Chapter Thirty-Five
Kate
True by Spandau Ballet
Waiting for somebody to die is a lot more physical than you’d think.
It’s not just sitting still while holding their hand, or occasionally climbing up and lying next to them – both of which I have seen Sharon do over the last three days – but it’s a lot of asking your body to hold and carry and contain a world of pain that you fear releasing in front of the dying person because you don’t want, in any way, shape or form, to taint their last living moments.
You don’t want to burden them with your pain, your grief, your breaking heart.
You have to lock all of that away inside yourself and that is a more physically laborious act than running a marathon, I really believe that.
And that’s not even touching on the toll the absence of quality sleep, the poor eating habits and the lack of fresh outside air can have on the body.
I’ve been slowly watching Sharon’s body get stiffer and stiffer, her shoulders more slumped and her head hanging lower over the last few days, and I know it’s making her unwell.
Not that I want to drag her away from Danny’s bedside – I wouldn’t, not in a million years – but I did just firmly suggest that she take a walk and then go freshen up in the nurse’s shower which I should absolutely not be giving her access to, but I’ll battle anyone who has the nerve to challenge me on it.
She refused for nearly thirty minutes until I insisted that I would sit with Danny while she was gone. That he wouldn’t be alone. Sharon’s eyes had then drifted to the rare blue sky outside the window and she’d seen sense. Or maybe she’d just run out of steam for arguing with me further.
And I am doing what I said I would do. I’m sitting by Danny’s bedside in a chair that must by now have Sharon’s beautiful bottom imprinted on the seat cushion and I’m feeling some of that physical burden in my own body.
I feel a little bit of it with each passing moment.
It’s why I can’t completely turn my back on the parts of Chinese medicine and culture I grew up with.
It’s qi. I believe it. This transfer of energy from life to death, it can’t not impact the qi of living beings in proximity.
And when it comes to Danny, I am closer than I’ve ever been to a patient, to one of the boys.
He’s comfortable, of that I’m mostly certain, as I study his breathing, check his oxygen mask is in place, and occasionally touch his fingers, checking that his circulation isn’t worsening.
When Sharon had been called back into hospital on Sunday, it was because his oxygen levels had dropped and the on-duty doctor, not Dr Lakshitha on account of it being the weekend, told Sharon he believed Danny’s KS had spread to his lungs and likely his larynx.
With a T-cell count of just over nine there was nothing more we could do for Danny because he had next to no immune system to be helped.
They were right to call Sharon in on Sunday because yes, he could have died that day, but it’s a cruel reality that he could also hang on for days, weeks. We just don’t know.
It’s when I’m holding Danny’s fingers, leaning forward to check they’re no colder than they were a moment ago, that he starts to cough. I leap up and remove his oxygen mask, lifting his thin frame a little to help clear whatever it is.
He groans as he settles back down once the coughing is over. I move to replace his oxygen mask when his eyes fix on mine. Turning his head away from the mouthpiece, he lifts a hand barely three centimetres off the bed in my vague direction.
“You’re not Sharon,” he rasps.
I smile. “No, I’m not.”
“She done a runner?” he asks with what I think is an attempt at a wink. His face is skeletal now and the dark marks of his lesions contrast with the almost translucent pallor of his skin.
My smile widens. “She needed some fresh air.”
He gives me a half-nod and closes his eyes, but he continues talking, very slowly but steadily. “Too loyal for her own good. Can’t get rid of her.”
I huff out a soft laugh and sit back down, although I shuffle the chair closer to the bed so I can hear him better if he continues to talk.
“Have you ever wanted to?”
He opens his eyes and for a flash of a second they look alive and alert and almost bright. “Never. But she’s a terrible liar,” he adds, his eyelids falling closed again.
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“I know my mum’s not coming,” he says.
“Oh?”
“She’s too stubborn. I’m the same.”
“I can be stubborn too,” I admit, out of nowhere.
“’sgood. Sometimes,” he says before coughing lightly. I stretch forward but he settles before I need to intervene. “To know what you want. And stick to it.”
I think about that for a moment. “And what if you don’t know what you want?”
Danny levels an empty but still piercing look at me. “You know what you want.”
I feel like I’ve been slapped around the face. “I do?”
“Yes. Her,” he strains to say. “You want Sharon.”
My stomach flips and I can’t tell anymore if that’s a good or a bad feeling.
“Even if I do, it’s not as simple as just deciding that and going for it.
” I feel sick with guilt and selfishness to be talking about this with Danny, in such a moment.
But I’ve not talked to anybody about Sharon and it feels so…
liberating to drag my concerns out of the dark hole that is my mind and to make them face up to the light of day.
“Hmm,” Danny says and he falls silent for a long moment, long enough for me to think that he’s asleep again. But then he finally speaks again. “Isn’t it?”
Isn’t it? Isn’t it as simple as deciding I want Sharon and going for it?
I can’t answer that question. And neither can Danny.
“She’ll never leave you,” he says with more conviction and clarity than anything else he’s said today. “If that’s what you’re worried about.”
“I’m not,” I say but stop. Because yes, I am. Of course I am. People leave people. That’s what they do. My father. My mother. Tao. All the poor sick patients I’ve seen be abandoned by friends and family. And even those lucky enough to have loved ones, they only eventually leave them anyway.
And Danny. Even Danny is leaving.
“You should sleep,” I tell him.
“You should have a bit of faith,” he replies slowly but with great, great determination.
He doesn’t close his eyes like I expect him to when I don’t reply. I move to sit up on his bed, taking his hand in one of mine while my other hand reaches up to brush back the hair on his head.
“She did it for you,” I tell him. “Sharon told you your mum was coming so you’d hold on a bit longer. She loves you so, so much.”
“I know,” he looks at me again, and any spark I saw earlier has long gone. “And I want to hold on.” He takes in a slow and very difficult breath. “But I… I don’t think I can anymore.”
It feels like my stomach catches my falling heart and I pray my face doesn’t show just how desperate I feel in this moment.
Desperate for Sharon to return. Desperate for Danny not to feel any kind of pain or discomfort even though I know that’s an impossible wish.
Desperate to know what the future holds for Sharon, for me.
Or maybe, maybe I’m desperate to be brave enough that I embrace not knowing.
“She’ll be here soon,” I tell him. “Just a little longer and then she’ll be with you.”
A corner of his mouth pulls up and his eyes close. His features become slack and I stand up so I can put the oxygen mask back over his mouth.
I don’t go back to Sharon’s chair. I sit on the bed again and I hold Danny’s hand, not because I’m worried about his circulation or to find his pulse. I hold his hand and I stroke his fingers because I want him to feel comfortable. I want him to feel love.
And I think I do too.