After the End(64)

There are new friends, too. Parents of Dylan’s friends at school, Dylan’s teachers, his occupational therapist, his speech therapist, his physio. There are wheelchairs, motorized scooters, buggies. And us. Looking at all of this, and realizing how much Dylan was loved.

I wanted to stay in the States—new starts and all that—but it was never on the table.

“I couldn’t live so far away from my parents,” Pip said, when I hinted at the idea we might move back to Chicago. I could have reminded her that I’d been doing exactly that for the last ten years, that my mom saw me three times a year, if that.

I didn’t. Because of all that was unspoken between us, and had been unspoken since we got on the plane to Houston. Pip didn’t only mean Chicago was too far from her folks; she meant You got your way in court—you don’t get to decide what happens next. I didn’t care. We were still a family, that was all that counted.

“I think we’re ready to make a start, if you’re ready?” The vicar is young. Instead of a surplice, she wears jeans and a yellow shirt, her clerical collar peeking out from underneath.

“Ready,” we say together.

There is crying, of course—we were optimistic to think there wouldn’t be—but for the most part there is just a gentle sadness that the life of our beautiful, brave boy has come to an end.

“We were lucky to have six and a half years with Dylan.” I speak slowly, my eyes fixed on a column at the back of the church, for fear they might otherwise land on someone whose grief might spark my own. “In many ways, we were luckier than other parents. We knew our time with Dylan was limited. We have known that since he was two and a half, when we were first told about the cancer that would ultimately take his life. It was devastating. But when you know someone’s life is limited, you make every single day count.”

Pip didn’t want to speak. She said she wouldn’t be able to. I glance at her now, and her head is dipped, and I wonder if—despite her lack of faith—she is praying.

“We are grateful for the bonus years we were given with Dylan. Grateful for the friends we made in Houston, who were strong for us when we were struggling, despite the illnesses their own children were battling. Some of the children we met in Texas were not as lucky as Dylan, but many are in remission and leading vibrant, full lives. And that’s what we should all do—pack our lives as full as we possibly can. Travel, visit family, make friends, eat, drink, laugh. There was a lot that Dylan wasn’t able to do, but there was a heck of a lot he could.”

There’s more in my notes, but I find suddenly that my voice won’t work, and that my legs are shaking beneath me. The vicar, who must be used to such abrupt changes of pace, nods to the organist, who launches into “Amazing Grace” as I stumble back to my seat. Pip puts her arm around me, and as everyone around us stands to sing, we cling to each other like we’re drowning.

Afterward everyone takes a handful of yellow petals from the basket Pip’s mum holds. We walk down the cobbled path and through the lych-gate, and as we reach the brook and follow its winding path to where our cars are parked, we drop the petals into the water, and sunshine streams downriver.



* * *





At home the silence is still too loud. Dylan died a month ago, here, at home, in the bedroom that was once a dining room. The electric bed has been returned to the hire company—collected by two respectful men in logoed polo shirts—along with the hoist, the tilt table, and the frame that held Dylan upright, so he could look out of the window. In the corner is a pile of equipment we will need to find homes for. A commode and bedpan. Packs of continence pads. Bibs. Leg supports. Harnesses. Glide sheets. Therapy wedges to support Dylan on the floor. Thousands of pounds’ worth of specialist equipment.

The daybed by the window is still made up. When Dylan came home from hospital it was quickly apparent that we wouldn’t hear him from our bedroom upstairs. We tried using a baby monitor, but the seconds it took to wake and get downstairs were too distressing for Dylan, waking scared and uncomfortable in the middle of the night. We put the daybed in his room, and Pip began sleeping here during the week. On Fridays I’d take over, and Pip would move back upstairs.

There comes a point when sleep deprivation becomes the new normal. When the leaden sensation in your limbs and the spacey feeling in your head become the way you live, and you can’t remember a time when you bounded out of bed with more energy than you had the night before. Instead you peel yourself from the sheets, too tired even to yawn, and you drink coffee and eat peanut butter toast until you feel human again.

“There’s a charity in Birmingham that’ll take the lot,” Pip says, looking at the pile of equipment. She sits down on the daybed.

“Great.” A month since Dylan died, and Pip is still sleeping here.

“I find it comforting,” she said. And so, although our nights are no longer broken, Pip remains downstairs, and I sleep upstairs, in a bed that has for a long time been half-empty.

“I wonder,” I say, thinking out loud, “if we should sell up.” I imagine a new start, a different town, even. I wonder if Pip will be resistant—if she will want to hang on to the memories this house has made—and even now, I can see the beginnings of tears in her eyes. But there’s something like realization—or resignation—on her face, and she nods.