Page 77 of A Part of Me and You
‘How? Where on earth would you start?’
‘I have no idea, but I will do everything I can to help you find him and when he does find out about you, I really hope that he is going to love you so much,’ I tell her. ‘You are the most loveable young girl and you have given me so much in just a few days. Imagine what you could give him for the rest of his lifetime. You’re an absolute joy and you deserve all the love in the world. You really do.’
‘I write to him sometimes,’ she says, letting the sand fall now between her fingers. ‘Nothing important, just stuff I’m doing in case he ever does want to get to know me better. Everyday things like what I had for dinner and what I did at school and what songs I like. Just stuff.’
I gulp as I feel my heart tear in two.
‘Do you think you will ever have any more children?’ Rosie asks me and I take a deep breath. My womb aches at the thought.
‘I don’t think I can ever suffer any more losses, Rosie,’ I say to her and it is true. ‘I had four miscarriages before Lily came along. Four babies that I had pictured in my head and dreamed of filling our home with. Lily was my miracle baby but my heart cannot be broken again and neither can Matt’s. I wanted so much to give him a baby but my heart is in pieces.’
‘Four, wow,’ she says to me. ‘How can life be so cruel? That’s just so unfair, Shelley. That makes me very sad.’
‘Me too, and yes, it is unfair,’ I reply. ‘But I am working so hard at focusing on what I have rather than what I don’t have and I think if you look for it, there is a lot of goodness and kindness in the world. I am trying to mend my broken heart by deliberately looking for love in the world and I’ve witnessed so much kindness and goodness with you and your mum which has made me realize that I need to focus my energies on just that. What I have in my life, not what I don’t have. I have love and I have kindness that I can give out and that is what I will continue to do from now on.’
Rosie picks up her phone and looks at it, scrolling through photos as she talks to me.
‘I saw a picture of Lily when I was in your house getting Merlin,’ she says to me. ‘I hope you don’t mind me saying, but your home looks so much prettier now that she’s there with her little smiling face and all your happy memories on the walls. I love the elephant in the hallway too. It reminds me of Africa. Did you get that in Africa?’
I feel my palms go sweaty even though it is quite cold here on the beach. I can’t find my voice at the thought of Lily’s little smiling face. Rosie keeps scrolling through her phone and then she stops at a photo of … oh my God has she taken a photo of my Lily on her phone? No, Rosie -
‘Lily has exactly the same hair as I did when I was her age,’ continues Rosie. ‘Same colour and everything. I know this is stupid but I thought at first glance that it was me. Do you think we look alike?’
She puts her phone screen towards me and my heart is racing now so fast and I feel dizzy and sick inside.
Betty’s scribbles on that piece of paper come back to me. Just three words that had sent me into a spin but I had dismissed it as it just can’t physically be the case.Rosie? Lily? Matt?She had written their three names together and scored through them with her pen but it was still eligible enough for me to read.
‘Why is Lily on your phone?’ I ask Rosie. I want to get mad at her for taking pictures of my daughter when she was in my home. Anger fizzles through my veins down to my fingertips at the thought of such intrusion. ‘Rosie, you shouldn’t have taken pictures of Lily when you—’
‘No,’ she laughs. ‘I didn’t take pictures of Lily, Shelley. That’s what I’m saying. That’s not Lily. That’s me in the picture when I was three years old. It looks exactly like Lily, but it’s not her. It’s me.’
Juliette
‘Rosie? Rosie is that you?’
Dan calls out when we hear the front door shut and I wait for Rosie to burst into the room with tales of Merlin and Shelley and all the wonderful things she may have got up to for the past hour or so – but she doesn’t come in and she doesn’t answer, and I am too weak and sore to even call for her.
‘The doctor will be here again soon, love,’ says Dan, patting my forehead with a damp cloth. ‘She’ll know for sure if you are able to travel and soon we’ll have you home in your own bed and that should make you feel a little better, shouldn’t it? I’ll go and see how Rosie is.’
I love the thought of my own bed, or my own room where Dan and I shared so many memories, yet part of me doesn’t want to move from this place as I feel so at peace listening to the water on the pier outside and the gulls overhead as I lie here becoming weaker and weaker and weaker. I’d happily just stay here in this room with its lemon walls and sash windows with the gentle breeze coming through the window moving the floral curtains so that they look like they are dancing. It’s like a burst of sunshine, this little room and I feel quite dreamy lying here which is probably something to do with the medication the doctor pumped me with earlier this morning.
‘She says she’s fine,’ says Dan when he comes back in to the room, ‘but she told me that through her bedroom door so I don’t know if she is fine or if she’s climbing out the window to meet someone she shouldn’t be, or drinking cider, or rolling a joint. Shall I tell her you want her to come in here?’
I lightly shake my head. My eyes are like half-moons and Dan seems to have grown a stubble since he left the room and came back in here again. I know that isn’t possible but time is really slowing down and I think I could actually notice the grass growing right now if I watched it closely. That’s the thing about being terminally ill. Your observations are so much sharper, like you don’t want to miss a thing so nothing goes unnoticed. Things I used to fly past without a care in the world nowmeanthe world to me. I will stop to watch a tiny spider crawl up the wall in this cottage and marvel at his tiny legs and how he can defy gravity when we humans can’t. I will notice the brightness of a yellow dandelion and smile at the childhood memories that such a humble weed brings back, of days running through fields with my friends when all we ever seemed to do was be outdoors and life was just one big wonderland. I will stop to listen to a toddler chit-chatting to his mum or dad and be in awe at how in just two years a little person can pick up languages and understand conversations, yet still look at the world through such innocent eyes, untarnished, clean and pure.
Everything is magnified, everything is wonderful, everything feels almost new. I will watch my sister’s face as she rubs tea tree oil into my feet at the end of the bed, her mind racing with a million things. I think of how she has left her husband and three boys at home to come here to be with me and how she is putting her fears to one side just to try and make me feel a little bit better. She tells me I am the strongest person I know even though I sometimes feel the opposite. That is love.
I am bald, bloated and my body is not much more than a shell, yet Dan looks at me like I am a princess and even though I pushed him away and told him never to come back as he hit the bottle to numb his pain, he has come back to me and he has sobered up enough to prop me up in these final stages. He is my soulmate. He was there with me when I was first diagnosed, when I screamed at the horror of it all and when I woke in the night in clammy sweats and terrors and he held me and rocked me as I wailed and cried, back to sleep. That is love.
Cancer has brought me to the depths of my being and made me realize exactly what is important in this polluted, toxic world we live in. All I believe in now, is love. When I was diagnosed, all the nonsense we worried about before felt like materialistic bullshit and the rushing from pillar to post like a busy fool just stopped. Priorities fell into place. What mattered most really did begin to matter most and it took cancer to make us all realize that there is really nothing in this world that should take first place in your life over the people you care most about. Yes, we need to work to pay bills and sometimes life throws us stresses and strains like the car breaking down or being late for an appointment or missing out on something you really wanted to do or see but seriously? Cut the bullshit, I have learned. Life is too short for shit. Live it, feel it, love it and do it now. Don’t wait for your day in the sun. Make today that day. Make the most of every change that comes your way and mean it. Most of us go around on autopilot not really living, just merely existing. We count the hours on the clock to see one day through and then get up to do exactly the same thing again the next day without even questioning it. I want to leave this world a better place than when I found it, even if it is just for one person. I don’t want to die in vain. I have no idea what I can do to achieve that, but I think that should be everyone’s aim in life, to leave it just a little bit better because you were there.
‘Juliette? Juliette, the doctor is here, honey.’
My sister’s voice disrupts my train of thought and I realize that I have been dozing. I open my eyes slowly.
I don’t think I am going to make it home.
Chapter 24
