Chapter Eighteen
NOW
There’d been a time when loving Emmett had felt like the hardest thing that I had to face. Of course, that was when I was a teenager, before things took the turn that they did.
It started with breathlessness. In Dad, I mean.
The signs were there, those final summers.
And then when he got worse, we thought it was just the fallout of Mum running off with Eyebrow Clive.
The shock of her leaving hit him hard. So we thought it was that he wasn’t coping, like a helpless, breathless little bird.
The divorce wasn’t even done the first time some doctor who wasn’t Dr Dave said the words ‘congenital heart disease’.
And even then, we didn’t know how serious something like that would be.
But Dad just deteriorated, once he was diagnosed.
Like his body, his heart, just gave up. He got thin, he couldn’t walk up the stairs.
The doctor who wasn’t Dr Dave told us that getting a transplant would be an option, but Dad had a rare tissue group. We both do.
There were tests on Mae and me. They showed nothing at first, and we thought we’d escaped it. But then, before I even realised it, before I felt unwell in any way, my heart had begun to fail.
Dad lived for five years after he was diagnosed. I’ve already had ten. Sometimes I think about how it must be for Mae, watching her dad and then her sister die. I know that I wouldn’t cope if things were reversed.
Speaking of which, Mae isn’t done with me this night. I settle back against the bed in my tiny hotel room, on the side that Emmett sat on while I napped, and look out at the night sky.
Mae: What do you think he’d do, if he knew?
Me: Well, the generalised response has been to run the fuck away. So I think he’d do that.
It’s the truth. I might have pushed a lot of people away after my diagnosis, but plenty had gone of their own volition too. There’d only been Mae. And Zadie. The odd boyfriend who just didn’t get it.
Mae: You’re on the transplant list.
Me: And how did that work out for Dad? You know what Dr Dave said about my tissue group.
Mae: Dr Dave said we need to stay positive.
Me: I am positive. Positive that I won’t get a transplant.
I can’t explain it, but living without that hope means in some ways, it’s easier for me. Living, expecting to get a transplant that might never come, is worse somehow. I’ve come to realise that false hope is worse than no hope at all.
Plus, waiting for a transplant is basically waiting for someone else to die. If you think about that for too long, it’s all sorts of fucked up.
Mae: I hate it when you get like this. It’s unnecessary.
Another thing I’ve discovered is that Mae can cope with almost anything. But she can’t cope with this. I take a breath and lay back on the bed.
Me: All I’m saying is that there’s no point in telling him.
Mae: He might stay, if he knew.
Me: Because that’s exactly what I want to happen. Guilt him into staying. I wouldn’t do that then, and I won’t do it now.
Mae: He might have contacts!
Me: He doesn’t, Mae.
Me: Listen, it’s late, I need to get some rest. Another day walking around Paris might kill me anyway, then I won’t have to worry about getting a transplant or not.
Mae: Not even remotely funny.
Me: I think I’m hilarious. It would save us all some time and effort.
Mae: Can’t you just even pretend to have an ironic zest for life?
Me: I’m in Paris. With my long-lost love. What could possibly be zestier than that?
Mae: Fine. I suppose that is quite zesty. Love you. See you Friday xx
Me: Love you too. See you soon xxx
I send a Care Bear GIF with a beating heart that’s kind of freaky, to reassure Mae that it’s all okay.
I’m worried about how badly she’s coping with this.
It’s not like it’s new information, and the good thing is that so far, she’s showing no signs of the myocardiopathy that killed Dad.
She’s older than I was when the ultrasound first showed that my heart was beginning to struggle.
It’s a shit choice, but I’d rather this happen to me than her.
So it’s not new new. Being added to the transplant list is new-ish, I suppose.
It’s just another step towards the inevitable.
If I think too much about Mae, after, I lose it.
Mostly, I try to do what Earl suggested once, in a conversation I’ll never forget.
Ground myself in the moment and live it.
That’s what Dr Dave advocates, too. People have gone mad from the waiting.
There’s no way I’m bringing all this misery to Emmett’s door. He had his fair share of that as a kid. I need to protect him.
But as I drift off to sleep, I remember that I’d had the same thought twenty years ago. Right before it all went wrong.
The next morning I’m a heady mixture of depressed and excited. Excited to see The Edge of Always again, excited to see Emmett, but depressed that it all has to end soon. This is why neutrality is by far the better option; it’s much less exhausting than quite so much feeling.
I pull on some leggings and an oversized shift dress with squirrels all over it.
I genuinely wonder if I’ll have to leave some of my stuff here when it comes to getting my suitcase shut again.
I’m taking it with me since I’m going straight to Emmett’s hotel after MAM.
And fuck, there’s a reality I never thought would happen.
I’m kneeling on top of the case, winded and gasping when there’s a knock at my hotel room door.
‘Hello?’ I call, assuming it’ll be the eager beaver receptionist.
‘Luna.’ Fuck, it’s Emmett. Look at the state of my case! I bet he packs like he’s in the Marines.
I quickly chuck my medicine bottles in my bag and then fling open the door, hearing my case spring back open on the floor behind me.
‘Emmett,’ I smile, blowing some hair off my face. ‘What’re you doing here?’
He’s holding a bag stained with grease, so you know it contains something good. And two coffees. If it was a thing that we still did, I’d kiss him.
‘Just thought I’d bring you breakfast.’ He peers behind me into the room.
I make little grabby hands towards the coffee.
‘Okay, thank you. Ignore the mess. I don’t know how I seem to have more stuff than when I arrived.’
It is, I think, good that I didn’t heed Mae’s advice to bring a menagerie of vibrators. The only thing that could make the mess more embarrassing is a rogue vibrator amidst the chaos.
Emmett’s wearing a dark green T-shirt today that sets off his eyes. It’s only a T-shirt, I’ve seen him in a ton of T-shirts, but it’s… distracting.
‘Shall we have these on the balcony? We’ve a few minutes before we need to set off?’ he says, holding up the pastry bag.
‘Yes, definitely.’
We sit outside and watch Paris below us.
It’s warm, the pastry and the weather, and I think that the loveliness of it all is actually making me more, not less, depressed.
Imagine one week you’re sitting on a balcony in Paris with the sun on your face, a busy, bustling avenue below you, and the next, you’re running an art class in a hospice for people who are dying, knowing that one day, probably soon, you’ll die there too.
‘Are you okay, Luna?’ Emmett asks.
Maybe my misery is written all over my face.
‘What? Yeah, I’m fine. Sorry, just got lost in my thoughts there for a second. I thought I’d be desperate to get home, but now I don’t want to go back.’
‘I thought you loved Northumberland?’ he asks, taking a bite of his croissant.
‘I do. It’s just… tricky to explain.’
‘Try me.’
And if I was going to tell him, now would be a really great time to.
But I’m not. Once people know that about you, they act different.
Not that I think that Emmett would behave like everyone else and assume that death is catching; he’s a doctor; he’ll know that it isn’t.
But people see you differently, and there’s no taking it back once it’s out there.
‘I guess, sometimes I’m just a bit lonely there. But it’s nothing, and I have my Deathers. Hey, I posted last night asking them to look into where that blue door from The Rubicon might be. It was Mae’s idea.’
I’d checked this morning and there were a couple of comments saying that they were on it. God bless the internet.
I’ve trailed off, so I finish with, ‘Plus, Paris is lovely – who would want to leave?’
He laughs. ‘I have that thought every time I go.’
We finish our breakfast in companionable silence. Emmett watches as I tip my face up to the sun, letting it soak into me.
Time is moving at super speed today, I’m sure.
One short second I’m checking out of my hotel and the next we’re being ushered towards The Edge of Always.
Mari is meeting us here, and I haven’t even thought of what I’ll say to her.
It’s different, being here when it’s empty, when the art, not people, take up all the space.
We sit on the same concrete bench in front of the painting as we did two days ago.
How was it only that long? Once again, I’m staring at my own face.
Younger, full of life, and I’m thinking how it’ll still be here once I’m gone.
I’m immortalised in this painting and yet I’m looking at a person I barely know anymore, though I’m certain that I had no idea who I was then, either.
Maybe some people just never know. We remain enigmas, even to ourselves, our whole lives.
‘I had the strangest thought, the first time I saw it,’ I whisper to Emmett. I don’t know why I’m whispering. There’s no one else here.
‘What’s that?’ he asks. He’s so close to me. Too close. It’s throwing out my senses.
Now that I’ve started this conversation, I don’t want to finish it. But I can’t think of anything to say so I just admit, ‘I thought for a short moment that Earl had painted both of us.’
Emmett doesn’t say anything, but he tips his head to the side and studies the piece some more.
‘He definitely did paint you. That much is obvious.’
My face takes up so much of the painting, my hair splayed out around me, caught by the wind I presume.