Headache. That one thing, that one word, made everything feel distant. Her ears were ringing and the words the doctor was saying faded to nothing. This wasn’t real. It wasn’t real, it was some horrible nightmare—maybe she was still back at the cottage, maybe she’d never woken and was still asleep in Max’s arms right now.
Helen’s grip was viselike on Josie’s arm. Josie didn’t notice that the doctor had walked away to give them space until she saw her on the other side of the room. She blinked, trying to bring the world back into focus as Helen steered her to a chair, made her sit down.
“Brain tumor?” Josie repeated thickly. It didn’t make sense; it wouldn’t fit together in Josie’s mind, like pieces of a puzzle that you couldn’t jam together no matter how hard you tried.
Helen was crying. Helen was crying. Josie watched the tears fall onto the top of her lip, watched her wipe them away with her sleeve. Those tears didn’t look real, either. “He had cancer, Josie,” Helen said, her voice choked.
“No, he didn’t.” Because Josie would have known, wouldn’t she? That wasn’t the type of thing you just didn’t tell someone.
“It was terminal. A brain tumor. He was expecting to…”
“No.” But the pressure behind her eyes, in her throat, was building. “He would have told me.”
“I think he was going to,” she said softly.
“How do you know this?” Josie demanded.
“He told me,” Helen said, her voice hitching.
Josie shook her head. That didn’t make sense. Why would he tell Helen, and not her? “But they said aneurysm.” It was all she could do—focus on the straight facts, on what had been explicitly said. Because it didn’t make sense. Where was he now? Where was he? If he was really dead, then why were they telling her out here? Why not take her to him, let her see for herself?
“I know. And he couldn’t have known about that, from what the doctor said—they come about very suddenly. So I don’t think he was expecting it to happen…now.” Josie was shaking her head, over and over, the room swirling out of focus again. “Look,” said Helen, clearly making an effort to sound more like her usual self, for whatever good that would do, “stay here, I’ll go and find out the details.” Josie looked at her. She didn’t want details. The details didn’t matter, not if it was true.
But instead, she just said, “OK.” Her voice sounded numb, cold and empty. It didn’t sound like hers, just as her body, in that moment, didn’t feel as if it belonged to her.
“And we need to call…” Helen looked at Josie, shook her head, blinked back tears. “I’ll sort it. I’ll come back. This isn’t…” But she didn’t finish. She just squeezed Josie’s shoulder so hard that it hurt, though Josie was grateful for that, because then all she had to do was focus on that one part of her, on the dull pain there, instead of on how she felt like she was being ripped apart, like parts of her body were attacking one another.
It wasn’t real. It was all she could think as she watched Helen at the desk, speaking to the receptionist, then searching for something in her handbag. Max wasn’t dead. Her grandmother…her grandmother had been the one who was ill, not Max. Surely he couldn’t have had a tumor, couldn’t have hidden that from her. How had this happened in a matter of moments? She felt she should be crying, screaming, shouting, demanding answers, but instead her body seemed to be slowly shutting down the more she thought about it, so that she couldn’t so much as blink.
When Helen came back to her, she was clutching something in her right hand. A letter, Josie noticed dimly.
Helen sat down next to her, rested one hand on her shoulder, and lifted the letter in another. “He gave me this to give to you,” she said softly. Josie shook her head, but she took it when Helen pressed it on her, only noticing when she saw the paper shaking that her hand was trembling. She set it down in her lap, stared at it. Her name was on the front, in Max’s handwriting. Josie.
Josie looked back at Helen, shook her head. “I don’t understand.”
Helen’s eyes were wet, her chin was wobbling. “He rang me,” she said softly. “To explain everything, and to ask my advice.” She took a breath. “I suggested waiting until after Memo got a bit better, because I was worried how you’d handle it, but I…” She hitched in a breath. “I’m so sorry, my darling.”