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?’
I hate that I’ve automatically gone over the top of Cam’s head, relegating him to the role of an unreliable witness.
Everyone drops everything and flies into a frantic search of the peninsula – with water in three out of four directions. This level of panic feels almost incompatible with life. I cannot lose three of them!
‘There!’ Sophie yells, after what feels like years but must only be seconds. She’s pointing at the water’s edge, where Charlie is toddling around, splashing in the shallows, chasing a family of ducks – and now all I’m aware of is Cam and me, sprinting towards him, and towards each other, both splashing into the water together, falling into it, scooping Charlie up into our arms together, crying.
I am furious.
It takes every ounce of self-control for me to silence the white-hot rage within me.
Could you not just focus, Cam, for FIVE MINUTES!
‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ he’s repeating. ‘I thought he was with you. I don’t know what happened . . .’
The rest of my team is gathered on the sandy verge now, witness to the forced disintegration of trust in our marriage. It’s not his fault. I know that. But from this moment on, I can’t leave him alone with Charlie. He’ll leave something on the stove and burn the house down.
He’s crying, I’m crying, Charlie’s crying – though mainly because we’ve confiscated the ducks. We splash out of the water together and walk slowly back to the picnic spot, where I sit on the bench at the picnic table, Charlie and I wrapped in somebody’s towel, rocking back and forth, hugging him tight to my chest, vowing never to let him out of my sight again.
I want to go home. This has been a disaster. I’m embarrassed that everyone saw that.
I look up in time to see Hugh put a hand on Cam’s shoulder. In this moment, I’m angry with him, too. He’s the only other person here who knows about the Alzheimer’s. What could possibly have been so important about their conversation that it justified letting his guard down?
But mostly, I’m angry with myself. It was me alone who misjudged Cam’s capacity. It’s a harsh preview of the fact that I’m the one who is increasingly going to shoulder all responsibility for the three of us, undoing years of mutual effort.
And Sophie thought I was lucky.
‘This is killing me,’ Cam says after we’ve put Charlie to bed at home. He hasn’t forgotten what happened. He’s at some in-between phase where there’s no rhyme or reason as to which experiences successfully penetrate into his long-term memory and which are lost.
I’m afraid to speak. I’m over my anger now and feel terrible for having blamed the man I love for something beyond his control, even if I kept it to myself.
‘I’m going to abandon you,’ he says, his face twisted in pain. ‘I’m going to leave you and Charlie. So young. Both of you.’
We’re both welling up again now. This is horrible – this grieving somebody while they’re still here. Grieving a beautiful relationship that had decades of richness left in it, knowing what we have now will gradually be downgraded to some unutterable situation more akin to carer and patient. It’s awful, seeing him this sad for us, when it’s his life that’s going to be cut short.
‘I need you to promise me something,’ Cam says, turning to face me and taking both my hands in his on the couch. ‘I don’t want you locking yourself away forever after I’m gone.’
‘Cam – it is way too early for this conversation!’ His faculties are still ninety per cent sound, and he’s talking like it’s over already.
‘Let me say this, Katie, while I can. It’s important to me.’
I know where he’s going and I don’t want to hear it.
‘You’re young,’ he argues. ‘You could have fifty more years to live. That’s longer than you’ve been alive. Think about it. We were kids when we met. There’s so much more out there for you to experience. Don’t stop living just because I do.’
‘Do you regret that?’ I ask. ‘Settling down with your first real girlfriend?’
He laughs. ‘I just mean there’s so much more of you to discover. I want you to do that. You and Charlie.’
Okay.
‘But don’t close your heart off, okay?’ he says.
‘Cam, stop it.’ He’s asking the impossible.
‘I’m saying it now, because you need to know I was in completely my right mind when I told you this.’
I sense exactly the promise he’s going to ask me to make. And I don’t want to.
‘Kate. Find your way to someone who’ll love you and Charlie just as much as I do.’
I don’t want to think about this. I’ll never love someone else like I love Cam. It’s just not feasible even to imagine it. I touch his cheek and pull him towards me so we’re forehead to forehead. ‘I’ve had a more amazing love story with you than some people get in a lifetime,’ I tell him. ‘And that’s enough.’
He kisses me on the forehead, which is always somehow so much more beautiful than kissing me anywhere else. I just want him. For years more.
‘Listen.’ He takes my hand in his, brings it to his lips and kisses it. ‘One day you’ll find yourself in a situation where you’re feeling something again. And I know you. You’ll let the guilt get to you and you’ll want to run.’
Yes, I will. This premonition rings true.
‘When that moment comes, please remember this one. Remember I wanted this for you, with all my heart. All of it. In that moment, don’t look back.’
He takes my hand and places it on his chest. His heart is beating erratically. How can he let me go like this?
‘No-one can replace you,’ I explain desperately. ‘Know that.’
We sit there for ages, and I just want to slow everything right down. I want us to stay in this bubble forever, where Cam is only mildly confused and partially forgetful, and there’s no fictional other man in my horribly grief-stricken, lonely future without him.
18
After the next shock of turbulence, somewhere north of Newcastle, tray tables and overhead lockers shaking and shuddering, I ask Hugh straight up: ‘Are we going to die?’ There’s a directness in my tone that he can’t ignore, and his expression becomes serious in a way that scares me.