After the End(35)

That’s how I felt when Max told Dr. Khalili we wanted Dylan to have more treatment.

This isn’t right.

While Max talked, I thought about Bridget, and her mother. I thought about what makes a life a life. I thought how much I loved Dylan, and how I would take on his suffering in a heartbeat if I could.

And I realised that I could. I could do that one thing for him.

If Dylan dies, it will hurt me for an eternity. But for him, it will be over. No more pain, no drugs, no more poison seeping through his frail body. None of the indignities of being dependent on others for every need, every movement.

I knew Max would leave PICU. I can count on two hands the number of arguments we’ve had, but they’ve all ended up with Max walking out, coming back when he’s cooled off and had a chance to think things through.

“It’s infuriating,” I said once. “You’re so bloody determined to have the last word.”

Max was taken aback. “That’s not it at all—it’s because I’m scared I’ll say something I’ll regret—something you don’t deserve.”

So I’m not surprised to see the car keys by Dylan’s cot, and in the midst of the awfulness of today, it makes me feel a little better to know that Max cares enough not to leave me stranded. In the quiet room he looked at me like he hated me. He needs space, that’s all.

Automatically, I put on Bringing Up B for the drive home, but I can’t listen to Eileen’s voice without seeing her face as she talked about an alternative life—one in which she hadn’t gone through with the pregnancy—so I switch off the radio.

When I reach the house, the driveway is empty. Max has taken my car. Misgiving roots itself in the pit of my stomach, growing so fast and so firmly that by the time I get inside I don’t call his name, or look in the kitchen, I run up the stairs and into our bedroom and see the empty space on his bedside table where his book lives, his reading glasses, the silver alarm clock he never takes on business trips. Hangers rattle on his side of the wardrobe.

I call his mobile. It’s switched off. I text him, my fingers hesitant over the keys as I work out what to say. What I want to say is Have you left me? but the question is redundant. I settle for Please call me.

He doesn’t call. He sends a text, an hour later, when I’m standing in the kitchen watching the microwave warm a bowl of soup I know I should eat.


I’ve checked into a hotel.



Are you coming back? I ask. I watch the little dots that tell me he’s typing a message, and realise that whatever he’s about to say is longer than “yes.” I look at the artwork stuck to the fridge. Painted fingerprint petals in a field of sunflowers; autumn leaves on a paper plate shaped like a pumpkin; a cotton-wool snowman with a tissue-paper scarf. All carried reverently from daycare by a boy bursting with pride. Look, Mummy! Dylan paint! Dylan draw! Pain screws into my chest as my phone pings with Max’s reply.


Only if you’ve changed your mind.



How did this happen? A year ago we were a happy family. This time last week Max and I were united, celebrating the fact that Dylan was breathing independently again, feeling hopeful for the future. And now . . . Am I really having to choose between my husband and my son?

There are five pieces of artwork on the fridge. Just five. Another handful sent to Max’s mum, the same again to my parents. A box file of them in Max’s office, a stray painting left in the boot of my car. Forty? Fifty? And the rest, pushed carelessly into the recycling box at the end of the week.

“It’s not exactly Van Gogh, after all,” I said to Max, assuaging my guilt with a grin and a glass of Pinot Noir. I held up that day’s masterpiece—a spattering of colours blown by a straw.

“You’re right.” Max gave the painting an appraising eye. “It’s more Jackson Pollock.”

I dropped it into the bin, pushed a newspaper on top so Dylan wouldn’t see. “We can’t keep everything.”

I swallow a moan. Something builds inside me, slow and insistent and then faster and harder. Guilt and anger and shame and grief. Why didn’t I keep everything? All Dylan’s paintings. Every feather he picked up on every walk, every shell, every stone he ran a finger over and examined with eyes wide, looking at something I had long forgotten how to see. Why didn’t I keep them?

I type another message to Max. I just want what’s best for Dylan. The response is instant.


So do I.





* * *





I sleep fitfully, plagued by dreams of Dylan in a boat, a storm taking him further and further out to sea. I wake crying, reaching for the empty space on Max’s side of the bed. At the hospital I scan the car park for my blue Zafira, and I’m not sure whether I’m relieved or disappointed not to see it. I spend longer than usual washing my hands, unsure whether Max might be here after all, wondering if the nurses have been talking about us.

“Morning!” Cheryl is as cheerful as ever. It’s all I can do to stop myself from asking if she’s seen Max. “I’ve popped a nasal cannula on—his sats have been all over the place overnight, so it’s only to give him a bit of help.”

A narrow tube of clear plastic loops around Dylan’s head, two tiny openings delivering a light flow of oxygen through both nostrils.