Page 11 of Into These Eyes

Jamie

S liding my laptop into my bag, I head straight from the office to the hospital. Life now consists of work and spending every other spare moment with Dad.

My father’s pancreatic cancer diagnosis came shortly after Gavin Lake’s release from prison six months ago. At first, we were all in denial, positive the doctors had it wrong. But when Dad declined at an alarming rate, the truth had to be faced.

Anika’s now almost finished Session Two of the compulsory four-month training course at the Police Academy down in Goulburn, which has left me alone to deal with Dad, who’s barely holding on now.

I don’t blame Anika for one second. The timing couldn’t be helped and there’s no way I’d ever demand she stay home and risk her career.

Besides, why should she look after Dad when he’s never cared about her?

That wall he erected between himself and Anika has never come down.

Although he changed after Mum’s death, he’s never treated me with the coldness he’s projected at my sister.

On more than one occasion, it’s crossed my mind that he’s only remained caring toward me because he needed me to stay to look after his other daughter.

Even if that’s true—and I don’t know if it is—Dad’s always had my back.

He worked hard so I could attend a local university and get my law degree.

By living at home, I remained the carer he needed me to be for Anika.

I’d come home from uni and collect her from school.

Then I’d help with her homework and assignments, make sure she was fed and in bed at a reasonable hour before I finally lost myself in my studies.

With Dad working two jobs to support us, I suppose, in part, his relationship with Anika never deepened because he was hardly ever around.

I’d considered forgetting about uni and settling for a clerical job straight out of high school, but Dad wouldn’t hear of it. Even after Mum’s death, I poured myself into schoolwork as an escape, keeping near-perfect grades.

Parking at the hospital, I change my heels for runners, head straight to the cafeteria and grab a sandwich for dinner. With Anika gone, I don’t see the point of going home to an empty house and cooking. One less thing to worry about.

Picking up my pace, I hurry into an empty elevator. I’m late tonight, which gives me only ten minutes with Dad before the nurses kick out all the visitors. Working for a large law firm in the city has its downsides. Like the expectation of long hours, despite what’s going on in your personal life.

After weaving through the corridors, I enter Dad’s room. As usual, he’s asleep. Quietly putting down my handbag and sandwich, slip into the bathroom.

Even though I’m ashamed of myself, I hide in here for five minutes. Seeing him like this, having to deal with it alone, tears at my soul and takes all the energy I have left.

Staring in the mirror, I remind myself that I’ve got this.

I’m tough. Nothing’s beaten me down before and, as bad as this is, it’s out of my control.

I can’t change it, can’t stop it. I can only be here for him like he’s been there for me.

Besides, this is about him, not me. He needs the comfort of family. And I’m it.

After I wash my hands and emerge from the bathroom, I take his cool, bony hand and brush my thumb over the tissue-thin flesh.

“Jamie,” he croaks, his throat raspy and dry.

From the bedside table, I pick up a bottle of water with a straw already in place, and press it to his parched lips. He sucks weakly, some of the water spilling from his mouth before I catch it with a tissue.

“Hey, Dad. How’s that?”

He barely nods as he cracks an eye open with great effort.

“Jamie,” he says again, this time a little easier.

I put aside the water and tighten my hold on his hand. “I’m right here.”

His feeble fingers encircle mine. I vividly remember how tight he once gripped my hands when he’d twirl me around, when he taught me how to ride a bike, when he held my hand at Mum’s funeral.

I want to cry, but refuse to give in. I’m strong. He doesn’t need to see tears, he needs my strength. Breaking down will only hurt him, worry him, make him feel like he’s abandoning me. He doesn’t need that. There’ll be time for tears … after.

Even though he’s still right here in front of me, I swallow down the grief welling inside and say, “I’m sorry, Dad.”

“For what?”

“That this is happening to you. It’s not fair.”

He gives his head a slight shake. “It’s okay. I deserve it.”

I frown at him, confused. But he’s already asleep, his breaths rhythmic.

I deserve it?

What the hell is he talking about? He doesn’t deserve this cruel disease. He’s the last person who deserves to suffer like this after all he’s been through.

“Dad?” I squeeze his hand but get nothing in return.

After kissing his cheek, I stop at the nurses’ station and speak to one of the regulars.

“His obs aren’t looking too good, I’m afraid,” she tells me.

I blink at her. I should be prepared for this news. But can anyone ever be? “You think he’s getting close?”

Her kind eyes find mine and she nods. “Maybe a few more days.”

In the car on the way home, the urge to bawl my eyes out almost overwhelms me. Still, I hold on. He’s not gone yet. And I’m not a crier. What’s the point? It solves nothing.

Once home, I take a few bites of the hospital sandwich before throwing it in the bin. Then I get in a staring match with my phone. I want to call Anika. I need her here with me.

But I don’t. She’s only a few weeks away from finishing her training.

The last thing she needs is to come home.

Besides, Dad hasn’t asked for her once. The only time they interacted was when I put my foot down and demanded it.

Even then, they had nothing to say to one another.

I did all the talking between them, telling Dad how amazing she was, what a great police officer she would make.

I frown, trying to remember him asking her questions.

Trying to remember him even looking at her.

I can’t picture it.

Apparently, they don’t need each other. It’s only me who needs both of them.

The next day, I arrive at work early, thankful I don’t have to appear in court. When I return to my desk with a fresh coffee, my phone rings.

I stare at it with dread, hating that it announces who’s calling. Nothing good can come from taking this particular call. But I can’t ignore it.

“Jamie Evans,” I answer.

“Jamie, it’s Renee in the palliative care ward. I think you should come in. Your father … he’s … well, he’s in quite a state, refusing his meds until he sees you.”

I’m there in half an hour and what I walk into leaves me shocked. Dad’s sweating, his breathing laboured, eyes wide. When they lock onto me, he sinks into the pillows with utter relief. Then his shaking arm lifts slightly and beckons me to his side.

He glances over my shoulder. “Go!” he almost shouts, startling not only me, but the nurse who’s lingering at my back.

I nod at her as I grasp his hand, surprised by the strength of his grip compared to yesterday. For a brief moment, I wonder if the nurses are wrong. How can he be this strong if he’s so close to death?

Then I remember that pain can do strange things to the mind and body, and if he hasn’t had his medication, God only knows how much he’s hurting.

“Dad, what’s happening? Why won’t you take the drugs? You know—”

“Listen,” he interrupts, his voice just above a whisper now, all the strength of a few moments ago leaching away. “Closer,” he says, tugging weakly at my hand.

I lean down, lowering my head until we’re almost touching.

“I have … to tell … you,” he breathes. Leaning closer still, his grip on my hand tightens as he whispers to me in fragmented sentences. Words that I want to believe are said because he’s in a pain induced delirium. Words that can’t be true. Words that devastate.

“I’m … so … sorry,” he gasps.

Heart hammering, skin prickling, the shock of his words sends nausea rolling through my stomach as I wrench my hand from his grip.

Gasping for air, he stares at me, and for the second time in my life, I see tears spill from his almost dead eyes. Eyes that plead. Eyes that hold a truth I want nothing to do with. A truth I wish he’d never spoken.

Whirling around, I blindly flee, crashing into a nurse in the doorway.

“Oh, sorry,” she says. “Are you okay?”

I nod numbly, desperate to get the fuck out of here before I fall apart.

“Do you think he’ll take the pain meds now?” she asks.

“Give him everything you can.”

Then I push past her and race for the public restrooms. As I slam through the door, sweat flashes over my skin and saliva rushes to my mouth. I don’t even make it to a toilet. I throw up straight into the basin.

Twisting the tap, I squeeze my eyes shut and purge my mostly empty stomach. When everything’s gone, only bile remains. After a few more painful retches, I cup water into my mouth, swirling and spitting it out before splashing my clammy face.

Once I’m sure the nausea has subsided, I grab a bunch of paper towels and hold them to my face as I breathe. In and out. In and out. Until the rhythm calms my trembling body. Only then do I lower my hands and look in the mirror.

I’m hot all over, but the face staring back at me is ghostly white. Except for the streaks of mascara beneath my eyes. Although my body isn’t vibrating anymore, my hands shake as I reach into my handbag and find the makeup I keep inside.

When I step outside the bathroom, a nurse hurries around her desk and places a gentle hand on my arm.

“He needs you now,” she says, before rushing off toward his room.

I remain rooted to the spot. Hesitating, I sway on my feet until my back connects with a cool wall. The urge to run surges through me so powerfully, I push off the wall and stride along the sterile corridor in the opposite direction.

After what Dad whispered in my ear, I should keep walking and never look back.

But I can’t.

I stop dead in my tracks, then turn and head to his room.

Feeling like I’m on an ethereal plane where I’m completely numb, I stare at the shadow of a man who was once my father. He’s not conscious. The pain meds have made sure of that, but something’s changed. Not just physically. He doesn’t seem to be here anymore.

His shallow breaths are a mechanical operation that has nothing to do with the man who once occupied his body.

The nurse’s words come back to me. He needs you now. But does he? Or am I already too late? I wonder if he left the moment I walked out of his room.

Either way, I find myself holding his hand, squeezing and rubbing until his body tenses. With a gasp, he deflates on a final exhale.

And he’s gone.

Forever.

Some part of me wants to place a kiss on his wrinkled forehead, while another demands I scream at him.

In the end, I do neither. I let the nurses take over and wait for the doctor to arrive and officially declare my father dead. I’m not sure what happens after that. It’s only when I’m standing outside the hospital in the scorching midday sun that I come back to myself.

I haven’t cried, and I don’t think I will. Even if the urge comes, who would I be crying for? I didn’t know the man in that hospital bed. How could I? For half of my life, he’s lied to me. To Anika.

As heat penetrates the icy death inside me, my mind snags on something monumentally important. And refuses to let go.

I won’t think about the man I once called Dad.

Instead, I’ll focus on another man.

A man I no longer have the right to hate.