“Something like that. Except I have my parents and they love me too, so you’re not leaving me alone, Ruby.” He swallowed loudly, and gripped my hand. “Please. Don’t even say goodbye, just get up from this bed and walk out of the room. Forget all about the cancer and pretend I’m on a tour, playing somewhere. And while you’re waiting for me to return from tour, just go back to school and maybe return to your job at the bookstore.”
“No. I can’t do that,” I said, squeezing his hand tight in my own. But he squeezed me back just as hard before letting me go and rolling onto his side so that I faced his back.
“You’ll just have to, Ruby,” he said, his low voice barely a rasp.
“Now?”
Byron didn’t answer me.
I closed my eyes to the protruding shoulder blades, hating the cancer that was doing this to Byron’s beautiful body and got up and off the bed, like he’d asked. Even though I wanted to lay there and hold him and kiss him until he was better again.
But as I walked away, something in me stopped and made me return to Byron’s side. The bed squeaked as I bent over Byron and pressed a soft kiss to his neck and then his cheek and then, when he rolled to face me, his mouth.
“I love you, Byron,” I whispered against his lips before I moved my mouth slowly over his in a lingering goodbye kiss. “And I’ll wait for you no matter how long it takes.”
He squeezed his eyes shut.
It was harder still to turn my back on him then, to walk out of the room, but I knew he wanted me to leave and I needed to respect his wishes. Because that’s what you did when you loved somebody.
After taking several wrong turns in Byron’s maze of a house, I finally made it to the front door, to the bewilderment of his mother, who stood at the kitchen sink, a look of surprise on her face while she pressed a carrot through the mouth of a juicer.
“Ruby, is everything all right?”
I ran to the car, fumbled with the keys until I got it open and started it and sped out of the driveway, narrowly missing an oncoming vehicle. Then I drove around in circles for a good hour, thinking only of Byron, before realising I was lost. I finally pulled over into a little block of shops. The only store still lit up was a florist’s.
The lady must have taken pity on me because after she jotted down some basic directions for the closest freeway entry, she handed me a bunch of sunflowers wrapped in bright purple paper.
Sunflowers.
Mum’s favourite flower.
Chapter 18
After I thanked the kind woman, I got into the car and tossed the flowers onto the back seat, thinking I’d throw them away at the next petrol station. But three hours later, a little after eight p.m., just as my headlights hit the Donny Vale welcome sign, I took a left turn and headed for the cemetery instead.
Mum’s grave was hard to find, despite the small-town graveyard, but I hadn’t visited since she was buried and it was pitch black dark already. But, eventually, using the lighter I’d found on the dash of Mum’s car, her name, Portia Milton, was illuminated before me.
Portia Jean Milton
Loving mother of Ruby and Jay
Beloved wife to Jeremy
Taken too soon…
I set the flowers against the dried lawn, and held the lighter up to Mum’s picture. It was taken years ago, before she had started to change. Her radiant smile and glittering eyes told me this.
My fingers traced the outline of her heart-shaped face, even after the lighter ran out of fuel and left me in the dark.
Leaves crunched a hundred metres or so away, near the cemetery entrance. The iron gates screeched into the blackness of the night. I froze, my heart thudding so loud I thought it was going to explode.
A glowing face appeared to be moving towards me—a glowing face with no body.
Ghosts aren’t real. They don’t exist. Ghosts aren’t real. They don’t exist.
My mouth opened to scream, but nothing came out so I backed myself up against Mum’s headstone, as if she could somehow protect me.
“Ruby!” The glowing head knew my name.
I screwed my eyes shut tight.
“Ruby, dear, it’s me, Mrs. Patfield.”
My eyes snapped open to find the old lady standing over my cowering form with a torch held upright beneath her chin, the way that kids do on school camp when they’re trying to scare the crap out of somebody.
I shuddered with relief and caught my breath. My chest felt like it had just offloaded a tonne of bricks. Never would I have guessed that finding Mrs. Patfield in the middle of a cemetery, at night, would be something of a relief. But that was how I felt.
“You scared me,” I said between breaths, my heart booming in the silent graveyard night. “I thought you were a ghost.”
“Sorry, Ruby.” She set the torch on the ground on its side, so that it beamed some light between us, and sat down in front of me with her legs crossed. Probably the first eighty-year-old lady I’d ever seen who could sit like a kindergartener. She probably did yoga in her spare time.
“You were just a floating head,” I said, shaking my head.
“An ugly floating head,” she said, her shoulders shaking while she chuckled. “Sorry. I must have been a sight.”
A nervous giggle escaped my lips. It was pretty funny. I couldn’t wait to tell Byron and Martin about it.
Something black whooshed over our heads and landed in the nearby eucalypt tree.
A crow. It cawed out into the night and seconds later its mate called back from across the other side of the cemetery.
“How did you know I’d be here? I’ve been away.” I scratched my head, wondering how I’d gently accuse her of stalking me these past three months.
Mrs. Patfield drew in a long, deep breath, as if she wanted to take her time in answering.
“I could tell you that I was visiting my husband’s grave, but that would be lying. He wasn’t very nice to me while he was alive.”
A moth fluttered in the glow of the torchlight.
“So you have been following me? Since my mum died?”
“Not following you so much as sensing you.”
“What do you mean by sense?” It was strange, sitting here, leaning against my mother’s headstone in a graveyard at night, with Mrs. Patfield by torchlight. And I wasn’t creeped out in the slightest.
The torchlight dimmed slightly, its battery running flat. I could hardly make out the lines in the old woman’s face. It made me wonder what she looked like when she was a girl my age.
“By sense, I mean that I’m clairsentient.”
“Is that like clairvoyant?”
“A little, however, clairvoyants see. I do not. I feel and sense things.”
When I didn’t say anything more, Mrs. Patfield cleared her throat.
“I take it you don’t believe me,” she said, her voice raspy.
A sudden breeze swept through the cemetery, whipping through my hair and chilling my skin.
“I don’t believe in any of that stuff.”
“Your mother did.”
I was caught off guard. What did Mrs. Patfield know about my mother?
“How do you know?”
“I haven’t practiced clairsentience, for another’s guidance, in many years. Your mother was my last client.”
“My mum wanted guidance?” As I straightened my back, Mum’s glass covered photo pressed into my spine.
Mrs. Patfield sighed, it was a rattly sound. “Portia’s own mother, your grandmother, died when you were only little…six I think.”
“She never talked about her.”
“No. She wouldn’t have. When she came for the reading, she wanted to find out if her mother forgave her for leaving home at the age of eighteen and falling pregnant to your father. Her mother had cut her off before she died. She was quite a wealthy woman, your grandmother.” Mrs. Patfield paused and stared off into the distance, lost in the memory. “You were only small, Ruby, running around my house, picking up all of my p
recious gemstones.” She chuckled. “And your mother packed your favourite toys and treats to keep you occupied.”
“Did she?” I pictured Mum cutting up carrot sticks and cubes of cheese for me. The image made my throat thicken.
“So what did you tell her? Did her mother forgive her?” Suddenly I was very interested in what Mrs. Patfield had to say.
“I told her the truth. Her mother was still angry with her.” Mrs. Patfield’s voice began to tremble and quake. “Your mother left my house in tears. And after that she seemed changed. When I saw her around town, it was like she’d lost some of her light.”
A jab of pain twinged at my heart, imagining Mum carrying around the idea that her own dead mother couldn’t forgive her.
“I never forgave myself and swore from then on to quit using my gift. I blocked it out. Watched lots of comedic movies and read lots of books, listened to lots of loud, heavy metal music like Iron Maiden and Motörhead—all of this until the spirits didn’t try anymore. I started getting my shopping delivered and only went into town sparingly. And soon the incident with your mother was like a bad dream.”
The torch blacked out altogether. I heard a couple of loud whacks and it came on again.
“Did Mum ever come to see you afterwards?”
Mrs. Patfield cast her eyes down at the torch.
“Yes. Years later, just after she’d had your little brother, Jay, she came again, begging me to ask her mother if she’d forgiven her yet. She was distressed, but I’d sworn off using my gift and turned her away.”
Tears filled my eyes, blurring the torchlight and the darkness into one.
“As she walked away from my house, I sensed her mother in the room. She indicated, very clearly, that she had forgiven Portia. But I must have deliberated for too long, because by the time I ran outside to pass on the message to your mother, she was gone. I tried to call her but she slammed the phone on me. I didn’t see her ever again after that. She never knew her mother had forgiven her.” I could tell by the warbling of her voice that Mrs. Patfield was crying. “Then a year later I heard the bad news.”
Tears streamed down my cheeks but I didn’t wipe them away. They were Mum’s tears, way too long in coming.
“I’ll never forgive myself for not passing on that message to your mother, Ruby. She died of a broken heart. And I’m so sorry that you and your little brother have no mother now because of it.”
I was too choked up to tell Mrs. Patfield that it wasn’t her fault, and I was too busy telling Mum, if she was around, that I forgave her for leaving us.
I forgive you, Mum. I forgive you, I forgive you.
“Mrs. Patfield,” I finally whispered in the darkness when the torch died again.
“Yes, Ruby?”
“Are your senses working right now?”
“They are,” she said in croaky voice.
“Can you please tell my mum that I’m sorry for how things were and that I forgive her for leaving us and love her no matter what? And that I promise to show her photo to Jay every day and remind him that he had a beautiful, loving mother?”
The crows called out to each other again.
“She says she loves you and understands,” said Mrs. Patfield, reaching out for my hand and giving it a strong squeeze. “She says that sometimes we do what is right by the ones we love, but sometimes we have to decide for ourselves what is right for us.”
Sometimes we do what is right by the ones we love, but sometimes we have to decide for ourselves what is right for us.
Mum’s words had my heart pounding. I knew exactly what she meant.
“Thank you,” I whispered to the stars.
“Now come on, Ruby, my house is nearby, let’s go share a pot of tea.”
Giving Mrs. Patfield’s hand a squeeze, I stood up. “Thanks, Mrs. Patfield, but maybe next week. There’s somebody I need to see and if I don’t see them right away I might not ever forgive myself.”
Chapter 19
After calling Dad to tell him I wouldn’t be home for another week, I refuelled my car and headed north up the highway. Two hours later, I was back in Byron’s driveway.
Dodging a spinning spider that dangled from the front porch, I stepped onto the welcome mat and pressed my index finger into the doorbell. Half a minute later, the door opened.
“Ruby…” Sue’s eyes were red and her face blotchy. “I don’t think now is a good time. Byron’s in bed already.”
“Please, Sue, there might never be a time that is good. But I don’t mind. I just want to be with Byron no matter what.” I swallowed thickly and caught my breath, ready to say more to help convince her to let me in.
Sue pressed a hand to her heart and smiled at me through tears. “Byron was very upset after you—”
“Mum. It’s okay.”
Byron appeared at the door, the shorts and t-shirt he’d changed into revealing pale, skinny legs and arms.
“I’ll leave you two alone,” she said after giving Byron a hug, her voice barely a whisper.
Byron stepped outside and the screen door slammed shut behind him.
My heart thudded with panic. Would he be angry that I’d returned?
“Nine o’clock is pretty early for bed,” I said, making a stupid joke because I was suddenly very afraid of what I really came here to say. A small smile flickered at the corner of Byron’s mouth before disappearing all together.
“Why are you here, Ruby?” he asked, his voice rough with emotion, possibly anger, but the softness his blue eyes said something different altogether. He was glad I was back, I could tell. There was a little wooden bench propped up against the wall of the house, and Byron eased himself onto it and stared out at the front garden. His shaky sigh brought a fresh lump to my throat.
Here goes.
“Because I just can’t let you fight this on your own.” Nervously I half-smiled. “Sometimes we do what is right by the ones we love, but sometimes we have to decide for ourselves what is right for us.” I shrugged. “I’ve chosen this. I want to be here with you. It’s what I want.” My hands started to shake so I shoved them behind my back. “And I can only hope it’s what you want too, deep down.”
His head dropped down and he gripped the underside of the bench with both hands.
“I still don’t understand why you’d choose…someone like me. My life is only sickness and pain and,” he swallowed thickly before adding in a near whisper, “and death.”
The stars were out. One of them twinkled. It made me think of Mum, championing me on from the spirit world.
“Before my mum died, she was in a lot of pain, for years. Deep down I knew this, sensed it, but instead of helping her, I pushed her away. I was just so angry.” Tears streamed down my face. Wiping them with the back of my hands, I shook my head and sucked in a lungful of the jasmine scented air.
“All this time I hated Derek but I should really have thanked him. He was the only one who took her in, pain and all, and still loved her. I wish now that I’d loved her like that too, pain and all.”
After wiping my face again, I knelt down before Byron and placed my hands on his bare knees. His jaw was set and he was blinking rapidly, fighting tears. His body trembled beneath my touch.
“I want you, pain and all, Byron, and I’m not letting you go. That’s what’s right for me, and I hope, for you too.”
Wiping his eyes, he let out a ragged sob. I moved to sit beside him and tentatively placed an arm around him. His shoulders relaxed and he shifted in closer, accepting my embrace, before sliding his own arms around me and pulling me in tight.
We sat like this for who knows how long, just holding each other, feeling the reassuring solid warmth that is a living, breathing, human being. I did not want to let go.
“What if I die next week? Can you handle that?” he suddenly asked, his face buried in my hair. “’Cause I don’t know if I can, now that I have you.”
His words sent an icy chill down my spine, but I secured my arms around him tig
hter still, praying, just praying that Byron would be one of those medical miracles, that there’d be newspaper articles about him, that doctors around the world would be baffled by his win against terminal cancer, and that he’d live his dream of travelling the world.
And that I’d be there right beside him.
Epilogue
Oh, questa e una bella scena
Oh, this is a beautiful scene
Lord Byron’s last words
Byron didn’t die the following week, or the next.
A miracle did occur. His went into remission after a year of brutal treatment, and as soon as he was given the all clear we donned backpacks and started living out our dreams of travelling the world together.
Dad worked as the school gardener and Mira helped out with Jay, who was thriving at Kindy.
It was, undoubtedly, the best year of my life.
But the miracle ended two years after that, when cancer decided that it wanted Byron after all. This time, Byron refused treatment and accepted only pain relief. I respected his decision and spent every single day that followed glued to his side, determined to make the most of our precious time together and promising to be there for him, to love him until the very end.
We were in Croatia, on the beautiful island of Korcula, on the pebbled shore of a moonlit bay, when it happened. It was a planned trip after Byron had learned from his specialist that his time here was short.
Byron had chosen this place, a special place we’d stumbled upon during our visit to Mira’s homeland on our backpacking trip two years earlier. It was where he’d unofficially married me beneath the moon and stars with a fake ruby ring he’d gotten inside one of those chocolate surprise-eggs kids go crazy about.
Each night of his last week alive, Byron made me drive him to that same spot at the beach so that we could be alone and just enjoy the beauty of the bay.
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