Shameful how much crap you could accumulate in barely a week. Pete sat numbly on the edge of the bed as nurses bustled around him, questioning what he wanted to take home. Surely he’d want to keep the little portable radio, the rest of the chocolates, what about the nice tin those biscuits had come in? All of it from misguided wellwishers; Pete had arrived with barely the clothes on his back.
And now he was leaving without the one thing that mattered most. ‘None of it,’ he said. ‘I don’t want any of it.’
What about the cards, they asked, surely he’d want the cards, the more personal gifts? There was a lovely photo album someone had put together.
‘Leave it,’ he snapped, and rolled onto his back. Stared at the ceiling, or at least he would have if he could see.
‘Mr Kasprowicz —’
‘I said LEAVE IT.’
‘I’ll do it.’ Cameron’s voice, smooth and assured, with that newly acquired accent, impossible to place, like his motives. The nurses disappeared quickly — grateful, probably — and there was silence, apart from the quiet rustling of the remains of a life being packed into a nylon sports bag.
He’d have to get used to silence. There’d be no more mindless American rap to roll his eyes at, no PlayStation battles to block out as he prepped in his study with World War III raging on the other side of the wall. ‘You could get a bird,’ the hospital’s chaplain had suggested. ‘A lot of people enjoy the company.’ Pete had made short work of him as well.
And now it would be just him and Cameron. Well, in theory. ‘We wouldn’t let you go if you didn’t have someone to look after you,’ his doctor had said, after Pete requested — demanded — to be discharged. Because there was no bloody point in his staying here. There’d been a flurry of consultation between specialists: Pete could return home if Cameron stayed with him for at least three weeks — ha! — and he came back daily for dressing changes and occupational therapy. A nurse would visit, periodically and unannounced. He’d consider counselling. He’d refused the chair, was lurching about with a stick that made his ribs ache and his arm spasm, but maybe that was justice. Pete had never felt religion as keenly as his wife, but he was beginning to understand those guys who flogged themselves. Pain was an amazing distraction.
They all saw him off, what felt like every nurse in the place, each with a hug and a quiet word of encouragement. Tears, some of them. Pete tried to respond, went through the motions. Murmured appreciation. But there was nothing left of him to give. He was as dead as his boy.