Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 134212 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 671(@200wpm)___ 537(@250wpm)___ 447(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 134212 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 671(@200wpm)___ 537(@250wpm)___ 447(@300wpm)
He’s giving up.
But I won’t.
A small twitch in his arm prompts me to quickly wipe away the tears streaming down my face, knowing he’ll get agitated if he catches me crying again. I sniff and make my way over, sitting in the chair beside his bed. I can see how much effort it takes him to open his eyes. And the effort it takes him to smile a fraction when his dull brown eyes find me. Today really is a bad day. They’re coming more often now. “You’re home,” he croaks, letting his heavy head flop to the side on the pillow so he’s facing me.
“I’m home,” I confirm. “How are you feeling?”
“Amazing,” he sighs, his frustration evident—he’s so tired of me asking that question. And not because he feels like shit. He always feels like shit. He’s just tired of telling me so. “How was work?”
“Busy.”
He nods, struggling to hold my eyes. “A man called today.”
I shrink in my chair, not wanting to ask the question that would naturally come next.
“A debt collector.” Billy wheezes the words, and I look away.
“I have everything under control,” I assure him, not wanting him to worry about our finances. As a self-employed surveyor, Billy’s income stopped as soon as he stopped working. All of our savings went on the wedding. He hadn’t taken the initiative to get private medical insurance, not that it would have been much use to us. They wouldn’t have funded the surgery in America, or the cost of getting him there.
Billy lifts a hand and reaches for me, and I shuffle forward to take it, relieving him of the strain. “Lo.” He closes his eyes and struggles to reopen them. “Just put me in a hospice. Let them take—”
“No.” I drop his hand and shoot back in my chair. “I’m not listening to this again.” He’s talking this nonsense more and more often. I can’t stand it.
“Lo, just—”
“I said stop,” I yell, unable to hold back my frustration. My voice is hoarse as a result. I fight to level my tone and calm myself. “Today is just a bad day. Tomorrow will be better.” I plead with my eyes, begging him not to continue with his unspeakable pleas. “Something will come up. We’ll find a way.”
“There is no damn way,” he grates, and it takes everything out of him, his chest starting to heave from the strain. “Stop burying your head in the sand and hoping for a miracle, Lo, because it isn’t going to happen.”
My bottom lip trembles as I mentally damn him to hell for being so negative. “There’s a way.” America is the way. I just need to scrape the money together somehow.
He sighs. “I’m a burden on you.”
“You’re my husband.”
“I’m a dying man, Lo. And I’m stopping you from getting on with your life.”
I jump up from the chair, devastated as I always am when he does this. “I am your wife. For better, for worse. In sickness and in health.”
“You’re young, beautiful, and healthy. I’m wearing you down to nothing. I can’t see you looking so exhausted, trying to make ends meet, having no social life, being forced into caring for me. It’s killing me quicker than this fucked-up disease.”
“I’m not listening to this.” I stomp toward the bedroom door, furiously thrashing my palms over my wet cheeks. I slam it as hard as I mean to, wanting him to know just how mad I am. How can he say those things? How can he tell me to do that, to walk away as if he never existed? Get on with my life without him? Never.
I land in the lounge and scan the floor. My book is open and face down on the carpet. My laptop is open, my browsing of local vintage stores from last night probably still on the page. Why do I keep torturing myself like that? Turning through webpage after webpage, reminding myself of my dream that’s lost? I move my mouse across the screen, set on closing my laptop down. The GoFundMe page that I set up appears. One thousand pounds. Billy would go spare if he knew I’d done this.
Snapping the lid down, I go to the hallway and snatch Boris’s lead off the coat stand, hook him up, and then I tug on my coat and wrap my scarf around my neck, all heavy-handed. I would rather face the bitter cold than face my husband’s bitterness.
But once I hit the street, I don’t feel the cold at all. Billy’s words, playing on repeat in my mind, are distracting me too well. I absentmindedly cross the road and head down the path into the park, the streetlamps illuminating my aimless way. As soon as I breach the entrance of the grassy expanse of land, I free Boris and let him scamper off, dragging my feet slowly behind him with only my thoughts to keep me company. Thoughts I’d rather not have. Thoughts that torture me daily. Thoughts that I wish I could rip out of my head and throw down a drain. But they’ll never leave me. I’ll never be free from this torment. Our lives have been in turmoil for so long, I’ve forgotten what it’s like to be normal. To do the simple things. To go out for dinner together. Or even to go to the supermarket together. To sleep in the same bed together. To cuddle, to kiss, to make love. On a good day, I can almost manage to get him around the park for a walk with Boris. Sometimes I might get him to the couch to watch TV with me. Although even those simple things, simple things I have come to appreciate more than they should be appreciated, are becoming few and far between. But at least he can still walk. That’s what I have to tell myself. And at least he’s still alive.