*
Piper sat in the café staring out of the window. Luke was late. She was nervous: he had barely been in touch in the last four days. He’d said things with Jess were bad and he’d meet her when he could. Piper had tried not to hound him, but she was desperate for news. Two days ago, she’d even called Maggie, who’d said she’d fill her in when she could but had never called back.
Piper watched Luke walking towards the café and her heart sank. She knew by the way his head was down that something was wrong. She knew Jess had been very slow to recover from the infection and was due more test results. Maybe they weren’t good.
Luke sank into the chair opposite her.
‘What’s going on?’ Piper asked. ‘What did they say?’
Luke began to cry. Oh, God. Piper reached out and held his hands. He pulled one back to wipe his tears with a napkin.
‘It’s bad. Really bad. The cancer is worse. Way worse. The chemo’s not working and it’s the strongest they can give her without killing her.’
‘Oh, Luke.’ Piper bit her lip, trying to hold back the tears.
‘It’s … it’s … over, Piper. She’s not going to make it.’ He covered his face with the napkin and sobbed.
Piper was so shocked that she was numb. Over? How could this happen? They had all believed one hundred per cent that Jess would get better. She had to – she was twelve, for God’s sake. Jess couldn’t die – she just couldn’t. It was crazy to say that could happen.
‘There must be something,’ Piper said desperately. ‘Maybe she needs to go to America. They have more cutting-edge treatments over there. I can research it. We can go with her, we’ll figure it out.’
Luke pulled the napkin from his face. ‘We’ve spent the last three days with Maggie and Hazel and everyone we know looking at options. Hazel offered to charter a plane to fly us to America. Maggie got on to the best paediatric oncologist in the top cancer hospital in Boston. He looked at the test results and said the same thing. So she found the second best one, in Philadelphia, same answer, same with Cincinnati. She got the top guy at Great Ormond Street in London to talk to us. Same answer. She’s dying, Piper. My little sister is dying. How can there be a God? My stupid fucking bone marrow didn’t help her. I can’t deal with this and Mum is … she’s … she’s broken.’
Piper’s body was cold, as if ice was running through her veins. She was shaking. ‘Does Jess know?’
Luke shook his head. ‘She knows the cancer is worse, but they haven’t told her yet how bad it is. But they’ll tell her soon – I’d say she knows anyway. She’s just so sick.’
‘Look, this might not be the right thing to say, but miracles do happen.’
‘Don’t,’ Luke snapped. ‘Don’t do that. I don’t want false hope. Dad keeps banging on about miracles and trying more risky treatment. He read about some dodgy experimental treatment they’re testing in India and he wants to take Jess there. But when Mum mentioned it, the American doctors were, like, “no way”. They said it would be a really bad idea and that she would die in India, away from home and those she loved. They said the best thing to do was to try to keep Jess as comfortable as possible and make the next few months really special.’
‘What did your dad say?’
‘He’s going crazy, shouting at everyone that they’re not trying hard enough, telling them all to think outside the box, telling Mum she’s quitting on her own child, shouting at Maggie to do more, cursing, punching walls and generally having a total fucking meltdown.’
Piper wouldn’t say so to Luke, but she felt really sorry for Nick. Whatever about his failings as a father to Luke and Bobby, he loved Jess madly. He’d spent as much time as he could with her in hospital, playing cards and watching goofy YouTube videos. He could probably have tried to spend more time with her – Kate was the one who was there seventy per cent of the time – but every time he came to see Jess his phone would start ringing, either Jenny or work. Jenny always seemed to need him for some drama or other or else work did … He always seemed stressed. Every time she saw him, and his pale, tight face, Piper worried he might have a heart attack.
Luke rubbed his exhausted eyes. ‘I haven’t slept in four nights. We’ve been up all night researching, calling people and going over and over the options.’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘The doctors hold out no hope. They said Jess’s cancer was incredibly aggressive and unlucky and unfortunate, and all those words you just don’t want to hear. They were all very sorry not to be able to give us better news or more hope.’
Piper was lost for words. What do you say to the boy you love when he’s just told you his sister is dying? ‘Sorry’ seems so lame. But she was sorry, desperately sorry, and sad and heartbroken.
She adored Jess. She was an amazing girl. She was so brave and never complained. She’d been through so much in her short life – her parents breaking up, Larry dying, getting cancer … It was just so unfair. Why was life so cruel to her? Jess deserved to grow up and have boyfriends, a husband and a family and happiness and joy. She deserved more time. Lots more time. How come bad people got to live and good people, really, really good people, like Jess, didn’t? It wasn’t right. It was all wrong. Everything was wrong. Piper felt physically sick. She looked at Luke’s devastated face and held his hand.
Over and over again she said one little word, ‘Sorry, sorry, sorry …’
37
Kate sat very still and tried to take in the words.
‘Bacterial and fungal infection,’ Dr Kennedy said. ‘Her heart function has been adversely affected … the chemotherapy was unsuccessful …’
It took Dr Kennedy three minutes to tell them that Jess was going to die. Three minutes for Kate’s world to be crushed by the wrecking ball of the unthinkable and be destroyed. Three minutes for her heart to be shattered into a thousand jagged pieces.
‘I’m afraid the prognosis is now bad. I’m so very sorry,’ he said.
Kate felt as if she was swimming under water, the words blurred. Bad? Did he say bad? ‘Bad’ in medical terms meant ‘fatal’. She gasped for air. Her mouth was dry, her lungs wouldn’t work. No air. She wheezed … Still no air.
‘Kate?’ She could hear someone calling her name, but they seemed far away, back at the shore, while she was far out to sea, sinking fast. ‘Kate?’
Bad prognosis? Bad … bad … bad.
No air. Can’t breathe. She tried to suck in, nothing. Breathe, Kate, she told herself. Breathe!
She sucked in air … Yes, air. In and out, in and out.
He said again that he was ‘very sorry’ … Oh, God.
Her chest moved up and down. She could hear now. It was Nick. He was shouting. She opened her eyes.
‘Did you say bad prognosis?’
Dr Kennedy nodded sadly. ‘The drugs have damaged her heart. Her cardiac function has been compromised. The risk of heart failure and further distressing infections is very high. The odds are stacked against her, I’m afraid. I’m so very sorry.’
Nick was stomping around the room, shouting. ‘There has to be something you can do! For Christ’s sake, she’s twelve years old – you can’t give up. There must be something, some new treatment, some miracle cure.’
‘I promise you that we have exhausted every avenue and looked at every possible option. No stone has been left unturned,’ Dr Kennedy assured him quietly.
‘No!’ Nick shook his fist in the doctor’s face. ‘No way. Not my Jess, not her.’ His voice broke and he punched the wall violently. Kate heard a crunch. He’d broken something. It probably felt good. Maybe she should punch something too.
One word comes into your life: cancer. One two-syllable word that splits your heart down the middle. Broken. You can’t fix it.
‘There has to be something you can do,’ Nick raged. ‘There’s always a solution. What about a full body blood transfusion?’
Dr Kennedy hesitated. ‘We tried new agents with this round of chemotherapy and
unfortunately we were unsuccessful. This treatment was aggressive. She is very weak.’
‘I don’t care what you think. We’ll try another round of it. Let’s get her signed up.’
‘I would be concerned that Jess wouldn’t survive any further treatment, and that her quality of life during treatment would be even worse than it is now.’
‘Jess is a fighter. You don’t know her. She’s stronger than she looks. She’s the bravest kid …’ Nick broke down.
‘I don’t think her heart could take it,’ Dr Kennedy said gently.
‘How long does she have?’ Kate somehow managed to ask.
‘It’s very difficult to say.’
‘Try.’
‘Weeks.’
‘How many?’
‘Four, perhaps six, possibly a few more. Children are extraordinary.’
Kate shoved her fist into her mouth to stop herself screaming. Weeks? She only had precious weeks left with her beautiful Jess. She bent over as the pain hit her again.
‘You have to do something, for Christ’s sake. You have to save her!’ Nick yelled, his face twisted in anger and grief. Kate watched as he threw a chair against the wall, then kicked and punched it until he wore himself out. He eventually collapsed on the floor, sobbing. ‘Not Jess, not my baby girl.’
Kate knelt beside him and held him. They held each other and cried. Jess wasn’t going to make it. She wasn’t going to grow up, she wasn’t going to have the life Kate wished for her. She was going to be taken from them. Ripped away when her life was only beginning. Their Jess was going to die, and they were powerless to stop it.
Kate stood on the seafront and looked around. Where the hell was he?
A man waved at her and rushed towards her, his arms open wide. She walked towards him. When she reached him, he pulled her into a bear hug, holding her tight.
She pulled back. ‘Is it really you?’
‘Sorry, I should have warned you I’d shaved the beard off.’
‘Liam, you look completely different, younger and …’ Kate trailed off. He looked ten years younger, and handsome. Under all that hair was a lovely face.
‘I can’t tell you how sorry I am,’ Liam said, his face full of concern and kindness. ‘I’m not going to ask you how you are, but I am going to bring you somewhere I used to come to shout at the world. It helped a little.’
Kate followed him up a steep path and across a forested area to a clearing. She’d never been there before and it was only ten miles from her house. ‘How did you know about this place?’ she asked, out of breath from climbing.
‘A colleague told me about it when June was sick and suggested I come here for walks to clear my head. I don’t think he meant for me to come and shout my head off.’ He smiled. ‘It’s just over here.’
They came to the edge of a cliff. The sea spread out in front of them. You could see nothing but sea and sky and, far in the distance, the faint line where they met.
‘Now, I’m going to walk away and I want you to shout, Kate. Scream your head off and tell God and the universe exactly what you think of them. I promise it will help you. You must get some of the pain out or it’ll kill you.’
Kate waited until he’d walked away and then she turned to the ocean. Watching seagulls dipping and diving, she thought about Jess and how she was being robbed of a future and her beautiful little family was being robbed of a daughter, a sister and a granddaughter, and now an auntie as well.
Grief and rage rose in her chest and she began to shout. She shouted louder than she’d thought possible. She screamed until she thought the veins in her neck would burst. She wanted them to – she wanted them to burst. She wanted to throw herself off the cliff and for her body to smash into pieces below. She wanted to die. She should be the one dying. Her, the mother, not the child, never, ever the child.
Kate shouted and screamed until her voice ran out. She collapsed onto her knees. Liam appeared beside her.
‘Are you okay?’
‘Yes,’ she croaked.
‘You gave it socks. Well done. All that anger will eat you up inside. I recommend you come here once a week, if not more.’
‘Thank you, Doctor.’ Kate gave him a half-smile, her heart breaking.
Liam put his arm around her. ‘Now I’m taking you for a lemon and honey tea, fix up that throat. There’s a little tea shop in the village I think you’ll like.’
Kate laid her head on his shoulder. ‘Why is this happening?’
‘Don’t ask why. It will torment you and there is no answer. You have to focus now on making these last weeks the best of Jess’s life. If I can help in any way, please just ask.’
Kate looked up at him. ‘You already are.’ She kissed his smooth cheek. It was lovely and soft. ‘You really do look so different.’
He grinned. ‘Nathalie told me that no self-respecting man would go around looking like un hobo. She insisted on bringing me to a barber her ex-boyfriend used to go to, and before I knew it, I was clean-shaven. I’ve had a beard for thirty years. It took me a while to get used to it myself.’
‘I like it,’ Kate said.
‘Good.’ He smiled down at her.
A little later they sat in the little tea shop, Liam drinking coffee and Kate sipping the lemon and honey tea he’d ordered to soothe her throat. They shared a slice of chocolate cake. It was the first time Kate had been able to taste anything since Jess’s diagnosis.
Most of the time she forgot to eat, and when she did, everything tasted like chalk or cardboard. But she could taste that cake.
‘Penny for your thoughts?’ Liam asked.
‘I was just thinking that when I’m with you I feel calmer. Most of the time I either think I’m going to have a heart attack or I feel numb. But today is the first day I feel in any way calmer. It’s the first time I’ve stopped shaking too.’
‘Much as I’d like to take credit, I think letting go of some of your anger helped.’
‘Yes, but don’t underestimate your positive influence. I’m sorry for calling you at all hours all the time. I just need someone to get me through the nights and you’re the person I want to talk to.’
Liam smiled at her. ‘It’s my pleasure. What you’re going through is unbearable. I want to help in any way I can. I wish I could do more.’
Kate sighed. ‘No one can. It’s just a nightmare that I have to go through and I have no idea how to do it. How do you watch your daughter die? How do you watch her fade away, suffer and die? There’s no manual for that. No Dummy’s Guide to Losing a Child.’ Her croaky voice broke and she began to cry, head bent low, shoulders shuddering.
Liam handed her a handkerchief. A proper linen one from his pocket.
‘I’ll ruin it,’ Kate said.
‘That’s what it’s there for.’
She blew her nose. Typical Liam to have a handkerchief on him. He was an old-fashioned gent. Kate folded it and put it into her pocket. ‘Sorry.’
‘How are the boys?’
‘Luke is throwing himself into rugby. His big final is on Sunday. He’s quiet and doesn’t say much. I’m glad he has Piper. Bobby is Bobby. Angry, kicking everything, arguing with his teacher and generally furious with the world. The poor child just doesn’t understand.’
‘Hard to process so much at the tender age of seven. How’s your dad?’
Kate began to cry again. ‘He’s heartbroken. He’s aged ten years. He just can’t believe it. Seeing him so crushed is unbearable. He keeps saying, “It should be me, not her.”’
‘Poor man. He’s right, too.’
Kate pushed the cake away, her appetite gone again. ‘I’d better go. Maggie’s back from her work trip to New York to sort us all out, as she says. She’s a wonder.’
‘I’m glad you have such a good friend to rely on.’
Kate took his hand in hers. ‘I have another good one right here.’
Liam reddened. ‘I’m glad you think so. I’ll be cheering for Luke on Sunday. I hope they win. Give him
a bit of a boost.’
‘Thanks. It’ll be a welcome distraction anyway.’
They hugged, and Kate rushed off to her car, thanking God for sending Liam to her just when she needed someone. He was so kind, so unobtrusive and undemanding, but there whenever he was needed. He really was like a gift, and she felt very grateful to have met him.
When she got home, she found Maggie sitting at the table talking to Bobby. She stood to the side of the door and watched them.
‘So what you’re saying is that when you grow up you’re going to find the cure for stinky cancer?’ Maggie said.
‘Yes.’
‘High five,’ Maggie said. ‘And, by the way, I think you’re the very person who will do it because you’re smart, single-minded and determined.’
‘What does single-minded mean? It sounds like I only have one mind, but I don’t, I have lots of minds. One for facts, one for maths, one for spelling –’
‘No, it doesn’t mean only one mind,’ Maggie cut across him. ‘It means focused, which is a good thing, vital if you want to cure cancer.’
‘Well, I do. I never want other families to feel like this. It’s the worst. I hate cancer. I want to kill it and smash it into pieces.’
‘Me, too,’ Maggie agreed, her eyes shining with tears. ‘Hey, let’s get something and crush it to make ourselves feel better.’ She looked around and saw some bread dough on the counter. She went over, picked it up and brought it over to the table. She pushed it up into a big mound. ‘Now, Bobby, smash it with your fists. Go for it. Pretend it’s cancer.’
Bobby stood up and, leaning over the table, he walloped the dough. He beat it over and over again.
‘Go on,’ Maggie shouted. ‘Punch its lights out.’
Kate watched Bobby’s little hands flying at the dough, like a boxer’s. His face was red with exertion, but he kept punching. Eventually he fell back into his chair, puffing.
‘Good boy. Do you feel better?’
He nodded.
Kate smiled to herself. Shouting at the sea for her, punching dough for Bobby. Who knew that such simple things would help get rid of some of the agony of grief?
The Good Mother Page 27