Always, in December(102)

“A Max Carter?” The way her voice turned gentle around his name made Josie want to hiss.

“Yes,” she said instead, almost snapping it out. “Has there been some kind of accident?” Had he made a faux pas, taken too many painkillers or something? She knew that was wrong, knew it was more than that from the way the doctor was looking at her with a practiced face. But her body wouldn’t believe her. It remained chilled and numb.

The doctor glanced around the room. You wouldn’t know it was Christmas Eve in here, Josie thought numbly. Nothing to mark the festive period, like celebrating a festive holiday was somehow wrong when surrounded by so much death.

The doctor indicated one of the seats in the waiting room, and ushered Josie and Helen toward it. But Josie stayed standing. “What happened?” she whispered. She needed to know. Needed to know now, needed this doctor to tell her.

“Can I just ask what your relationship is to Max?”

“I’m his…” Josie hesitated, trying to figure out the right word. There wasn’t one, she realized. But the doctor didn’t need to know the details right now. “I’m his friend.”

The doctor nodded, and took a breath. “I’m so sorry to tell you this, but he’s passed away.”

    Josie stared at her. That couldn’t be right. There’d been some kind of mistake, obviously. Max was fine, he’d been here five minutes ago. He’d made gingerbread with her yesterday, he’d come with her to the hospital. You didn’t just keel over and die after that. Something cold seized her heart as she thought for a moment that they’d meant to tell her that something was wrong with Memo, because they shared the first letter of their names, before realizing that she was the only one who called her grandmother Memo.

“No,” she said firmly. Her voice was sure, confident. She even looked around the room again—ready for Max to come up to them now, to make some joke that only he would understand about the mistaken identity.

“What happened?” Helen whispered to the doctor, and Josie jolted, turning her attention to Helen. Nothing happened, she wanted to tell Helen, because there was no way they were talking about Max.

“He had a brain aneurysm. There was nothing we could do. He collapsed here, in the waiting room, but by the time we got him to—”

“No,” Josie repeated. But her voice sounded lumpy and wrong now.

The doctor looked directly at Josie now. “He would probably have gotten a bad headache at some point in the last few hours, but he would likely have thought nothing of it, because of the tumor.”

Headache. That one thing, that one word, made everything feel distant. Her ears were ringing and the words the doctor was saying faded to nothing. This wasn’t real. It wasn’t real, it was some horrible nightmare—maybe she was still back at the cottage, maybe she’d never woken and was still asleep in Max’s arms right now.

    Helen’s grip was viselike on Josie’s arm. Josie didn’t notice that the doctor had walked away to give them space until she saw her on the other side of the room. She blinked, trying to bring the world back into focus as Helen steered her to a chair, made her sit down.

“Brain tumor?” Josie repeated thickly. It didn’t make sense; it wouldn’t fit together in Josie’s mind, like pieces of a puzzle that you couldn’t jam together no matter how hard you tried.

Helen was crying. Helen was crying. Josie watched the tears fall onto the top of her lip, watched her wipe them away with her sleeve. Those tears didn’t look real, either. “He had cancer, Josie,” Helen said, her voice choked.

“No, he didn’t.” Because Josie would have known, wouldn’t she? That wasn’t the type of thing you just didn’t tell someone.

“It was terminal. A brain tumor. He was expecting to…”

“No.” But the pressure behind her eyes, in her throat, was building. “He would have told me.”

“I think he was going to,” she said softly.

“How do you know this?” Josie demanded.

“He told me,” Helen said, her voice hitching.

Josie shook her head. That didn’t make sense. Why would he tell Helen, and not her? “But they said aneurysm.” It was all she could do—focus on the straight facts, on what had been explicitly said. Because it didn’t make sense. Where was he now? Where was he? If he was really dead, then why were they telling her out here? Why not take her to him, let her see for herself?

“I know. And he couldn’t have known about that, from what the doctor said—they come about very suddenly. So I don’t think he was expecting it to happen…now.” Josie was shaking her head, over and over, the room swirling out of focus again. “Look,” said Helen, clearly making an effort to sound more like her usual self, for whatever good that would do, “stay here, I’ll go and find out the details.” Josie looked at her. She didn’t want details. The details didn’t matter, not if it was true.

    But instead, she just said, “OK.” Her voice sounded numb, cold and empty. It didn’t sound like hers, just as her body, in that moment, didn’t feel as if it belonged to her.

“And we need to call…” Helen looked at Josie, shook her head, blinked back tears. “I’ll sort it. I’ll come back. This isn’t…” But she didn’t finish. She just squeezed Josie’s shoulder so hard that it hurt, though Josie was grateful for that, because then all she had to do was focus on that one part of her, on the dull pain there, instead of on how she felt like she was being ripped apart, like parts of her body were attacking one another.