The Last Love Note(38)
Cam looks incredible. He’s a man in his prime, physically, intellectually, career-wise, as a dad . . . just in every conceivable dimension. Grace had said he was ‘delicious’ and she was right.
Maybe the doctors got it wrong? Surely they did. Cam is nothing like the partners of those people on the carers’ forum. Those poor people lost control, fast. But look at him. Listen to him. He couldn’t possibly be sick.
I get the idea they’re talking about me now. The way Cam looks at me when we’re out socially always makes me feel so connected to him. And makes me feel gorgeous, whether I’m wearing mashed avo or a wedding dress.
‘Ears burning?’ Hugh says as I approach with Charlie on my hip. Cam extends his arm and draws us in.
‘Should they be?’
‘Should what be?’ he asks brightly.
‘My ears,’ I say.
He looks at me, confused. ‘You’ve lost me, Kate.’
No, not yet.
And just like that, the joy of seeing him so vital and engaged with Hugh is wiped and replaced with another piece of evidence that his brain is faltering, despite appearances.
‘I’d better do another round of drinks,’ Hugh suggests tactfully. As he walks past me his eyes meet mine and his lips curve into a half-smile. It doesn’t make me feel beautiful at all, like Cam’s smile does.
It makes me feel seen.
‘I need to duck to the bathroom,’ I tell Cam as I glance around the park for the facilities. Charlie is standing up, holding onto my leg for security, and I prise his little fingers off my jeans and latch him onto Daddy’s leg instead. They look so comical standing together – Cam over six foot tall, Charlie his mini doppelg?nger.
‘Charlie! Look at Mumma!’ I say as I take a photo on my phone of the two of them beaming. My phone has thousands of photos of Cam and Charlie, and almost none of Charlie with me. Cam used to complain that I was incessantly capturing moments instead of just enjoying them, but now thousands of photos don’t seem nearly enough. One day, this will be all Charlie has. Photos to hold onto, instead of Daddy’s leg. And I will zoom in on them, desperate for familiar details – laugh lines around his mouth, the set of his jaw. Nothing will ever be in high enough resolution.
The toilets are a long way through the park, well beyond the playground. In truth, it’s good to have a few moments to myself. I’m still finding ‘normal life’ confronting, while we’re trying to adjust to Cam’s diagnosis and the miscarriage, and working through ways to make the most of our time. At work, only Hugh knows the specifics about the diagnosis. I haven’t reached a point where I can talk about it without going to pieces, so all the others know is I’ve lost the baby and there’s something else going on.
The latest round of tests indicated that things are progressing at the faster end of the prognosis spectrum. The more we learn, the more likely it seems that this won’t be one of those slow-developing cases that takes years. Charlie’s not even eighteen months old. I’m desperate for Cam to stay alive and ‘himself’ long enough for his little boy to be able to pocket some memories of his own. I can’t stand the idea of him having to spend a lifetime cobbling together a representation of the man his father was, entirely from secondary sources.
I run into Sophie in the toilet block, and she takes me aside, eyes alight.
‘Oh my God, Kate. Your husband is fit AF!’
I laugh at her exuberance.
‘And your baby is squishable! I want to eat him! If I end up with even half of what you’ve got, I’ll be a happy woman.’
Half of what I had is exactly what I’ll end up with. And I’ll be miserable.
‘Though, if you saw Tinder, you wouldn’t like my chances . . . How lucky are you never having to go near online dating,’ she says.
‘Lucky’ isn’t a word I’ve applied to myself recently. But as Sophie prattles on, praising my little family, unaware of the festival of faux pas she’s stumbling through, I realise she’s right. I am lucky, in a sense. Some people never get to experience what I have. They never find that great love. Never adore someone with even a portion of the untamed intensity that still exists between Cam and me seventeen years after we met. At my mums’ group, the others sometimes complain about their partners. That they’re not hands-on enough as parents, or they’re hopeless communicators or just lazy or distant. They describe themselves as housemates sharing a roof, but not a life.
And then there’s Grace and the scores of pregnancy tests she’s taken, imagining she sees a second line that never materialises, no matter what kind of light she holds it under.
Am I selfish, to wish for more?
‘I hope Tinder rallies for you,’ I say to Sophie as we wander back.
Cam is back talking to Hugh again, on the fringes of the pack. It’s so good to see him comfortable, socially. The diagnosis has already dented his confidence. He’s not convinced he’s properly following conversations, and he’s worried he’s repeating himself. Both are true, but I can’t bring myself to agree with him.
‘Who’s got Charlie?’ Sophie asks suddenly, and we both freeze.
My eyes scan the group. Nobody has him. I can’t see him! Every organ in my body plunges in terror. ‘Hugh!’ I scream bloodcurdlingly across the park. ‘Where’s Charlie?’