Chapter 45
Ben
Four weeks later.
We brought one car today. Sometimes she insists on driving her own. Antonia sits in the passenger seat as I turn into the retreat through the black gates that lie permanently open these days.
The protesters are gone. Only patients come and go. I like to think it’s respect, but I guess the PR has died down and the publicity’s faded. Most have lost interest. They’ve moved on to something else to be angry about.
Patients wander in the gardens with their families as we pass.
A mother, head wrapped in a silk scarf, plays with her young toddler on the grass.
It looks like they’re playing tag. It’s slow, but full of love.
The little boy pauses to give her time to catch him.
She goes to pick him up, then stops halfway, as if remembering she can’t. Her body won’t allow it this time.
Antonia glances over. Her smile is sad, but present.
The retreat is full. It has been since we opened. It’s a depressing but real truth to admit: cancer is everywhere.
With the sun shining, there are plenty of volunteers on hand to help.
And we need them with so much to do around the place.
I haven’t even turned off the engine, and Antonia is out of the door before I can stop her. She’s already amongst the flowers, speaking to the chief gardener about a bed she’s not happy with.
When I join them, she’s shaking his hand and smiling, telling him she’ll be pleased once the situation is rectified.
“Is it how you imagined?” I ask her.
She turns to me, wraps her arms around my neck, and pops a kiss on the end of my nose. “This is your retreat,” she says.
“Ours,” I correct. “And theirs.” I gesture to our guests, living the best life they can right now.
Antonia and I are a couple. A team. It’s not like back in the boardrooms at Opengate, where she fights board members via spreadsheets and profit margins. The retreat is so much more than a bottom line.
This place means so much to both of us.
I take her hand, then lead her over to one of the benches. Jeannie’s bench. It’s become our favorite.
We sit there often. In fact, every time we come here, just to talk. Most likely we’ll sip a coffee we’ve picked up at the coffee shop. Our fingers tangle together, minds everywhere but here. There’s so much happening in our lives between my work, Opengate, my kids… the retreat.
Never mind my family and Antonia finding her place in my life. It’s amazing how much she does, how well she does it, no matter if it’s personal or work related. She gives everything one hundred percent.
When I think back to March, at our dinner table, when Savannah and Antonia… All I want to do is block it out, pretend it never happened. But it did, and I can’t believe how well she fits in now.
How well my children have adapted yet again to a change in their lives.
They love her.
I love her.
And I believe she loves us.
A young couple appear from one of the rooms. They wander across the grass, hand in hand, husband and wife, possibly in their late twenties. I haven’t seen them before, but I’m not here every day, even though I’d love to be.
It’d be my dream to be available all the time and not at the hospital.
Hopefully, one day.
They wander through the pathways, chatting. Looking at them, it’s hard to tell who’s ill. But then he turns, and I see it. The gash snakes up the side of his skull. Red but healed. A war wound from a battle fought.
It’s amazing how illness can be so obvious and other times it’s not. It’s something we have to remember here at the retreat. And anywhere in life.
It’s not only the patient in pain.
It’s the family.
This place isn’t just for those battling the disease. It’s for everyone affected by it. And that’s what makes it so special.
The time created in a safe space is for all of them, not only the dying.
“You did it,” Antonia whispers. I squeeze her fingers and chuckle under my breath. Her nose pinches. “What?”
“We did it. This place wouldn’t exist without you.”
She half-smiles, her eyes turning reflective, slightly glazed as if lost somewhere else. “Without this place, I’d never have met you,” she says. “I can’t ask for any more than that.”
***
Back in her apartment she follows the same routine she always does. Shoes kicked off by the door, two glasses of wine poured before I even sit on the sofa.
She passes me one. “To Bex,” she says.
We clink glasses. She nods. I offer another toast. One she won’t expect. We don’t speak of him often.
“To Mikey. Without either of them, we would never be us.”
She hesitates. Then taps my glass again.
“It’s funny,” I say. “All this started with a box.”
Her eyes slide to me, confused. “What do you mean?”
“The retreat. I kept an old shoebox of ideas and memories. The retreat was built from that.”
She giggles. “I want to show you something.”
She disappears in the direction of her bedroom, returning moments later with a blue box covered in sheep. She sits back down and lifts the lid.
“I’ve never shown anyone this,” she admits, almost shy. “It’s Mikey’s.”
Inside is a collection of memories. An ultrasound photo. A hospital bracelet. Pictures of Antonia, young, with a baby in her arms. Being a mother suited her.
“He’s beautiful,” I say. “Just like his mum.”
She nods, a single tear rolling down her cheek. “Thank you.”
We pick through the items, not speaking. Each one meaningless to most people, but so important to her.
“Memories are life’s gold,” I whisper. “They keep those we’ve lost with us. In our hearts and minds.”
“This is my most precious possession,” she says. “This is my son.”
She places each item safely back in the box, then closes the lid and sets it down on the coffee table.
Our hands link, fingers twisting. I squeeze softly. “I love you.”
“I love you too,” she says.
We’ve said it before, but saying it now feels final. That this is us. Our future is together.
The past will always be part of us. Sometimes we lose those we love far too soon.
But moving forward doesn’t mean forgetting. We can honor our pasts while writing a new chapter.
And sometimes we are lucky enough to find someone who chooses to stay.
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