Page 1 of The Next Chapter

‘Lily.’

I jolt upright. ‘I’m awake. Totally awake. One hundred per cent not asleep right now.’

Dad’s laugh is a soft chuckle. A shadow of the deep belly laugh it used to be. The machines beep, beep, beep around him. Fucking hell, I can’t believe I fell asleep.

In a flash I’m out of the uncomfortable hospital chair, the type with the tall backs that are completely straight.

I’m tucking in Dad’s blanket, topping up his water.

I’m not even fully awake yet, but I’m folding pyjamas like my life depends on it.

Anything to distract me from the fact that Dad’s breathing is this raspy shallow breath.

The sort that sounds like it might give out at any second.

‘Lily.’

Finally, I glance up at him. We don’t look the same at all, for obvious reasons. But I’ve always liked the fact that Dad’s eyes are slightly too big for his face, just like mine are.

Now, Dad’s eyes are even bigger in his face. And there’s a deep line between his eyebrows. Stupid line.

‘You don’t sound too good. Shall I press the button?’ I ask him, my finger poised over the big red button behind his hospital bed. Me and that red button are very well acquainted.

The line between his eyebrows disappears. ‘Sit down, Lily, love. It’s okay.’

There’s a beat where I don’t move. I think about arguing with Dad that things are really not okay.

In fact, okay is lightyears away, in some far-flung, distant galaxy.

But you don’t argue with people who are dying.

So instead, I deflate and find myself back in the uncomfortable chair.

I reach for Dad’s hand as he takes a few shallow breaths.

‘You know how proud I am of you?’ Dad asks, and for a moment I’m too distracted by the feel of all the bones in his hand. The way his skin feels paper thin there. Like he’s literally disappearing in real time.

‘Course I do, Dad.’ I’m not even pretending or trying to make a dying man feel good. Dad has been, by any definition of the term, a great dad. Both my parents were literally everything you’d want in a parent. Kind. Caring. Unfailingly proud. And oh, look now, I’m going to cry again.

‘And your mum, too, I know she’d be so proud of you.’

Another hand pat. ‘I know, it’s okay.’ Thinking about Mum doesn’t do anything to stop the surge of tears; in fact, it sets them off with a vengeance.

Mum died when I was eighteen and it’s just been me and Dad ever since.

Being my parent should come with a health warning: *side effects may include untimely death*.

‘There’s something I need to tell you,’ Dad says, the background a symphony of beeping. His face is scrunched up in worry.

‘Hey, whatever it is, it’s fine.’ I squeeze his hand again.

‘Don’t be angry, Lily.’ Dad has to stop talking. I hold the oxygen mask up to his face while he catches his breath. I wait, trying not to fidget, until he pulls it away himself. ‘Lola called.’

For a moment we’re both completely still. It’s as if I’m outside my body somehow, watching us both frozen in time. Can you have out of body experiences when you’re still alive? Maybe not. But Mum, and now Dad and Lola too… it’s just too much.

Finally, I speak. ‘I’m not angry, I’d never be angry, but, er, when did… when did you speak to her? Recently?’

He shakes his head. ‘Years ago. You’d just turned eighteen. She called. Wanted to speak to you.’ Every word costs him.

There’s no need to load up the calculator on my phone, or even have a go at doing the maths in my head, because Mum died two days after I turned eighteen.

So, I know exactly when Lola called. Eleven years ago.

It feels like all the air has left me, as if I’m the one who needs that oxygen mask resting on Dad’s chin.

I mean, as deathbed confessions go, it shouldn’t be all that shocking. To find out that the person who gave birth to you called hoping for a quick chat. But the thing is, it is shocking. Because I haven’t seen Lola – my birth mother – in close to thirty years.

‘Do you know where she is?’ I ask.

Dad nods his head.

‘There’s a letter. It’s with my will. Read it after.

’ Neither of us need to consider what after means.

Dad coughs so bad that I cajole him into putting the oxygen mask back on.

I tell him not to worry about any of this right now, that it’s not important.

It’s hard to care about the woman who never wanted you when you’re losing the last person who always has.

‘I’m sorry I never told you. We were both going through a lot. But it was wrong. Everything I did was wrong,’ he says through the mask. I won’t lie, it has an air of Darth Vader about it.

‘Shush. You didn’t do anything wrong. Don’t think about that now.’

The absolutely last thing I want is for Dad to have regrets.

‘You should reach out to her. After,’ he says.

That fucking after again.

‘If that’s what you want me to do, I’ll think about it.’

He closes his eyes.

‘I know you’re lying.’ Half his mouth is tilted into a small smile.

‘I am not!’ I protest. Even though I definitely was lying. I can’t see any good reason for finding Lola, none at all.

‘Just read the letter, Lily, promise me.’ His eyes are open again. Bright blue, piercing in the way they hold my gaze.

I take a deep breath.

‘Okay, I promise. I’ll read the letter. Don’t worry about that now. Just please, don’t worry about anything.’

Six Weeks Later

Dying is wild.

That’s what I’m thinking as Dad’s coffin disappears behind a set of beige curtains in the crematorium. It just doesn’t make any sense. No sense at all. How can a person be here one minute and then in a box behind some drab curtains another?

They really are drab.

It’s possibly an inappropriate thought to be having at your own dad’s funeral. But focusing on the grim curtains is a useful distraction. Better that than to think about what is disappearing into them.

The curtains finally shut, and I can feel the eyes of everyone in the crematorium burning into the back of my neck.

The place is packed – and I guess that is one of the benefits of dying young.

Even if it is something of a pyrrhic victory, the fact that there’s a whole host of people who are still alive and well enough to come to your funeral.

Dad’s friends are all here. Our neighbour, Mr Cains.

Colleagues from school. Even the fucking window cleaner is here.

I think I’m going to be sick.

The music that Dad had picked for the end of the ceremony is still playing; it’s one of the songs we’d had at Mum’s funeral, too.

I’m not sure whether you get to call yourself an orphan at twenty-nine.

Orphan makes me think of Oliver Twist and his bowl of grey gruel.

It’s just so strange to think that they’re both gone, like I’ve become untethered somehow.

Without either of my parents, it’s just me, floating around in the world, all alone.

I wait while the last few beats strum out. The song ends and… oh god, I’m still imagining myself bobbing about like a giant balloon in the sky. I think I’m having a breakdown.

‘Lily, are you okay?’ I turn slowly to Colin, my boyfriend, looking at him like I’ve never seen him before.

‘Course she’s not okay, dipshit, she’s at her dad’s funeral.

Come on, you need a drink.’ Seb, my best friend, answers for me.

If I wasn’t in some sort of state of suspended animation, I might register the flash of hurt that Colin tries to hide.

But I think I’ve maxed out my capacity to feel bad.

Like Seb said, I am at my dad’s funeral.

‘What do I do now?’ I ask them both. They’re on either side of me, in the front pew. Chief mourners because I don’t have any family left. I’m not sure when exactly I started clinging to Seb, but he’s half holding me up and I’m only just realizing it.

‘Now we’re going to the wake,’ Seb answers. ‘You’ve organized it all. You just need to move.’

I nod. Okay, wake, move, I can do this.

I try to steel myself for the rest of the day.

There’s a creak from somewhere behind. It rattles through the almost silent crematorium, echoing off the stone walls. I turn, not caring that everyone will see how red my eyes are.

The door is open, just a fraction. It’s only like that for a second before it closes again.

And maybe I’m just searching for meaning in an uncaring universe, but the door opening and closing like that feels important. It feels like the end of something, or else a beginning.