tasks became my new normal.
I asked Geeta to check on him every hour when he was asleep, just to make sure he was okay. I returned home every two to three hours, no matter where I was, making sure he was fed, cleaned, and not alone for too long.
Emma was too young to understand any of it. To her, everything still felt the same.
I was grateful for that.
Grateful that Geeta was there to keep her occupied, to shield her from something she didn’t need to carry yet.
Lucas, however, was different.
He understood more than I wanted him to.
He had become quieter. More observant. More careful with his words, as if he was trying to protect me the same way I was trying to protect him.
One night, as I tucked him into bed, he looked up at me with eyes that held too much for a child his age.
“Why does everyone keep leaving us, Mama?” he asked.
“What do you mean, sweetheart?” I asked.
“First Harper,” he said slowly, “though I don’t remember him much. Then Caleb… and now Cole.”
My emotions surged. I forced myself to stay calm, to be strong for him, even though everything inside me was unravelling.
“Sometimes,” I began softly, choosing each word carefully, “situations happen in life that we as humans have no control over.”
I brushed his hair back gently.
“That doesn’t mean we give up or blame anyone. It means we stay strong, we keep moving forward, and we live the best way we can… even when it’s hard. And we never forget to be kind, to love, and to help others along the way.”
His eyes filled with tears. “I’m scared about Dad leaving us soon,” he whispered. “He seems to be getting sicker each day.”
My chest tightened painfully.
“I know, baby,” I said, pulling him into my arms and wiping his tears. “I’m scared too.” I held him a little tighter. “But right now, we need to be there for him,” I continued softly. “We need to be his strength, and we need to help him as much as we can. Can you do that for me?”
He nodded against me.
I kissed his head and held him close, knowing how much this was going to hurt him.
Knowing that he was about to lose another man in his life.
A man he had finally called Dad.
A knock on the bedroom door one evening made Cole and me turn toward it, the soft sound cutting through the quiet between us.
“Come in,” I said.
The door opened, and the children walked in with Geeta close behind them.
“The children wanted to see you, Bhaiya,” she said softly.
My chest tightened at the sight of them.
“Be gentle now, Lucas and Emma,” I said, my voice calm even though my heart was anything but.
“How are you feeling today, Dad?” Lucas asked, walking closer to the bed, his eyes searching Cole’s face carefully.
“I’m okay, son,” Cole replied slowly, his voice weaker than it used to be, but strong enough to reassure him.
“Dada,” Emma cooed, reaching out for him.
I picked her up and placed her carefully on my lap beside him, making sure she didn’t lean too heavily against his frail body.
“Can I get you some soup, maybe?” Lucas asked, trying so hard to help, to be useful, to do something.
“That would be nice,” Cole replied, giving him a small smile.
I watched Lucas nod and rush out, his little footsteps echoing down the hallway, and I felt an ache form in my chest at how quickly he had grown up in the face of all this.
The children had made it a routine to see him every morning as soon as they woke up and again before going to bed, as if they were trying to hold onto him in the only way they knew how.
Liam came as often as he could, every couple of days without fail, calling every single day in between just to check on him. Weekends had become filled with family, with people trying to surround Cole with as much love as possible.
“Are you excited about the weekend, love?” I asked, turning to him with a small smile I forced into place. “Elle’s family, Jack and Maureen, and your brother and his family are coming over for lunch.”
He nodded slowly.
Lucas came back in with the soup, carefully holding the bowl.
I took it from him and sat beside Cole, lifting the spoon slowly to his lips.
He ate what he could.
I wiped his mouth gently when he was done.
The children climbed onto the bed beside him, talking about their day, about small things that once felt ordinary but now felt like everything.
Cole smiled at them.
And I saw it.
The effort behind that smile.
The pain he tried so hard to hide.
It tore me apart. I couldn’t bear what he was going through. I couldn’t bear the thought that I couldn’t take it away from him. If I could have taken his sickness into my own body, I would have done it without hesitation.
Instead, all I could do was sit there… and watch.
And love him.
And slowly lose him.
A heaviness grew inside me with every passing second.
Soon… I would be alone again.
The thought crept in quietly, uninvited but impossible to ignore.
My husband.
My best friend.
Gone.
I looked around the room, my eyes moving slowly, almost unwillingly.
The closet where our clothes hung side by side. The bathroom with his toiletries neatly placed, his aftershave still carrying the scent I had come to love so deeply. The bed we shared.
Soon… his clothes would remain untouched. His toothbrush would sit unused. His side of the bed would grow cold.
Empty.
And it would just be me.
Alone… again.
After dinner, I gave him his medication and watched as he struggled to swallow it.
My heart ached with every second of it.
He looked at me then, lifting his hand with effort and placing it gently against my cheek.
His hand… once so warm… now carried a coldness that terrified me.
“I’m fine, love,” he said softly. “Don’t worry.”
I closed my eyes for a moment, leaning into his touch, holding onto it for as long as I could. Dear God… please let him not suffer. Please let him not be in pain anymore.