But this evening I needed to focus on Joan, not my growing yearning for Sam’s company. Besides, I’d promised I’d call Leanne to let her know that Joan was okay, and I didn’t think I could rustle up a convincing lie while Sam was sitting watching me. I also saw the creases of fatigue at the corners of his eyes, and I remembered how he’d told me that being there for his old girlfriend Carrie had become a pressure he couldn’t carry. I suspected that the only company Sam wanted that night was his dogs.
I’d asked Pia not to bother sending a meal around, but once we’d let an exhausted （and definitely more attentive, since his day with Yasmin the Dog Mother） Nesbit into the back garden, I found a basket on my outside table, brimming with glistening blackberries.
‘Don’t eat all of them!’ I laughed at Joan’s purple lips and fingers when I brought out plates of cheese on toast for supper. ‘We’re going to make the rest into a pie tomorrow. We can take your mum a slice.’
Once she’d had a brief call with Leanne, dodging questions and chattering about nothing to avoid any more lying than necessary, Joan could barely drag herself up the stairs to bed. After checking a few minutes later that she was asleep, feeling more than a twinge of envy that I couldn’t do the same just yet, I tiptoed downstairs and phoned Carole, who immediately called Peter and switched to speakerphone.
We didn’t talk for long. I was torn between wanting to answer their torrent of questions while maintaining as much of Leanne’s confidentiality as I could. I briefly summed up her prognosis again, providing no details on how she ended up with hepatitis C or a severely damaged liver. I explained how and why Joan had ended up living with me, and Joan’s worries about what would happen longer term. When they asked how long I was able to keep taking care of her, the answer that had been incubating inside slipped out strong and sure: as long as she needs me. Finding Leanne’s parents hadn’t changed that. Instead, I felt a sharp tug of worry that maybe they would want to take her home to Chester. If it came to that, of course I wouldn’t fight it, but she’d take a chunk of my heart with her.
I wasn’t surprised to hear that they had already booked a hotel for the following night. We agreed to meet in the hospital in the morning. Carole wanted to just appear at her bedside, so that Leanne didn’t have the opportunity to refuse to see them, but Peter persuaded her otherwise.
‘She’s our daughter, my love. No matter what went on before, she knows we always loved her; she’s no reason not to see us.’
‘Then why hasn’t she? We’ve stayed, rattling around in that house of memories, so she could find us whenever she wanted to. Keeping the landline going so she could call. She’s not tried once, in fifteen years. There’s no reason to believe that’s changed.’
‘A life-threatening diagnosis and a child who needs a family are the reason,’ Peter replied steadily. ‘We’ve never gone looking for her – always given her the choice. We won’t take that from her, however devastating it might be for us. This is about her, and what she needs. We aren’t getting it wrong this time.’
‘I just don’t know if I can bear it,’ Carole wept.
Peter tried to reply, but I couldn’t distinguish any words between his rough sobs.
I had never heard the sound of true heartbreak until that phone call.
I confirmed the meeting time and ended the call, praying that this wasn’t the most terrible mistake.
A message pinged through as I rolled into bed just after nine.
Holding up OK?
Three short words that managed to create the same effect as if I’d sunk into a bath of steaming hot loveliness.
Despite every inch of me sagging with fatigue, my cheek muscles somehow found the strength to smile.
Knackered but OK, thanks
A second later came a reply:
Too tired to talk? Or type?
Smile growing, limbs instantly re-energised, I dialled Sam’s number.
It was an hour or so later I finally fell asleep, still clutching the phone, Sam’s soft laughter and gentle conversation like a lullaby, soothing all the what-ifs away.
27
The morning was only bearable thanks to a dog walk, pie-making and Joan’s insistence that we tidied up the worst of her house in case Carole and Peter wanted to see it. However, it was two jangling bags of nerves that rode up in the hospital lift the second visiting hours opened.
‘I feel worse than yesterday,’ Joan said.
‘Me, too,’ I added. ‘I don’t know why.’