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Lo tries to smile, but her lips are too straight and her jaw too tight. Taking a deep breath, one I know is an attempt to drink down some calming air, she leaves the room. I sit myself on the chair by the door, and my arse has barely met the hard plastic before I hear shouting.
“You selfish little bitch,” a woman yells. “How could you?”
I look at the door that’s forming a barrier between Lo and me, astounded by the venom in the voice. Stay where you are, Luke.
“How could I what?” Lo asks, her return question quiet and calm.
“You know what. Seeing another man while my son was fighting to stay alive.”
My eyes close, dread for Lo taking hold. My feet itch where they are on the floor, screaming at me to get up and go to her. To explain. It’s an effort to talk myself down. I tell myself that she’s his mother, that her emotions are running high. Stay out of it. So I push myself farther into the back of the chair, fighting to regulate my increasingly agitated breathing.
“Luke is a friend.”
“A friend?” she shrieks incredulously. “You liar. Billy knew. How does that make you feel? Your husband knew that you were off gallivanting around town with another man while he was dying.”
“He told you?” Lo’s astonished voice must match my current expression, my eyes swinging to the door.
“Yes, he told me. Last night he told me. You make me sick.”
Then I hear the sound of what can only be a stinger of a slap. I’m out of my chair like lightning. Nothing will keep me back. I heard what Billy said to me. I listened to Lo tell me what he said to her. This woman is his mother. She might have listened to her son, but she didn’t hear him.
I fly out of the door and find a nurse fighting to hold back a middle-aged woman, and Lo with her palm covering her cheek. Rage consumes me, my teeth grinding. What the fuck?
“You’ve never looked after him properly.” The woman struggles and strains against the nurse, who is demanding she calms down. “You didn’t care about him.”
“I did a better job than you,” Lo retorts, dropping her hand from her face. The handprint there adds fire to the white-hot blood racing through my veins.
The woman calms. She’s still snarling, but when she looks past Lo and finds me, I know that calm will be lost again very soon. “I suppose this is him, is it?”
Lo looks over her shoulder, unaware that I’m behind her. She sighs, and I step forward, not wanting to poke the rattlesnake, but definitely wanting to demonstrate my presence. “Are you okay?” I ask.
“Oh, she’s fine.” Billy’s mother laughs coldly. “My son is dead so now you can continue your affair without him in the way.”
My nostrils flare. “There was no affair,” I grate. “Lo’s done everything a wife should.” Lo reaches for my forearm and squeezes, a silent signal to keep my cool. I will keep my cool. But I refuse to have this woman rip Lo apart any more than I know she’s ripping herself apart already.
She tugs her bag onto her shoulder and looks at me like I’m something stuck to the bottom of her shoe. “You should be ashamed of yourself. What kind of man are you?”
“I’m a man who was there for your daughter-in-law when no one else was.” I take Lo’s arm and turn her, set to get her away from this poisonous woman, but she resists, keeping herself facing Billy’s mother.
“I’ll let you know about the funeral arrangements, Linda.” Lo turns and walks away, and I follow, itching to escape the bad feeling lingering in the air. It shouldn’t be like this. Family should come together during tragic times, not tear one another apart. “Difficult?” I say as we reach my car, opening the door for Lo.
“She’s never liked me.” Lo drops into the seat and pulls her belt on, staring forward out of the windscreen. “After the funeral, she’ll never have to see me again.”
The funeral. Something else Lo will need to guide me on. And what about now? I know I said I’d take charge, but I’m being cautious too. “What do you want to do now, Lo?”
She thinks for a short while before craning her neck to look at me. “I don’t want to be alone.”
“I don’t want you to be alone, either,” I assure her. But I don’t think I can stay at her house. A man’s house is his castle and all. That’s Billy’s castle. I have no place there.
“Can I come to your house?”
I don’t think I do a very good job of hiding my relief. “You can stay with me for as long as you want.” I know she didn’t ask if she could stay with me per se, but I want her to know that she’s welcome.
