Hello Stranger

by West, Jade

  “You won’t regret it,” she said. “We’ll have so much fun.” She reached the doorway. “Can’t wait to tell Vickie we’ll be going.”

  “Enjoy your afternoon,” I replied, and she nodded before she shut the door.

  So there we had it. A night with the team in Harrow, celebrating Richard’s good news. It felt strangely appealing – the social company. I imagine it was then that I came to realise these people were a lot closer to me than I’d given credit for in all the years I’d been working with them. I knew their mannerisms and their history and their family details. I knew the way they made small talk and greeted me every morning. I knew the way they tried to include me, in almost every activity they did both on the ward, and out of it.

  I made sure I’d finished all upcoming consultations and answered my emails before I got ready to leave the hospital that evening. Chloe was still in her nurse’s uniform as we left there, and so were the others, a bunch in blue as we made our way across the car park. They were laughing, talking, congratulating Richard and singing him songs, and I couldn’t hold back the smile, grinning at Chloe as she joined in with their hip hip hoorays.

  We started in The Plough inn, sitting at a corner table recounting the ward that day. We moved to Brewery Tavern down the High Street, where the rest of the bunch started on the cocktails. I’d had a couple of glasses of red by the time Chloe was a tipsy little jitterbug, buzzing along at my side as we made our way out of there.

  The others were hitting Blackthorn’s Bar – a nightclub down Ponton Road – and we shouldn’t do it. Even Chloe was hesitant as the others started their walk. It was Vickie who grabbed her hand and started with the come onnnnn.

  I’d have let her head on alone if she hadn’t looked up at me with such pleading eyes. Her speech didn’t match her gaze, it was more of a ‘I completely get it if you don’t want to go, and we can go home to your mum, and…’ but it was her excitement, her enthusiasm, her zest about me coming along with her that stole my senses. I started following the group of nurses, still in uniform, Chloe’s hand still clasped in mine.

  “I can manage one more drink,” I said, and she grabbed me tight, arms flung around my waist as we set off down the street.

  I was still in my suit as we headed into Blackthorn’s. The others were still in blouses and sensible shoes and hair tied up neatly. It made no difference whatsoever. They were up and alive, hitting the retro disco tunes with a rush up onto the dancefloor as soon as we were done at the bar. Vickie grabbed Chloe and dragged her on up there, and Chloe flashed me a smile on the way, beckoning me to go with her. But no. My idea of fun didn’t stretch quite that far.

  The club was loud, and the tunes were pulsing with bass, and I watched my jitterbug jittering to the beat along with her friends. That’s when it hit me all over again, just how much younger than me she was. Her early twenties showed loud and clear as she jumped and twisted and sang along to the words, caught up in the moment well and truly as she found her groove with the others.

  She was alive. She was wild. She was free.

  She was a beautiful dancer, and a beautiful girl, fresh-faced with a whole world ahead of her, stretching as far as the eye could see.

  The men in the club were staring. People were edging closer to her on the dancefloor, and she was oblivious, flashing me glances and waves right through the songs. Still, they were looking, still they were edging closer. She could have had any of them, and sure, most of them would be morons, and plenty of them would be assholes, but there would be some men out there who would be everything a girl like Chloe could want for the rest of her life.

  I just wasn’t that man.

  I could never be that man.

  I was silent as I sipped my wine, caught up in the happiness of watching that stunning woman enjoying her night, mixed with the sadness at knowing we could never be forever.

  She was out of breath when she dropped herself into the seat at my side, swinging her arms around my neck as she came in for a kiss.

  “Let’s go home,” she said.

  Home.

  I only wished it could be her home for keeps as well as mine.

  We said goodbye to the others and headed out into the street, and Chloe was laughing and joking all the way to the taxi, telling me just how much she’d enjoyed the night.

  We were in the backseat of the cab by the time I pulled my phone from my jacket pocket, totally unaware of just how much the bass from the tunes had hidden the ringtone.

  There were seven missed calls from Olivia. My heart turned to stone, that zip of panic up your spine as you realise there’s trouble awaiting.

  “Faster, please,” I said to the cab driver, and hit the call back icon.

  “What is it?” Chloe asked, tensing up alongside me.

  “Olivia?” I asked as she answered, and her voice was fast. Edgy.

  Mum wasn’t good. Swollen legs and shallow breaths, insistent she didn’t want the hospital.

  My palms were sweaty when we pulled up outside my place. Chloe was a dash on her feet alongside me as we headed inside and straight up to Mum’s bedroom. Sure enough, Mum’s tiny frame was rasping, even more so than usual. Her feet were propped up on pillows at the bottom of the bed, but it didn’t make a difference. Her ankles were swollen and she was yellowing, clear as day under the lamplight.

  “I’m so sorry,” Olivia said. “I didn’t have Chloe’s number, and I hoped you’d be home soon, and Jackie insisted she didn’t want an ambulance.”

  “It’s ok,” I told her. “The apologies are mine to give. I had no idea you were trying to call me.”

  Chloe was hovering as I took a seat at Mum’s side and began to take her temperature. Olivia had left the room for fresh juice when my jitterbug stepped up to me and put a hand on my shoulder. Her eyes were tearing up.

  “I’m the one who should be sorry,” she whispered. “I should never have dragged you out so late with your mum at home like this.”

  “You didn’t drag me,” I told her. “You’re perfectly entitled to have a great evening with your friends, and I’m perfectly capable of leaving you to enjoy it.”

  “Still,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

  I called out the emergency doctor to sign off my request for an increase to the morphine driver for Mum, and he signed it off easily, barely needing to look at his fragile patient or listen to her moans of pain.

  It was a dramatic increase, and it worked.

  Her pain eased off as soon as it had settled, and, right before my eyes, my mum eased off along with it.

  Mum slumped. She wheezed. She faded. Those few remaining petals preparing to fall.

  “What can I do? How can I help?” Chloe asked, but I shook my head. There was nothing.

  She was still at my side when the other doctor left, sitting alongside me with her hand in mine.

  “It’s going to be a long night,” I told her. “Maybe you could get Romi to cover your shift in the morning if you want to stay up with me.”

  She nodded, and grabbed her phone. “Of course I will.”

  I didn’t sleep and neither did Chloe, watching my mum until sunrise started up outside the window. Chloe had kept it together and so had I. She’d ventured off into the bathroom once or twice, feigning a toilet trip when I knew full well she was crying. The redness around her eyes betrayed her more than her sad little smile.

  The sun was up when Mum finally stirred into life, woozy-headed as her eyes fluttered and fixed on mine.

  She reached for my hand with weak fingers, barely managing a squeeze.

  “Are you in pain?” I asked, but she shook her head.

  “No, darling. No pain.”

  I was relieved. Even if for one fleeting moment, I was relieved.

  Her time wasn’t over. Not just yet.

  But soon.

  Soon she would be gone.

  I looked once again back up at the list on her wall. The squiggle of handwriting still awaiting its peace.

  Put my
toes in the sea.

  “Ready for the beach, Mum?” I said.

  39

  Chloe

  Jackie was barely moving as we fastened her into the passenger seat. She was fading as we wired up her oxygen, yellowing fast.

  I was choked up in the backseat as Logan headed for the coast, trying my best to keep a smile on my face when his eyes met mine in the rearview. Most of the time, I managed it. Other times not anywhere close.

  He kept chatting to his mum along the way, even though she was barely able to answer, and even as the world crashed down around him, he managed to sound like him. Calm and steady, and every bit the Logan Hall I knew, until every now and then there was a crack in the calmness. Until every now and then, I heard the choke in his words.

  He was hurting so bad.

  It was strange to watch the other cars pass on the other side of the road outside the window, people going about their regular days. Kids pulling faces in the back, and people chatting, laughing. People on their way to work. Others off on happy days somewhere. So many people, so many lives.

  Ours was sombre and beautiful all at once.

  I knew it right down in the core of me, just how close to saying goodbye Jackie was. I could feel it. Hear it in every one of her shallow breaths. And even though it had been obvious since the day I met her that she was reaching the end of her life, it was still a shock deep down in my stomach, to sense it so close.

  I couldn’t even imagine the pain Logan was in as he took his mum on her final wish of a journey. I could feel his hurt in the air. Feel it thumping deep in my heart through every mile.

  He’d stopped talking by the time we pulled into Frensham Beach car park. He chose the bay off to the right and off the beaten track, and there wasn’t a soul in sight on a Friday midday. Not over on this part.

  Thank you, universe. Thank you for the quiet.

  The sky was cloudy, but the air was calm, and the sea stretched out away from us, blue as far as the eye could see. Jackie managed to open her eyes nice and wide as we helped her into her wheelchair, and they sparkled bright as she saw the waves.

  “Gonna put my toes in the sea,” she said, and Logan nodded.

  “Here we go, Mum. Toes in the sea.”

  He pushed her down to the sand, keeping her steady all the way. The wheels of the chair kept turning, even when the sand tried to suck them in. They kept turning, over and over, and kept letting us closer.

  Thank you again, universe. Thank you.

  We stopped a little way from the water, giving a huge sweep of a view, and Logan knelt at her side, taking her hand as they both looked out at the skyline.

  I was beyond choked up as I watched them there, resting tight together. The tears were streaming down my cheeks in silence, honoured to see that closeness between two human souls.

  I kept my distance, watching them manage to share their words, and I had no desire to intrude. Not even for a second. This time was theirs. This time would always be theirs.

  I just wanted to it capture for Logan.

  I took one single photo of them from behind, heads resting together as they spoke with the blue of the ocean as a backdrop, crying so hard I could hardly see. Jackie’s head was shrouded in a bright red fluffy hat, and Logan’s was bare, his alopecia the stunning pattern I’d come to know so well.

  I snapped the picture.

  A gorgeous memory for that gorgeous man.

  And then, once again, I stepped away.

  They were talking a few minutes before Logan looked in my direction and beckoned me over. I stepped up and this time I didn’t even try to hide my tears, just knelt down on the other side of Jackie’s chair and took her other hand in mine.

  She was awake, even though it must have been hard as hell to stay conscious, managing to summon the last of her energy for this last incredible journey. I realised with a whole fresh pang, right there and then, just how much I was in awe of that woman and her beautiful strength.

  “I’m ready to put my toes in the sea,” she whispered, and there was a tear running down her cheek that took my breath. “Let’s get another tick on the wall.”

  “Let’s go,” Logan said, and my awe doubled to see him so steady in his pain as he prepared his mum for the final few paces.

  We took off our shoes and cast them onto the sand, and I helped Jackie up from her chair along with Logan. We supported her, holding her weight through every step she took. Her eyes were on the sea, resolve insanely firm to walk her own path, even so close to her last goodbye.

  I never ever wanted that walk to end.

  I’d have spent the rest of eternity walking across that beach for her.

  The sand was cold and damp between my toes. The waves gave a beautiful crash before us, a rhythm as timeless as the universe itself.

  Thank you, universe.

  I’d always loved the seaside. I loved building sandcastles and enjoying ice creams on the rocks, and trying to spot jellyfish in the sand. But it was nothing like loving the seaside as much as I loved it with Jackie Hall’s arm in mine.

  She let out a happy little gasp as the first wave met our feet, toes curling into the sand. Her eyes were every bit as magical as I’d ever seen them, the life shining bright from her smile.

  She laughed. And that was magical too.

  “Feels even better than I remember,” she said. “Fucking hell, it feels good.”

  I closed my eyes to soak in the feeling myself, and she was right. Just like always, she was right. It sure felt fucking good.

  “Thank you,” I told her, and she turned her face to mine. “Thank you for sharing this with me.”

  The life was still shining bright when she answered me with a squeeze of her hand.

  “Thank you for being here, sweetheart. Means the world to me.”

  Logan was quiet, supporting his mum like steel, his solemn gaze every bit as deep as the water on the horizon. I only wished I could hear the song of his soul and help his pain.

  We walked Jackie a little way forward still, until the waves were around our ankles.

  “More,” she said, reminding me of me.

  We helped her on. And it was crazy good to be in the splashes, water soaking our clothes up to our knees.

  Again, I never wanted the sensation to end.

  Jackie was still staring at the horizon when her legs started to buckle. She gritted her teeth and tried to stay on her feet, but her fight was done.

  We carried her back between us, fastening her back into her chair while her head lolled limp to the side. Exhausted.

  She slept all the way home, pain muted by morphine, and I stayed quiet in the backseat, poised ready for any words Logan might want to say.

  As always, he didn’t want to say many. Churning. Churning. Deep enough to feel it in my core.

  How I wished I could help him.

  How I wished I could be the steel of his support, even for one little day.

  The road felt so much quicker on the way back, and we pulled up onto the driveway with the sun still bright outside.

  It was a crazy feeling, helping Jackie back inside and knowing full well it may be the last time she was alive and breathing outside of those walls.

  We climbed the stairs. Slowly.

  We crossed her bedroom. Just as slow.

  Logan’s breaths were shallow as he eased her into her bed and wired her oxygen up fresh. The rumble, rumble of the machine was already so familiar to me that I knew there would be a horrible void when it was gone.

  “She might make it another day or two yet,” he said, as he propped her feet up high on pillows. “Maybe three if we’re lucky. Four if it’s a miracle.”

  I nodded. “If anyone is capable of a miracle, it’s her.”

  His eyes didn’t share my hopes. “A miracle at the end of a row of fights with her body, every fucking step of her life.”

  I knew that. I knew she’d had a whole string of diagnoses and wars – more than one poor woman should ever have to battle. S
till, she herself was a miracle. In any storm she was faced with, Jackie Hall would be the rainbow shining bright at the end. Her heart was a rainbow. Her smile was her soul.

  I made Logan some dinner while he sat with his mum, and I broke down in sobs for a few solid minutes before putting the pasta on to simmer. It doesn’t matter how many times you see people preparing at the end of life’s road, nothing prepares you for the slam of watching someone you love slip away.

  I loved Jackie.

  I loved the man grieving alongside her.

  I loved our life together, all three of us here together and enjoying every minute.

  Please, universe. Please. Why do you have to take her away?

  I knew the universe wouldn’t grant my wishes this time, but still I asked. Still, I prayed.

  I was still uttering the mantra as I took Logan’s bowl of pasta upstairs.

  Please, give her a few more days. Please, universe, just a few more days.

  Please, universe.

  Please.

  40

  Chloe

  We were up all night while Jackie slept, both of us at her side, watching her breathe. Slowly. Rasping for every breath.

  I wasn’t expecting her to be with us in the morning, oxygen machine still rumbling its rhythm and filling her lungs – but she was. She was still with us.

  Her eyes opened with a flicker, and she jolted, grimacing as she shuffled on her donut cushion. I almost burst into tears when her gaze landed on mine, her usual smile on her face as she coughed out a good morning, sweetheart, before taking hold of Logan’s hand.

  “Made it through to another day, boy. Be a darling and grab your mum a coffee, would you please?”

  I didn’t need to see Logan’s face to know he was fighting back the tears of relief as much as I was.

  “Fucking hell,” Jackie said. “You two must look rougher than I do. Guess you didn’t sleep?”

  I laughed. “No. We didn’t.”

  She grinned at me. “Nice of you to keep an eye on me while I dreamt my dreams.”