Page 189 of Unspoken Words
Connor laughed. “Chris is definitely a tosser.”
I snort-laughed then playfully rolled my eyes. “As I was saying … if you were the tosser, you’d be blindfolded. The rest of us would stand near the spike and try to dodge being hit with the quoits.”
“Sounds dangerous … and fun.”
“It was.”
“Found them!” Connor lifted a flap of a box and pulled out the old, wooden set.
I clapped my hands with glee. “We haven’t played in years. If this is going to be my last Christmas, I want to play one final time. I wantallof us to play.”
Connor’s body stiffened, quoits in hand, all laughter and fun vanished.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say … Shit!” I quickly reduced the distance between us and wrapped my arms around him. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to ruin this day. I really don’t. It’s just … ignoring the inevitable only leads to regret. And I don’t want that, Connor. Not for you, not for Chris, and not for Mum and Dad. I want the goodbyes, all of them.”
The quoits slipped from his hands, and he fell to his knees before me. “I know. And I’m trying to give you that. I really am. I just …” He burst into tears. “I can’t live without you, Ellie. I don’t know how.”
“Yes, you do,” I said, sliding down to sit on his lap. “Of course you do. You’ll wake up, you’ll take a deep breath, and then you’ll kiss your children and live your life.”
His shoulders shook as pain-drenched sobs tore out of him. “How am I supposed to do anything without you? How am I supposed to be a dad to our baby girl? She needs her mum. She needsyou.”
My chest tightened with his pain, so I looked to the ceiling, took a deep breath, and blinked back my tears. I couldn’t crumble now. Not here. Not on Christmas day.
“What Christina needs is love,” I said, combing my fingers through his hair. “And she has that in abundance. If you all love her as much as I know you do, she’ll have everything she needs, and you will, too, because you have each other.”
“But we won’t have you.”
“Yes, you will. I’m a part of you both, so I’ll always be here.”
My words were all I could offer him in that moment. I just hoped they were enough. I hoped he’d remember them, feel them,usethem. I hoped that in the year to come, when my absence was ripping him open, that my words would sew him together again. Because that was the power of words, they destroyed but they also healed.
“I promise,” I said, lifting the sleeve on his t-shirt to trace his ampersand tattoo. “I promise I’ll always be here.”
Connor broke in my arms on the garage floor, and I let him. He needed the release.
He needed to release me.
Chapter Forty-Eight
Ellie
Knowing you’re dying was somewhattherapeutic, morbid as that sounds. But for me, it was true. My fate was written, my path set, so choosing to ‘get my affairs in order’ and focus what little energy and time I had left on the people and things that truly mattered, was, in a spiritual sense, sanative. Righting wrongs, appreciating the little things, dotting Is and crossing Ts, they’d all become my focus and saving grace as each day had gone by and I’d grown weaker and less able. But nearly two months on from leaving hospital, I somehow knew I was finally ready to let go, and I wanted to do that at the place where it had all started.
“Are you comfortable?” Connor turned in my direction, Christina cradled in his left arm, a fishing rod jutting from the other.
Sunlight bounced off the water’s surface, highlighting the copper in his hair and creating an almost angelic aura. My God, he was beautiful, just like the day I’d first met him. But unlike the golden hues accentuating his body and the copper flecks shining in his hair, the depth of Connor’s beauty truly came from within. The kindest most determined boy, and man, I’d ever known. He stole my breath now just as easily as he had back then.
Smiling, I inhaled with difficulty but nodded, perfectly content to watch from my picnic rug as he gave our daughter fishing lessons.
He acknowledged I was fine and continued, “Now, unlike Mummy, you’re already one step ahead,” he explained, jiggling Christina with his arm. “Because you’re so much quieter than she was.”
I chuckled and coughed, which prompted him to abandon his post and take a seat behind me, his long legs a cocoon for my fragile body. “Do you want to hold her?”
“Yes. Please.”
Connor placed Christina in my arms and then nestled into my back, resting his head on my shoulder. “She looks like Strawberry Shortcake in that pink bonnet.”
“I know. It’s perfect.” I trailed my finger across her brow and tucked some loose, ruby red hairs underneath the elastic of her hat. “Your mother has great taste in baby clothing.”
