When Daniel sat down opposite his aunt, he felt something heavy lurch in his stomach. He just kept staring at his father lying there in the bed.
And then he heard the silence.
The room was much whiter without all the machines.
‘Daniel?’
‘I’m OK.’ He wiped his eyes and the wet tips of his fingers shone before he dried them on his jeans. But then something uncoiled in his throat and he started to cry without being able to stop, losing sight of his dad as he put his hands to his face and stared into nothing.
When he realized his aunt was holding him, he tensed up, but she kept a tight grip on him until he fell deeper into her arms and sobbed until he was spent, his breath hiccuping in dry bursts.
She stroked his hair. She whispered things to him. And eventually she held his hand and they sat together in silence, looking at the dead man in the bed.
‘I know the things I’m feeling can’t compare to what’s inside you,’ said his aunt. ‘But I do care, so much, Daniel. I want you to know that.’
Daniel nodded. ‘I know.’ He sniffed.
They sat there quietly, saying nothing for a while.
‘Can you tell me now?’
‘About what?’
‘Why you and Dad fell out.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I’m not sure I want to make the same mistake.’
His aunt smiled and then she shook her head and sighed. ‘I’m not sure I can even remember.’
But Daniel squeezed her hand. ‘It’s important. Because I don’t want the same thing to ever happen to us. Remember, we’re all we’ve got now.’
His aunt nodded. Something electric crimped her lips for a moment and she had to look away. And then she cleared her throat. ‘It was something to do with the funeral. I don’t remember exactly. The flowers, the choice of hymns, something small.’ Daniel’s aunt stared at a spot on the floor. ‘It’s the little things that fester and grow, that can break people apart if you don’t address them.’ She tapped her head. ‘They grow into bigger things up here.’
‘Dad said you didn’t want to see us.’
‘Your father was very protective of you. He was in love with your mother and then when she died you were his world. He didn’t want to share you with me or anyone else. I think it was his way of coping with his grief. You and he grew together. But no one else grew with you.’
‘Maybe you reminded him too much of her?’
His aunt nodded. ‘They were very much in love. I’ve never seen two people so connected like that. You came out of all that love.’
Daniel reached out and held his father’s hand. ‘How did you let go of Mum?’
‘I don’t think anyone ever really lets go.’
Daniel nodded and stared at the man in the bed, the man who might have heard everything or who might have heard nothing at all each time he’d come to sit beside him. Daniel could almost hear his aunt’s brain ticking.
‘You never forget,’ she said quietly.
Daniel nodded. But then he looked at his aunt. ‘But how do I say goodbye?’
‘You can say it whenever you want to, whenever you feel the time’s right for you.’
And Daniel just sat there with his lips shut tight.