One Day With You, page 26
They were quite a sight. Two older couples, two younger women, one man and a baby, and only two of them linked by genetics. It was an unusual family, but it was the one that they’d picked for themselves. And not one of them would have it any other way.
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Prologue
Colm O’Flynn – August 2016
This isn’t going to work. My hands are shaking so much I can’t hold the phone still. Change of plan. I rest the phone against the pile of books on my bedside table. The thrillers and crime novels belong to my wife, Shauna, but she brought them in here for me because she hasn’t had time to read for months. My fault. My bloody incredible wife of fifteen years has been working so hard to make up for the income I’ve lost that she crashes into a deep sleep within seconds of crawling under the duvet. Another UCoADH. Unintentional Consequence of A Dying Husband. Especially one who’s self-employed in a fairly new company.
My business partner and best mate, Dan, is paying me as much as possible every month, but there’s no way one guy can bring in as much as both of us together, no matter how hard he tries. Reduced earnings. An UCoADBP. See what I did there? The last couple of letters are interchangeable, depending on whether the effect is on my role as a husband, a business partner, a dad to our six-year-old girl, Beth…
Sorry. Had to stop there. Bloody big lump in my throat. An Unintentional Consequence of A Dying Me. Forty years old and I’ve barely shed a tear in my gifted life, and now one wayward thought can have me choking back a tsunami of liquid pain.
Not that I’ll tell you that, my darling Shauna.
We did the whole ‘falling apart’ thing a while after we got the prognosis that the end was inevitable. I’m not saying imminent. Hopefully, it’ll be a while yet. We allowed ourselves a weekend of grief, while Beth was having a sleepover with Dan and Lulu, then we dried our eyes on the Sunday night, five minutes before Beth arrived back home, and there’s been nothing but relentless cheeriness ever since.
Our immediate friends, Dan and Lulu, and Rosie know, but we’ve both agreed not to tell Beth. She’s too young and I don’t want her to worry a day in her life. Besides, I don’t do bad news. I much prefer denial and avoidance. Two of my very favourite things. Shauna is usually more one for straight talking and realism, but she’s come over to my side lately. That’s what a chat with a doctor delivering a death sentence can do for you. Twelve to eighteen months. That’s the average survival rate for this particular bastard of a brain tumour. Not that I’m accepting that. Nope. That’s not happening to me.
Although, I guess I’m dropping the denial on a temporary basis, just long enough to make this video for Shauna to watch after I’m… well, you know.
I could save myself trying to balance this bollocksing phone if I just told it all to her face, now, while I’m still here, but I know she won’t listen. She’ll brush it off, say she doesn’t want to talk about it. I know ma darling wife. I knew her inside and out the minute I set eyes on her beautiful face, fifteen years ago in a bar on the riverbank in Richmond upon Thames.
And that’s why I’m lying here, in a hospital a few miles from our home in Richmond, trying to get my head straight enough to tell her everything I need her to hear, while she’s out putting in another fourteen-hour day at work. I’m being unusually, yet impressively, practical, if I do say so myself.
Brainwave. I lift a Michael Connelly novel the size of a Hovis loaf from the top of the pile and put it in front of the phone to stop it sliding down. Bingo. The brain might be under siege from this bastard tumour, but it still conjures up the occasional moment of inspiration. That’s how the idea to do this thing with the phone came about.
Years ago, long before the first headache led to so much more, Shauna persuaded me (I think there was emotional blackmail or bribery involved) to watch one of those romcom movies she likes. I’m not a fan. They always end up marrying the bloke who was their best friend and secretly in love with them all along. Anyway, despite the fact that there was football on the other channel, I gave in. We ended up watching that movie… agh, what’s it called? The one where Gerard Butler has an Irish accent and a brain tumour and he sends letters to his missus, Hilary Swank. PS I Love You. That’s it. Really bad choice, in hindsight. There’s a dose of sick irony, if I ever saw one. Life imitating art here. Anyway, when the movie finished, she binned the half a box of tissues she’d gone through in the sad bits, then we went to bed, made love, and afterwards… please don’t judge me, I swear I was joking… I looked into her gorgeous green eyes, brushed back a lock of her blonde hair and whispered, ‘If that was me in that movie, I’d have finished those letters differently.’
She grinned that gorgeous, sexy, irresistible smile. ‘Oh yeah? And what would you say, Colm O’Flynn?’
I put on my best serious face. ‘Something more profound. More spiritual. Something that only you and I would know.’
She waited as I paused, then went on…
‘I was thinking, PS I love that you’re a smashing shag.’
She skelped me with a pillow, but she laughed until I hushed her with a kiss that lasted until we were ready to love each other again.
God, I adore her. I haven’t always shown it. I’ve been a pretty shit husband at times, I admit, but I’ve always loved her. I still find it fucking miraculous that she loves me too.
And that’s why I owe her this.
I plump up the pillow and wedge it under my head, feeling that familiar tug as the scar across the back of my scalp stretches. I stare at the ceiling for a few minutes, looking for inspiration. None there. Surgery, followed by months of chemo and radiation therapy, has officially wiped out any imagination I ever had, but it hasn’t wiped out my burning need to get this done.
Okay. Let’s do it. I still haven’t worked out what to say – I’ve just got a list of headlines and I was planning to make the rest of it up as I go along. Not exactly a shocker. That’s pretty much how I’ve lived my life. Dan and I own a management consultancy and when you think about it, I’ve got a cheek advising people on how to organise and manage their business, considering I haven’t organised or managed anything in my own life for… let’s go for honesty and say forever.
I roll on my side, reach over and press ‘record’ on the iPhone.
‘Hey, ma darlin’,’ I say, as always. It’s how I start every day, every call, every conversation. I feel a catch in my throat, and I swallow it back. Not doing the sad thing. No way. There will be enough of that later. This needs to be happy, to be positive, to make her smile.
I force a grin and some levity into my voice and go on…
‘So, I was thinking that we should probably have a chat about some stuff. I know what yer thinking… Wow, my husband is sexy and look at him lying there in bed like some kind of drop-dead gorgeous hunk in an aftershave advert… but try to focus on what I’m saying.’
When she watches that bit, she’ll shake her head, she’ll roll her eyes and whisper that I’m a fool, but we both know she’ll laugh too. What’s the chances that someone as beautiful and funny and fecking brilliant as Shauna would find my lame line in chat amusing too? It’s up there with all that loaves, fishes and walking on water stuff.
‘The thing is, ma darlin’, we both know what’s coming. You’ve been refusing to discuss it and, well, we both know that denial is one of my superpowers. No one wins a coconut for guessing that I don’t want to give a single day of what’s left to talking about what will happen down the road. But we have to, love. I’m planning to tell you what’s on here at the last possible minute, so I know I won’t be around when you watch it. You might wanna go get a coffee and get comfortable because this will take a while and I can’t promise I won’t ramble on or insert inappropriate jokes to break the tension. I can’t have you keeling over with dehydration when I finally find the courage to get to bits that matter.
‘Just in case, let me start with the good stuff. Shauna O’Flynn, I’ve adored you every day of my life. Even when I’ve been a daft prick or an insensitive arse. You’re everything. You always were. And if I had the choice of living these fifteen years with you, or fifty years with someone else, I’d choose you in every lifetime. But this isn’t forever, Shauna. We both know that, so I’ve got some stuff to tell you. About the past. About now. But mostly, about after I’m gone. You know I don’t believe in all that “watching over you” stuff – and yep, I’ll feel like a complete eejit if it turns out I get a ringside seat to the future – that’s why I need you to know my hopes for the lives you and Beth will have without me. I need to know that you’ll take care of the people I love. And I need to ask your forgiveness for…’
The words get stuck somewhere between my heart and my mouth. I can’t open with that. If I do, she might never watch another minute, and this will all be wasted. I swerve and change tack.
‘Actually, I’ll come to that one later, m’darlin’. I’ve got a whole load of other stuff to get through first. Let me start with a few messages that I need you to pass on for me. Okay, here goes…’
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Shari Low is the #1 bestselling author of over 20 novels, including My One Month Marriage and One Day In Summer, and a collection of parenthood memories called Because Mummy Said So. She lives near Glasgow.
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First published in Great Britain in 2023 by Boldwood Books Ltd.
Copyright © Shari Low, 2023
Cover Design by Alice Moore Design
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Shari Low, One Day With You
