After the End(27)

“At least take off your coat.”

He shrugs it off, and it slides off the back of his chair and puddles on the floor.

“I’m going to put the fire on.” Weeks ago, we took the central heating off the timer that would have switched it on at four p.m. and kept us warm till ten. What was the point, when we wouldn’t be there? When we fell through the door each night only to go straight to bed?

I walk into the sitting room and light the gas fire. I half expect Max to stay at the kitchen table, but he walks through too and sits heavily on the sofa, the laptop on his knees and the phone beside him. I sit next to him. Dylan’s toys are in the corner of the room, neatly piled into cream hampers. I tidied the house the day he was admitted to hospital. There seemed to be toys and newspapers everywhere. I let Dylan watch Paw Patrol, and I whizzed around the house, restoring order before we left for the hospital, never for a moment considering that Dylan might not be back. Now I wish I’d left everything the way it was; left his toys out like he’d only stopped playing for a moment.

“I should phone my mum.”

Max doesn’t acknowledge me. I don’t even know if he heard. I pick up the phone and dial the number of my childhood; picture Mum looking at Dad, saying, “Who could that be?” because no one would ever call past nine o’clock, then putting down whatever it is that she’s knitting, and picking up the—

“It’s me.”

I hear a sharp intake of air. “What’s happened?”

My family don’t use the phone. When we call, there’s something wrong.

I open my mouth but the words are strangling me and I make a tiny sound that makes Max look up from his screen and reach out a hand.

“It’s Dylan,” I manage, as if it could be anything else. And then it leaves my body in a great wordless wail and I double over, and wrap myself in my arms, and Max takes the phone from me because I can’t speak for sobbing.

“Karen? No, he isn’t—it’s not . . .” He falls silent, although I don’t know if it’s because she’s talking or because he needs to compose himself. “But we have had some bad news, I’m afraid.”

From within my self-made cocoon, I’m dimly aware of his voice; of the soothing ups and downs as he explains to my mum what Dr. Khalili told us this morning. He is every bit as calm as she was, every bit as dispassionate. How can he switch off his emotions like that? Doesn’t it hurt him, here, in the chest? In the heart? Doesn’t he have the same pain I have right now—a pain that squeezes every bit of air from my lungs? Isn’t it killing him, like it’s killing me?

“We’re not giving up,” I hear my husband say. “Not while there’s still a chance.”

A chance. That’s all we need. Just one tiny chance that Dylan might live.

If there’s a chance, we’ll take it.

Two hours later my head is fuzzy from lack of sleep, and from the jags of crying that erupt even when it feels like there can be no more tears left in me. I take a sip from the mug of coffee in my hand and find it cold. I lean against Max’s shoulder. We’re both looking at his laptop, at a research paper he’s found, but the words are swimming before my eyes. Overall survival was significantly poorer for recurrent disease (P = 0:001; Fig. 2A) and significantly better for patients who had not received previous irradiation (P = 0:001; Fig. 2B). Max highlights a phrase, copies it, and drops it into a Word document open on the screen. It is full of similar phrases, their meanings clear only after I have read each one a dozen times.

“Do you want another coffee?”

Max makes a noncommittal sound I take as a yes. I stand and walk into the kitchen, feeling the room sway as though I’ve been drinking. I stare at the kettle for a full minute after it’s boiled, unable to remember what I’m doing here, then I spoon coffee granules into two mugs and splash milk into mine.

“Do you think Dr. Khalili will agree?” I say, as I walk back into the sitting room, my eyes on the mugs in my hand. “The oncologist said he couldn’t have radiotherapy because of his age.” I’ve overfilled the coffee and it slops against the inside of the cup, a few drops spilling on the carpet. I press my sock into the stain.

“Proton beam therapy is different. It uses particle accelerators to go directly to the cancerous cells, without damaging the healthy tissue around them.” Max speaks confidently, without referring to the copious notes he’s made on his laptop; the way he can scan a corporate brochure over breakfast, then give a presentation about oil refinery before lunch. I present Max with his coffee and he looks at it for a second, like he’s not sure what I’m handing him, before taking it and setting it down beside him. “The five-year survival rate for patients under the age of eighteen is seventy-nine percent.” He stresses the figure, then frowns at his screen. His fingers fly across the keyboard.

“He isn’t yet three,” I say quietly. “What are the survival rates for patients under three?” Max doesn’t answer. His notes are filled with percentages found on an internet that gives us whatever answer we’re looking for. The numbers are convincing. Dylan could live another two years, another three. We could have another Christmas together, more birthdays, holidays. Unbidden, the images form in my head—running along the beach, jumping through waves, blowing out candles—and then reality bites.