My Oxford Year(68)

And I’m leaving.

Someone will have to take care of Jamie when I’m gone. Whether he wants to admit it or not, as he gets progressively worse, he’s going to need more help. It’s a fact. Decisions are going to have to be made.

Jamie’s going to need his family.

Oh God. A roundabout. White-knuckled, I follow the ambulance through it.

This is how crisis works, I think. In one instant, priorities can change.

Beliefs can reverse.

Somehow, some way, his relationship with his parents has to be fixed. I can’t leave him, come June 11, like this, like some animal slinking off into the woods to die alone.

Miraculously, we’ve made it to the hospital. The ambulance driver sticks her hand out the window and points at the adjacent, nearly empty parking lot. We’re somewhere in the wilds of Kent and it appears that we’re pretty much alone in the world.

Even without having to navigate around other cars, I swing too wide into the parking spot, and end up straddling the line. Screw it. Let them ask me to move. I’ve parked right in front of a sign that cautions no overnight parking and I think, Oh God, I might have to drive at night. With Jamie in the car.

Distracted, I turn off the Aston and open my door, stepping out into the crisp winter air. The distant sound of a train whistle reminds me, for the first time, of the ferry we’re not catching. Should I call the company? I don’t have the number. I’ll look it up on my—

The ground moves beneath my feet. An optical illusion. In reality, the car is rolling forward. “Shit!” I leap back into the car and yank the brake. But not before the Aston rolls into the “No Overnight Parking” sign, tipping it backward thirty degrees with a mournful creak.

I drop my head onto the center console. I don’t even want to look at the bumper. I take a deep breath.

Knowing what I have to do, I pull out my phone.

“I AM SO bloody sorry,” Jamie mutters yet again as I arrange and fluff a pillow behind his back, doing my best to make him comfortable on the couch in the drawing room.

“If you didn’t want to go you should have just said so,” I joke. “You didn’t have to pull a stunt like this.”

He sighs heavily with the faintest sound of a laugh.

Anemia. Severe anemia. Turns out he’d been feeling faint and lethargic for the past week, he just didn’t tell anyone (i.e., me). Before we left this morning, he’d been dragging, which I’d noticed but thought was just a side effect from the chemo. Or maybe I just didn’t want to notice. He didn’t tell me he’d nearly passed out in the shower. I feel horrible, as if this were my fault. Was I being selfish, or stupid, or . . . ?

The doctors had wanted to give him a blood transfusion, which would have involved staying in the hospital and had potential repercussions that made his oncologist nervous. Plan B was a series of shots that encourage the body to create more of its own red blood cells. Which is great. Except it’ll take two weeks before they can tell if there’s any improvement. So Jamie’s relegated to the couch. Indefinitely. We’ve been home for about an hour and so far Jamie’s really pissed and I’m really disappointed and both of us feel guilty about the way we’re feeling.

That’s as far as we’ve gotten.

“There’s no point in you being here. You should go,” he says.

I stop my fussing. “Go where?”

“On holiday, you dolt!”

“Don’t call me that!” I snap, nerves beyond frayed. The teasing grin on Jamie’s pale face instantly drops, and I take a breath. “I’m sorry. About everything, okay? I should have realized you weren’t—”

“No, please. Stop right there. You feel bad, I feel bad, but we will not plague each other with guilt. It’s an absurd emotion, reserved for those who we fear might feel less than they ought.” He looks in my eyes. “You and I, we carry on. If we stop, it is to only catch our breath. Well, breath caught.”

“Jamie, I’m not leaving you.”

He groans slightly. “You have our itinerary, everything’s confirmed. Please.” I straighten and sigh. He takes my dangling hand. “I couldn’t live with myself if you didn’t get to travel because of this.”

“So much for no guilt, huh?” I tease. He rolls his eyes. “We still have the Easter vac in March. It’s not a big deal.”

“No, Ella.” He sweeps a hand over himself. “This is not a big deal. I simply overexerted, that’s all. By the time you get back in a month, I’ll be right as rain.”

He looks so much like a little boy right now—optimistic, vulnerable, and so completely untethered from reality—that tears spring to my eyes. Tears that I turn away from him to hide. “We’ll see.”

He tugs my hand, urges me look at him. “Carry on. Yeah?”

Before I can reply, there’s a knock at the door. “That’s the food, be right—Sit!” I bark incredulously when he moves to get up. Worst patient ever.

We’d ordered Indian food as soon as we got home. I can’t vouch for Jamie’s appetite, but I’m starving. All I want is a huge bowl of rice and tikka masala and approximately fourteen pieces of naan. I reach into my pocket for some money and open the door, muttering “Sorry, I don’t have anything smaller than a fifty—” I screech to a halt.