99 Days With You

by Catherine Miller

  Nathan’s Diary

  I do know what’s going on. Or at least I now know what went on. More specifically, I remember what was being said during the surgery. I already had fragments of the procedure tucked away like scenes in a movie, but now I remember the script. ‘He’s bound to be riddled’ is the main thing I’ve remembered. That and the pain of a scalpel cutting through flesh.

  If I close my eyes I can feel the cold metal slicing through my skin.

  For some, knowing that their time on earth is limited might be too much. Perhaps it has been for me, and it’s gradually working its way out of my system. But getting the confirmation before having to wait for any kind of scan result has given me the reassurance I’ve needed. For too long I’ve wondered if the dream was me losing a grasp on reality, and now I know.

  Of course, everyone is looking at me like I’ve gone completely nuts. Like finally I have taken leave of my senses. I’m sure the number of medical students being paraded around the end of my bedside has multiplied tenfold, like my disease is some kind of spectator sport.

  I know what is going on. I’ve known it all along. Like I always believed, I’m going to leave this world and become forever twenty-seven.

  I’m dying. But then again, aren’t we all?

  We’re all only one everlasting act from the end.

  Forty-Six

  Day Forty-One

  Emma was now an in-patient herself. It turned out if someone puked over enough people and got mildly violent at the same time, it wasn’t going to be overlooked. They’d decided they wanted to keep her in for blood tests to make sure it wasn’t anything that would prevent her from starting treatment. They didn’t like anyone to have an infection or similar when they were due to have major surgery and chemotherapy commencing soon. She felt fine, though, so was escaping to Nathan’s bedside whenever she got the chance. There were advantages to being admitted onto the same ward.

  Today, Nathan’s half-brother, Marcus, had arrived, and within two seconds of meeting him Emma had decided she didn’t like him. It was when she’d gone to shake his hand and he’d very deliberately left her hanging that she realised everything that Nathan had told her was obviously true. He was taller and scrawnier than Nathan, with a different accent. They were like two sides of the same coin that didn’t match up somehow.

  ‘Can we talk to you both privately for a minute, before we speak with Nathan?’ Dr Howson asked.

  ‘Of course,’ Marcus said.

  Emma didn’t like it. She didn’t like Marcus turning up and getting to act like he was some kind of spokesperson all of a sudden, and she didn’t like the fact the doctors wanted to speak to them away from Nathan. Shouldn’t anything relating to Nathan’s care also be shared with him as the patient? It only seemed fair. She certainly wouldn’t be too happy if they were taking her mum away for a quiet word about her own condition without filling her in on what was going on. There was something not right about it.

  ‘Shouldn’t we be waiting for Nathan and discussing it when he’s here?’ Emma’s heart was thumping. She wasn’t a pushover these days and she was going to give a voice to the concerns in her head.

  ‘We want you to be fully prepared. It’s best we have a word.’

  Was it? Emma didn’t know what was for the best any more, but one thing was for sure: she didn’t want Marcus to find out things that he might never pass on. She needed to brave listening to the doctor too, even if the thought was making her feel nauseous all over again.

  She followed as the doctor led them into a side room.

  ‘Thank you. I wanted to forewarn you both that we’re going to give Nathan his full diagnosis shortly. I’m afraid the news is not good. The only options available to him are palliative. We have some ongoing concerns so the plan is to keep him in for now.’

  ‘What does palliative mean?’ Marcus asked, while Emma struggled to take in what was being said.

  ‘It means we are dealing with end of life. Any treatment would only work to make Nathan comfortable.’

  ‘But he’s so well,’ Emma found herself saying. ‘We’re not talking about end of life happening soon.’ They couldn’t be.

  Before this moment, Emma had never really believed Nathan’s predictions about his own death. He was the most dynamic person she knew. It didn’t seem possible that his energy and spirit were going to be taken away from him. Anything but.

  ‘Nathan has a very aggressive form of cancer that is affecting the lining of his brain. It will no doubt be part of the reason he can be so maverick. There’s a chance he’s been masking any pain that he’s been in, but the signs that he’s struggling are becoming more obvious. We don’t like to talk about timescales as they can be so hard to predict, but I’m afraid we’re talking days and weeks, rather than months and years.’

  Emma went numb. It was hard to comprehend that something as important as how much life was left, how much time they would have together, could be delivered in such a cold and blunt manner.

  But numb was good. Numb was what she needed to be. It meant she was able to leave the room and hold Nathan’s hand without feeling the blow of the words as they were delivered to him as well. It meant when he sobbed on her shoulder she was able to hold him and comfort him without the need to cry herself.

  She was beyond feeling. She was beyond knowing what to do. Because what did anyone do when they found out the love of their life was dying? What was anyone supposed to do when holding hands was the only thing they could manage?

  Nathan’s Diary

  Meningioma. That’s what it’s called, this thing that is killing me. They say I’ve probably had it for years without any symptoms. They say it has effectively lain dormant, but now it has become malignant. The lining of my brain has cancer and there is nothing they can do about it because it is already too late.

  It’s strange, because now I know about it I think I can feel it. In all the movements I make it is there. If I stretch, it hurts. If I move too fast, it hurts. If I yawn, it hurts.

  Things that weren’t problematic a day ago now seem like the most impossible tasks. Putting my shoes on earlier took an extraordinary amount of effort – so much so that by the time I was done, I no longer wanted to go outside like I had planned.

  This shouldn’t be a shock. This is everything I predicted. Everything the dream predicted. It is a conviction I have lived my life by. And now here it is. In its fullness it is so much more than I could ever have prepared for.

  Things change. My life has changed. I love Emma, and having only just met her, I’m going to have to leave her. How can that be right or fair? It’s not. It won’t ever be. Perhaps the shock is not in dying, but in having found someone willing to love me for exactly who I am. Even if a diagnosis is making me question exactly who that is.

  The doctors are talking about the dream like it’s a discussion on the chicken and the egg. There has been much debate on how the meningioma must have caused the dream and therefore has always been a symptom that I’ve been ill, but there are those that think the dream precipitated the growth of the cancer. Then there are those who think the meningioma has given me the gift of second sight; that it gave me the ability to predict my own death and yet not the ability to see how I would die.

  If that’s true, I’ve been given a pretty naff superpower. If I really had been given the ability to look into the future, I’d like to be more like telepathic Marvel character Charles Xavier, and do some good with my ability. But one reoccurring dream doesn’t count as having true second sight. Especially when ultimately it seems to have had no purpose. All I get to do now is die. Mine is not exactly the most triumphant story of all time. I’m the kid who predicts he’s going to die all his life, then he dies. The End.

  And the sad truth is that I’m never going to know how it ends. I won’t know if Emma gets through this. I won’t know if her treatment is a success. I won’t know if she’ll go on to have children – our children – or if the baby I hear has anything to do with us. W
hat will happen to her mum? Will Emma ever be happy again once I’m gone?

  If this was some kind of ability, the dream would change and show me those things. Instead it lingers every night with its same stale reminder that these are my final days and that I will never have answers about what happens once I am gone. Only the certain knowledge… Twenty-seven was always my time to go.

  Forty-Seven

  Day Fifty-One

  Emma was being kept in for longer than she’d like. Two extra weeks so far. She felt fine now. She was self-diagnosing herself with stress-induced vomiting. At the time it had happened, her heart had been so churned up with worry that it was no surprise her stomach had decided to let go of its contents. But some of her bloods had indicated raised inflammatory markers (that was how the doctor had explained it) and they were waiting for them to return to normal levels before releasing her. They were being extra cautious with her mastectomy surgery scheduled for two weeks’ time, all being well.

  The good thing about being an in-patient at the same time as Nathan was the fact she was able to see him whenever she wanted. And although the nursing staff kept bothering Emma about being in the men’s bay, she was ignoring them quite happily.

  The problem with being stuck on the ward meant there were vast amounts of time where they needed to occupy themselves. It wasn’t like they were able to do fun things like share a bed, there was only so much mileage to be had from books and sudoku that were impossible to concentrate on.

  Questions Emma didn’t want to ask kept popping into her head. She tried to ignore them, but then there was never going to be a good time to ask. She really wished she didn’t have to. She reminded herself she was being pragmatic. It was better to ask and know the answers than to keep quiet and have to guess.

  ‘I know this is a bit morbid, but I figure I need to ask… What do you want to happen for your funeral?’ The words rushed out of her. She said it really quickly in the hope that doing so would make it less hard. It didn’t. She wanted to cry immediately at the thought. Every time she saw Nathan and there was a little less of his energy, she wanted to cry. But so far she’d managed not to in his presence. For him and what he was facing, she was going to keep her shit together.

  ‘My brother can arrange all that, surely? I don’t want to burden you with thinking about that when you have to concentrate on getting better.’

  Emma didn’t have the heart to tell him his half-brother had already gone home and didn’t plan to return until Nathan was ‘nearly at the end’. They shared DNA, but that didn’t mean family to some people. Marcus hated his father, and in turn seemed to hate Nathan for being related to their father. She’d been completely incensed when Marcus had said he was going, but having a brother herself who was just as useless made her realise any attempts to improve their relationship would be futile. If the only quality time Marcus could afford to spend with his brother was when he was nearly dead, well, he wasn’t the kind of person Emma was about to encourage to stay for longer. Nathan deserved better.

  ‘Would you really trust your brother with the arrangements? You need to tell me so I can make sure he does everything to your wishes, rather than his own.’ It was strange to think how differently people perceived things – that one person arranging a funeral might do things in a completely different style to another. All anyone ever got to know were parts of a person, not the complete whole. Even Emma didn’t know the whole map of the man she was in love with. Only he was able to fill in the blanks of what he would want, without diluted input from the cast of people in his life.

  ‘I guess one of the major advantages of always knowing it was on the cards means I’ve done the prep work.’ Nathan reached into his hospital side unit and produced his wallet.

  ‘You’ve already made a will?’ He was more organised than Emma if he had. She really needed to do the same, just in case, but then she really didn’t want to believe she would be in the position of needing one anytime soon.

  Nathan produced a card from his wallet and passed it over. ‘This has my solicitor’s details. He knows all my wishes, when the time comes. We don’t need to talk about it now and upset each other.’

  Emma stared at the card, unable to produce a response immediately. Nathan being prepared removed so much of the awkwardness, and yet holding this small piece of card made it even more real.

  ‘Emma Green, I should have known I would find you in the wrong bay.’ It was one of the nurses who were forever chastising her for being in the wrong place. Fortunately she was being light-hearted in her jesting or Emma might have burst into tears right there and then.

  ‘You two have your appointment with the fertility centre soon. Are you going to walk down or would you like me to order a porter for either of you?’

  ‘We can walk,’ Nathan said. ‘You’ll have to bear with me, though. Everything seems to take twice as long at the moment.’

  Emma tucked the card away safely in her purse. As they made their way, it was like she was taking someone else to the appointment. The Nathan who had given her a piggyback, who had organised a barbeque in the middle of winter, who had chaperoned her across the country to see puffins, was barely there. It was a painful reminder of what was occurring. One of them was dying. One of them needed to do everything possible to find the power to survive.

  There was no joy to be found in their slowness. Normally, with life so often lived at breakneck speeds, she would enjoy this pace, but today it was a certain reminder of how much things had changed. Nathan’s movements were visibly slower, as if his diagnosis had come along and invaded his very core.

  ‘We need to talk about something happy. We need to decide what to call our babies when they come along,’ Nathan said. There was a smile on his face that overcame everything else.

  Emma was glad to be given something else to talk about, her thoughts having got stuck on maudlin matters. ‘Do you know? Have you had names lined up forever?’ Emma had thought about it, but she’d never come up with a concrete name. She figured it was a two-person job.

  ‘Let’s go for middle names first. That’s always easier. Is it too egotistical just to call shots on Emma or Nathan as a middle name?’

  ‘Carole needs to be one of the middle names for a girl, even if does make it bit long-winded. Then we need first names to go with them.’ Emma had always liked her mother’s name. She’d always wanted to honour her mother in that way.

  ‘Juliet as well. I know I never knew my mum, but I’d like to remember her all the same.’

  Nathan had never mentioned his mother’s name before. ‘Juliet is a beautiful name. One of my favourite Shakespeare characters. I like that as a first name.’

  ‘That was easy. What about for a boy?’

  ‘I like Romeo, but there’s no way we’re going for a matching set. What do you like?’ Emma found herself smiling. That was why they were doing this – to find hope in a desolate, dark corridor where there would otherwise be none.

  ‘I’ve always liked shorter names for a boy. Something like Logan or Thor.’

  ‘Or Bruce, perhaps?’ Emma was able to recognise a theme. It was a shame that, between the pair of them, they didn’t have any male role models they wanted to recognise with name-giving honours.

  ‘You got me. Do you have anything else you like?’

  It was quite the conversation to be having as they reached the foyer for the lifts. They needed to go up two floors for the appointment. How much was it possible to plan in the shortest of times? Emma held the door open for Nathan, as she was ahead.

  ‘I rather like your name. Is Nathan Junior a cool name for a kid?’

  ‘Nathan Thor Junior is cooler.’

  ‘Juliet Emma Carole and Nathan Thor Junior. Is that what we’re going with?’ The lift doors opened and they stepped inside.

  ‘I think they’re perfect,’ Nathan said, as he rested an arm on the lift wall, the walk having evidently worn him out.

  Emma gave him the softest kiss on the cheek as the doors
closed. For a moment, while the lift travelled upwards and they were in their own little bubble, they curled into each other. Catching a moment alone together. It was precious when there were so few of these occasions to be had.

  And even though it had been the slowest of journeys, it was scary how quickly decisions could be made when life was changing at a pace they’d never be able to meet.

  Forty-Eight

  The procedure Emma went through wasn’t exactly pleasant, but as her last one had been a breast biopsy, in comparison it wasn’t a big ordeal. There was some mild discomfort involved, and the awkwardness of having her legs in stirrups while they were harvesting her eggs was a joy, but it didn’t take long as they counted each one they found. Despite the mild local sedative, it was one of the simpler moments she’d experienced over the past couple of months, which was saying a lot.

  The worst part of it all was Nathan not being with her. He’d been whisked off to provide his own sample so that it was ready for when her eggs were harvested, following which the two samples would be fused to form one. Their potential embryos for the future. The weirdo stranger who’d become her friend.

  The assumption that they were partners had led to them becoming an actual couple. It seemed so cruel that she would lose him and then have her own fight on her hands. She just hoped that what they were doing today would come to fruition. That the future might hold more hope than the present.

  When she was finished, Nathan was in the waiting area. He looked grey, as if his colour had been flushed away.

  ‘Did it go okay?’ Emma hoped that encompassed: ‘Did you manage to provide a sample?’ without her having to say it. She really wasn’t sure how else to ask.