Page 28 of A Mother’s Last Wish

28

TOM

When Lou told me she wasn’t coming home after that party, part of me wanted to try to persuade her to give us just one more night. But, when I looked at her, I realised just how much of herself she’s already given us. Exhausted doesn’t even cover it. She’s been running on pure adrenaline to get through the party. We cut the timings down to just two hours from start to finish in the end, but it’s still taken every ounce of strength she has left, and it would be selfish of me to try to persuade her to come home. But the idea of leaving her in St Joseph’s alone terrifies me, in case she doesn’t make it through the night. So I’m staying with her.

Holly has offered to look after the children, which is a huge weight off my mind, but we both know the time has come to be more honest with them about how Lou’s cancer is progressing. We’ve agreed to talk to them tonight and I’m dreading it. Every conversation we’ve had with Lou’s consultant has felt like the most difficult one of my life so far, but somehow I know this is going to be even worse.

The bag of stuff I need for St Joseph’s is sitting at the bottom of the stairs and I can’t put this off any longer. It’s been a long and tiring day, and Stan and Flo are already in their pyjamas, courtesy of Auntie Holly. Stan’s PJs are royal blue brushed cotton, with little green dinosaurs printed on them, and his sister’s have got a tartan pattern. Flo’s are from the set we all had last Christmas Eve, when we cosied up on the sofa together watching Disney movies until it was time to put out mince pies for Santa. I can’t believe that was less than nine months ago, because it seems like another life entirely. A whole other world in fact. We had no idea what was to come and I’m grateful for that, but the speed with which everything has changed makes it even harder to believe it’s real.

‘She insisted on wearing her Christmas pyjamas to carry on with the celebrations.’ It’s clear Holly is exhausted too, when I look at her properly for the first time. I wonder how people cope when illness like this goes on for years. How do they keep living life and going to work, and carrying on with all the things that don’t stop when someone they love has a terminal diagnosis? I have no idea, because I can feel us all running out of energy to keep putting one foot in front of the other, and we’ve been so lucky to be able to put work to one side. I guess they have no choice, and the truth is I’d keep going forever if it meant Lou could stay. That’s how people do it, because nothing else matters as much as that does.

‘Thank you.’ I mouth the words to Holly and it’s about so much more than getting the children into their pyjamas. I hope she knows that, but when all of this is over, I am going to tell her how grateful I am and just how much she means to me. Crouching slightly, I pull the children close, hugging them to my chest, until finally I’m forced to let them go when Stan starts trying to wriggle.

‘Shall we all go and sit on the sofa? There’s something Auntie Holly and I need to talk to you about.’

‘What’s wrong?’ I catch my sister-in-law’s eye as Flo asks the all-too-insightful question, and I feel like a deer in the headlights. How do I tell my seven-year-old daughter that everything’s wrong, because she’s about to lose her mum? I open my mouth to speak and nothing comes out, so it’s Holly who has to save me from making this even worse.

‘Nothing’s happened, don’t worry, we just need to talk to you about Mummy.’ Before Flo can ask anything else, I scoop her into my arms, and Holly follows suit with Stan. We need to get to the sofa before everything comes out, somehow that feels incredibly important, as though being on the sofa when we give them this kind of news might in some way lessen the devastation we’re about to unleash. It was a stupid idea, because the first thing I notice when we go into the lounge is Lou’s empty bed.

‘Where’s Mummy? I want to see her.’ Stan struggles free and runs over to the bed, looking underneath as if his mum might be hiding there.

‘Come back here, sweetheart.’ Holly gets to her feet and takes hold of his hand, bringing him back to the sofa. ‘Mummy’s stayed at St Joseph’s where we had the party today.’

‘Why?’ Stan wrinkles his nose. ‘Does she want some more cake?’

‘No, darling.’ I reach out and take his hand, my other arm wrapped around Flo’s shoulders. ‘They don’t usually have parties at St Joseph’s; they did it especially for us. It’s a place where people usually go when they get really poorly, and they aren’t going to get better. Do you remember we told you that the doctors can’t make Mummy better?’

‘Yes, but they can stop her getting more poorly.’ Flo’s eyes lock with mine and I know what she’s thinking, that we made her a promise that she’s been counting on us keeping. I just hope she can forgive me for letting her down.

‘That’s what we were hoping, but the medicine the doctors were giving her to do that stopped working, and that means…’ Heaving a shuddering sigh, the rest of the words lodge in my throat. I know what I have to say, I just don’t know how.

‘It means Mummy is going to die.’ Holly keeps it simple, just like we planned, but the wail that goes up from the children in response was something I could never have imagined. The sound is other worldly, and it physically hurts to hear it. I didn’t want to cry, because this moment isn’t about me, it’s about them, but there’s no way to control it and, when I look across at Holly, the tears are streaming down her face too.

‘I don’t want Mummy to die!’ Flo hammers her tiny fists against my chest, but I barely even feel it.

‘None of us do, baby. It’s not fair and we all love Mummy so much.’ I pull her closer, and Stan still hasn’t spoken; he’s cradled into the nook of Holly’s arm, like the baby he was such a short time ago, and I ache for the parts of my children’s childhood that cancer is stealing from them.

‘Who’s going to do my hair? You can’t do it, you’re rubbish at it.’ I can almost feel the anger pulsating through my daughter’s body. One of the things Lou has still managed right up to now, is doing Flo’s hair for school, because even a ponytail ends up a lopsided mess on my watch. Flo’s not really worried about her hair, that much I know. She’s scared about who’s going to take care of her and fill the gaps her mother is about to leave behind. Some of those gaps are unfillable, but I want her to know we’ll do our best, and that she and Stan have people who love them and who’ll be there for whatever they need. They’re not just left with me.

‘Auntie Holly will do it for special occasions, and I can learn to do it for school. She can teach me.’

‘But I don’t want Mummy to die!’ Flo repeats her appeal, even more plaintively, and her little brother lets out a plea all of his own.

‘I want my mummy.’ It’s such a simple request, one that should be so easily granted, but none of us can grant that wish for him or Flo, at least not for much longer, and I can’t imagine anything more devastating because Lou’s their whole world, and she’s my everything too.

It’s three days since the party and I haven’t even shut my eyes, let alone slept, for the last twenty-four hours. Lou seems to be getting weaker with every passing hour and it won’t be long now. For a moment when I looked at her earlier in the half light, I could have convinced myself her skin had the kind of sun-kissed glow it always gets when we have a holiday somewhere warm. Except I know it’s not that; the nurses have said the tumour in her liver is taking it over, and her skin tone is changing far more noticeably as the liver begins to fail. I know I should make some phone calls, and bring people in, but I want her to myself for just a bit longer. She’s mostly sleeping now, but when she wakes up, she’s still lucid, and there are glimmers of the old Lou that I can’t miss out on. She’s already given me instructions on the list of places I need to try and take the children to see, before they outgrow wanting to go on holiday with their dad. She’s also made me promise to go back to work properly as soon as I can and told me how proud she is of my career, and how she’ll never forgive me if I let that become another casualty of her cancer.

It’s only six o’clock in the morning, so I reason that I’ve got a couple of hours before I put in the call asking Holly to bring the children in and telling my in-laws that I think they need to come back too. The children have been in to visit once since the party, for less than half an hour, and Holly and I agreed afterwards that we’d only do it again when the time came to say goodbye. Holly got the hospice’s permission to bring her cat, Tigs, along, when she brought the children in. It was the perfect distraction and gave them something to chat to their mum about, which didn’t require much input from her. The cat was still stretched out alongside Lou when the time came for Holly and the children to leave, his loud purring almost like a lullaby.

‘Could he stay, do you think?’ Lou rested her hand on his body as she spoke, and Holly had nodded. She disappeared for less than five minutes, before coming back in to say she’d sorted it all out.

So now we’re here, Lou and I, on her bed, with a large, ginger cat lying like a chaperone between us. And when she opens her eyes, she catches me watching her.

‘Still creepy, watching me sleep.’ She doesn’t waste any words, now just being here is an effort, but there’s a hint of a smile playing around her lips.

‘I can’t help it. I’ve never wanted to look elsewhere when there’s a chance to look at you.’ I repeat the line I’ve said many times before, and there’s a glimmer in her eye that I thought I might never see again.

‘Still cheesy, too.’ She manages a small laugh this time and I savour the sound, trying not to wonder if it’s the last time I’ll ever hear it, and I entwine my fingers with hers instead. ‘I trust you.’

‘I should think so after all this time.’ It’s my turn to smile, but she’s shaking her head.

‘I trust you to pick the right person, for you and the children.’

‘I don’t want?—’

‘Stop.’ Her tone is forceful, despite her voice being barely more than a whisper. ‘I want you to be happy, not lonely, and I trust you.’

‘Okay.’ It’s such an inadequate word when I want to say so much. That no one on earth could ever come close to Lou, and that the thought of ever trying to find someone to take her place is ridiculous, but I know she needs to believe I can be happy again without her, so okay is about all I can manage.

‘But get it wrong and I’ll come back to haunt you.’ She laughs again and this time I do too. This awful disease has hit our lives like a wrecking ball, but my Lou is still here, finding humour until the last. Cancer was never a match for the love of my life.