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“You won’t regret it,” I said, as she walked away. “I promise you, you won’t regret choosing me.”
She turned back to face me, and her smile was still right there in place.
“I don’t expect for a single second I will,” she said. “I just hope you won’t regret taking it.”9LoganI hadn’t read Lavondyss in years, but I could remember how much I’d loved it, picking it up as a teenager for the very first time.
I’d loved Robert Holdstock novels. I’d loved the mystery of the etheric, and the energy of the words bursting from the pages. Lavondyss had consumed me. Devoured me and all my dreams.
I wondered just how Chloe had some across those novels. Maybe she had been a teenager seeking the etheric, just like me.
Maybe she would keep her grip on its authenticity a lot longer than I had.
I was tired today. My legs were stiff and heavy before I’d even made it onto the ward.
Christine had been early to care for Mum that morning, and I’d seen how she’d struggled to rouse her from sleep. My mother was slipping. Those petals were drawing thin.
So was I.
I put myself and my own discomfort to the side once I was on my shift, sharpening my brain to perform at its best. The ward was a storm, and I was the centre. I needed to be the calm one.
I met new patients, scared of their road ahead, and helped them find their strength. I met old patients, accepting their roads were reaching the end, and helped them find their peace.
All the while I struggled to find my own.
I left the ward on time that night, for the first time I could remember. I walked down the street towards the train station, and my heart was pounding fast, even though I was slow.
Scared.
For the first time in years, I was scared.
It doesn’t matter how long you think you’ve prepared for saying goodbyes, there’s still that gut-thumping shock that comes when you see them truly looming.
I was losing my mum and I knew it. I knew it better than anyone.
The train journey was empty without Chloe in it. The carriages were dull and flat, and the world shot by through the window at lightning speed. I couldn’t read Master. For the first time in my life, I didn’t want to.
My key was heavy in the lock back at home. My legs were every bit as heavy as they climbed the stairs.
Olivia jumped in her seat to see me in the doorway. She slapped a hand to her chest, and then smiled.
“Wow, Dr Hall. Didn’t expect to see you back at this time.”
I smiled an empty smile back at her. “It’s an unusual occurrence.”
I stepped up to Mum, and her breaths were steady, eyes closed but fluttering.
“How has she been today?” I asked the nurse, and she joined me at the bedside.
“Good in herself. Tired, but good. She wanted potato and broccoli for dinner.”
I nodded. “Good choice. Thanks for delivering.”
She waited, standing still until I spoke again.
“Thanks Olivia, you can go now.”
“I can stay,” she offered, but I shook my head and smiled another empty smile.
“Enjoy an early finish for once.”
I grabbed myself some dinner from downstairs while Mum was still sleeping. I ate it at her bedside, staring at the woman who’d been the strongest thing I’d ever known.
She’d been the strength at my side through my battles and wars. She’d held my hand when I was scared. She’d held me close while I’d sobbed, a little boy lost to everything but her.
Now it was my turn to be the strength at her side – in body if not in spirit. Nothing in this world would ever weaken my mother’s spirit.
Her eyes flickered right onto mine when they opened. Her smile lit up her face.
“Wasn’t expecting to find you here? Did I sleep late?”
“No, you didn’t sleep late,” I said, “I got off work on time.”
“Bloody hell,” she said, “It’s about time,” she laughed with a wheeze. “You work far too hard.”
Her fingers reached out and gripped mine, hard. Her stare was full of fire, in a body of ashes.
“You’d better find life in my death,” she told me. “I mean it, Logan. You need to live.”
Even the words stabbed my stomach. Life. I really didn’t know what that word meant anymore.
And it wasn’t about Mum, or watching people slip away in front of me through night and day, or having lost my grandparents, and my uncles and aunts, and almost everybody else in my family. It was about me.
Mum’s eyes were still Mum’s eyes. They looked up at me with all the love in the world.
“I’m going soon,” she said. “This time I’m really going.”
My impulse was to argue, and tell her to battle on, but I didn’t. I choked on the words and stayed silent, just squeezed her hand right back.
