‘Goodnight, gorgeous girl,’ I crooned, as I lifted the duvet off Beth and slipped in beside her, making her squeal as I covered her face in kisses. I’d probably just added half an hour to the time it would take her to fall asleep but I didn’t care. I got so little time with her these days that I needed to make every moment count. That fucking brain tumour wasn’t getting this. It wasn’t taking one ounce of joy away from my girl. Fake it until you make it. A few years ago, when Colm and I were having problems, that was the slogan I lived by. That was before this incredible little girl made an appearance, but I could still go with the concept. As far as Beth would ever know, I was happy, fun, giggly, silly mum when I was with her. Exhausted, worried, stressed, miserable me only came out to play when Beth wasn’t around.
‘I love you right up to the moon, past Mars, round Saturn, through Venus, and then back,’ she told me solemnly, the list getting longer the more she learned from the book we were reading about a little boy who visited all the planets.
‘I love you to all those places and back too. Twice.’
She giggled again, and was rewarded with another round of kisses before I finally said goodnight and headed through to our bedroom.
Colm had his suitcase open on the bed, packing in a couple of shirts, extra shoes, toiletries.
‘That’s Beth just nodding off if you want to go say goodnight,’ I told him.
‘Yeah, I will,’ he answered, distracted as he foraged in a drawer.
‘What have you lost?’
He stopped, irritated. ‘My black belt. I’m sure it’s in here.’
‘It’s already out, babe,’ I said gently, pointing to the pillow, on which a strip of black leather was resting. This happened a lot. His memory was definitely erratic, his attention span even more so. His sense of humour, temperament, communications, all in the same boat, tossing on the waves, sometimes high, sometimes low. I wasn’t sure if it was the personality changes the doctor had warned us about, or if it was the strain of dealing with the prognosis, or if it all came from tiredness, from the long-term exhaustion that was often the result of a trauma to the brain. Or was there something else? Something I was missing?
He didn’t say anything, just lifted the belt and tossed it in the case.
‘Colm, are you sure you want to do this?’ I asked for the tenth time this week, before going on, ‘Dan said he could go and…’
‘I don’t want Dan to go. I’m doing it.’
The trip to Manchester was a pitch for a new client, one that Colm had been working on before he got sick. Dan had taken over but the deal still hadn’t been sealed. Now, Colm was jumping back on it, determined to bring it in, even though it meant a couple of exhausting days of trains and taxis. A cab was picking him up at eight p.m. to take him to Euston for the nine p.m. train, then he was heading straight to the hotel at the other end, so he could get a night’s sleep before meeting the client tomorrow morning. I’d at least made him accept that doing it all in one day would be way too tiring. Even a half day in the office was exhausting him and I was worried that this would push it too far.
‘But Colm…’
‘Shauna, stop treating me like I’m fucking dying,’ he blurted and I felt myself physically recoil, like my face had been slapped. This wasn’t the old Colm. The old Colm didn’t yell. He didn’t rage at me. There was a time when I knew his every gesture, every feeling and reaction, but no longer. Sometimes I felt like this tumour was already starting to take him away, bit by bit.
I opened my mouth, but there were no words.
In front of me, Colm exhaled, his two hands going to his hips, head down. It was a few seconds before he lifted it again. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, his whole body sagging with whatever combination of emotions were in play.
‘It’s okay, you’re just…’ I was planning to go with ‘tired’ but I didn’t get a chance to finish.
‘It’s not okay. Christ, I’m a prick sometimes.’
Two choices – honesty or conciliatory humour. As always, I went with the latter. ‘Yes, you are indeed,’ I told him. ‘Thankfully, I have high tolerance levels in the world of prickdom.’
That made him smile.
‘C’mere,’ I said, climbing on to the bed and reaching for him. He took me up on it, moving his suitcase to one side to clear a space. He didn’t speak until our heads were on the pillow, faces inches apart, arms and legs entwined.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I’m not deliberately mollycoddling you.’ I phrased it differently from him, unwilling to use the ‘d’ word.
‘I know,’ he said, that tidal wave of anger now settled to a moment of mild disconcertedness on a rippling sea. ‘It’s me. It’s just so… Fuck, I hate this, Shauna.’
‘I know. Can we talk about it?’
‘What is there to talk about? It is what it is. Talking about it changes nothing.’
Just when I hoped he was opening up, the cell door slammed shut. I’d read all this stuff about how this kind of event in life pulls people together, bonds them. I didn’t feel very bonded right now. I loved him, more than words, but this tumour had infected the connection between us and it was eating it away, so that no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t reach him. We still laughed, still hugged, still kissed, still said ‘I love you’ ten times a day, but it all felt so surface, like it wasn’t permeating the soul.
I wanted to tell him I was struggling, wanted to wail and rant about the unfairness of it all, but all that would achieve was bringing him down, reminding him what was ahead of him. I couldn’t do it.
But weeks, months, of acting this way and I felt… Oh God, the boulder in my chest was back, cutting off my airwaves, making it impossible to block out the emotions that were winding around my heart like wild triffids attacking a tree, choking the life out of it with every second that passed. I had to say something. It had to be now. I tried to keep my voice even, controlled.
‘I know, but Colm, I feel like we’re losing each other. I feel like I’m fighting my battle and you’re fighting yours, but we’re not doing it together, taking strength from each other.’ I hoped I was making sense and knew I only had a few more moments before all my breath was gone. ‘I miss you. I miss what we had. We were always a team, and now, when it’s harder than it’s ever been, you won’t talk, so I feel like I’m doing it on my own and so are you. We need to change this.’
As I said those last words, I watched his expression darken. ‘Change it how? Isn’t that the point? I can’t fucking change this. None of it.’ The waves of anger were back. He climbed off the bed, continued throwing things into the case, making it clear that as far as he was concerned, the conversation was over.
I already regretted saying anything. I should just have kept quiet, carried on doing what I was doing, just being in the background, allowing him to play everything out his way.
‘Colm, I’m sorry, I…’
He wasn’t listening.
‘You don’t always get to be the hero, okay?’ he raged. ‘You don’t always get to be the one that fixes things, that steps in and sorts everything out and solves all the problems.’
I couldn’t understand what he was saying. None of it was making sense.
‘What are you talking about?’ I gasped, struggling for air.
‘It’s always you. When we were setting up the company, you were the one whose income facilitated that. We couldn’t get pregnant, you kept on trying everything until it happened. When Annie died, you took care of everything. And now. Do you think I don’t know the problems this has caused? I know how bad the money situation must be, but you just keep on swooping in, fixing things, taking control and solving the problems I’m causing. Me, Shauna!’ He was properly yelling now. ‘I’m causing the problems and I know that. I can’t drive, so I can’t even pick up Beth. I can’t plan stuff for the future. I can’t take you out because you’re always working. And there’s not a fucking thing I can do about it except watch you keep it all going, stepping in to sort out my failings. Do you know how hard it is to watch you do that? And you act like it’s all a fucking breeze.’
Something inside me snapped. ‘A breeze? Hard to watch me? Are you kidding me?’ Blind, white hot fury, months of suppressed frustration and pure, raw, visceral grief took over. ‘I’m screaming on the inside every sodding minute of every day! There isn’t a moment since we found out about the tumour that I haven’t had a knife in my gut, slowly twisting, ripping out my insides, but I knew that didn’t matter. All that mattered was keeping everything going, making sure you had everything you wanted, playing it out your way! I wanted to keep a happy home for Beth and to do what I could to help you, so I just put a smile on my face and did it. But don’t you fucking dare say it’s a breeze, because every single day I have to stop myself from screaming at the unfairness of it and begging you to help me deal with what’s happening. I’m not playing the hero. Do you want to know the truth, Colm?’
He didn’t reply, his face red with fury.
‘The truth is that you don’t get to do this. You don’t get to refuse to open up to me, to demand it’s played out your way and then resent me when I go along with it. You don’t get to feel so bloody sorry for yourself that you can’t see that you are breaking me in the process. You don’t get to do this to us.’
‘Yes I do! Because it’s happening to me, Shauna! Not us! Me! I’m the one who’s sitting here counting the days until I die!’
Tears blinding me, I staggered out of the room, scared of what I’d say if I stayed. No more. I couldn’t do it any more.
But… did I really have a choice?
I was almost past Beth’s room when I heard a murmur, so I backtracked and went inside, fearful that our shouts had woken her. Damn, how had I let it get so out of control?
Opening the door, I saw she was still sleeping, but restless, her beautiful face shadowed by a frown. In an instant all the rage dissipated, the pressure cooker had opened, and all that was left inside was pure, sodden grief. My legs buckled so I held on to the wall, let it guide me to the bed, to my girl. I slipped in beside her once again, my face immersed in her blonde curls and I stayed there, until her hair was soaked with tears, until my love for her soothed me.
I heard a car horn outside, then the banging of the door, and only later when it was dark, and everything was completely still, did my thoughts clear enough for me to realize that he hadn’t come to say goodnight to Beth.
On any other night that wouldn’t be a problem.
But tonight that seemed like the biggest hurt of all, because something inside me understood what was really happening here. He was detaching himself from us. Letting go.
Or perhaps he was already gone.