Page 24 of Strider's Misstep

When he does speak, he talks about monitoring, intravenous medication and tube feeding, all of which she’s had at home for a while. But even he is half-hearted about the benefits hospitalisation can offer. I’ve had this discussion with him before. Without the enrichment of her home situation, Anna wouldn’t have lasted as long as she has. The only thing he can do in a hospital better than the nurses at home is if her heart stops beating and she needs resuscitation. But as nothing exists of Anna now, to extend her life artificially would be cruel and of no benefit to anyone.

After her diagnosis, I’d spent weeks, months, even years hoping the doctors had gotten her prognosis wrong or that some miracle cure would suddenly emerge. Even though the medical profession is developing more understanding of the causes of types of frontal lobe dementia and has discovered the cause of Picks Disease is a faulty gene, any developing gene therapy would come too late to reverse Anna’s condition.

And, if I suspected that the accident on the bike had implications more serious than anyone had thought at the time, this long after, there was no injury that could be repaired.

I’ve known this was coming for a very long time. So why does Anna’s impending death hit me like a twenty-ton truck travelling toward me at sixty down the highway? Again, I think selfishly that I’d have liked to have Jasmine to lean on, but she’s gone, and I have to face it’s unlikely I’ll see her again. Maybe it’s the double whammy of losing both women in a short period of time, but I feel like something inside me has broken.

After only a little more discussion that I don’t pay much attention to, I end the call with the doctor, him not having convinced me and reluctantly agreeing Anna will stay where she is.

“Go home, Prez. Be with your wife.” I’d almost forgotten Shotgun had borne witness to the conversation. As I open mymouth, he continues, “I’m your VP, Prez. I can handle things for a while.”

I grimace, both hands pushing back my hair and holding it for a second before letting it flop back around my shoulders. “I don’t know how long this will take.” There can only be one outcome, but whether it be hours, days or weeks, it’s impossible to tell.

“Whatever.” He shrugs. “You need to be with Anna now. If we need you, we know how to get hold of you.”

He’s right. I’ve been on this journey every terrible step of the way with Anna, and I need to see it through. Though she won’t know that I’m beside her, I couldn’t live with my conscience not to be there with her.

Abruptly standing, I take my bike key out of my pocket, bouncing it in my hand. “Tell the others.” It’s a stupid instruction. Shotgun will do what needs to be done. “And…” I pause, wondering whether, under the circumstances, it’s right to add my next words, then decide I don’t give a damn one way or another. “If there’s anything, any news about Jasmine,”good or bad,I think in my head, “I want to be informed immediately.”

There’s no judgement in his eyes when he raises his chin.

As I ride out of the compound, leaving my brothers in my rearview, I’m unable to analyse my own frame of mind.

It’s not unusual for a biker to live both a club and civilian life, and never the twain shall meet. When I first joined the club, they knew I had a wife but respected I wanted to keep my private life apart. Whether they knew or suspected she didn’t approve of the biker life didn’t matter. The bro code rules. Whatever happened in the club stayed in the club, and if I was fucking around while married, no one gave a shit. It was only my closest brothers who knew about Anna’s decline and devastating diagnosis. I wanted no pity given, no accomodations made.

My woman hadn’t wanted to be a part of the club, hadn’t wanted to ride up behind me, and never supported me as a biker. Her being ill made no difference to that.

It had meant no one noticed she hadn’t been around. And, apart from Buzz, Shotgun and Tequila who’d always been my best friends and who’d stepped up as my trusted officers when I was elected prez, I suspect most thought Anna and I had separated long back.

I went home to my wife, leaving my brothers to explain my absence. I sat beside her as she struggled for breath. Her laboured inhalations belying a strength that was no longer hers. It didn’t take long. Gradually, her body shut down, and it was only two days later that I saw her chest move for the last time.

It was a few hours before I moved from her side. In the silence, I’d reflected on our life. Nearly twenty years of marriage, the last ten spent watching her decline. How could I regret staying with her? If I hadn’t been there, no one would have watched over her, seen to her comfort, and made sure she had every chance at some sort of life. I can’t help but ask myself, would things have been different if we had had a child? Would having someone depending on her have stopped her going downhill so fast, or would there just now be a son or daughter who’d grown up living with but unable to know who their mother really was, who she’d been when we’d first fallen in love?

Eventually, I reached for my phone and updated Shotgun.

It was then it was brought home to me, if I’d needed confirmation, that bikers are a family. Shotgun and Tequila had quickly arrived, and over the next few days, it was them who’d arranged the funeral and for Anna’s medical equipment to be removed from the house. Even though I wasn’t sure whether I’d want to continue to live in this now-empty residence, they’d commandeered the prospects and club girls to transform therooms, which had more resembled a hospital ward for the last few years, into a comfortable home.

Although to many of my brothers it came as a surprise that I’d still been with my wife, once apprised of the situation, they ignored her feelings about the club and, for me, stepped up and treated her passing with all the respect that should be given to a president’s old lady.

While her family had gone, and mine had long ago disowned me, her funeral service was packed, with a motorcycle entourage that encompassed not only the Texas charter but representation from Wretched Soulz far and wide. Even Slugger turned up, the shadow head of the entire MC. For once, he stayed in the background, waiting until her body was laid in the ground, and only then approaching to lay his hand on my shoulder and offer condolences, which I had no doubt were sincere.

I’d always regretted how Anna had never embraced my MC family, but never as much as I did now. In death, it had shown how much, if she’d allowed them to, they would have taken her to their hearts.

After Slugger took his leave, I’d stood by her grave, my brothers allowing me the solitary moment to consider the might have beens. But however much I wanted to summon up a rosy picture that if she hadn’t been ill, she’d have eventually come around to my way of life and have been proud of me gaining the president’s patch, I had to admit it was unlikely. Knowing Anna, nothing would have brought her around.

Now, she was gone.

Jasmine was still, hopefully breathing.

Not for the first time, I mentally kicked myself for the fool that I’d been.

Jasmine never asked me for anything. It was me who’d commandeered her loyalty, and she’d never questioned it. She’d given me everything I asked for. Even though, from her writing,it was clear she wanted more, she’d never pushed or demanded. I’d taken so much from her, including our baby. I’d made her sacrifice everything.

And what for? A misguided allegiance to a woman who, if she hadn’t become ill, I couldn’t see myself spending my life with.

I’ve been a fucking idiot.

The slight possibility that I’d caused Anna’s illness had filled me with guilt. I could have just made it up to her by doing what I did, caring for her when she was ill. I didn’t have to sacrifice my happiness for her, but that’s what I did.

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