Watching my dad unpack decade-and-a-half-old grief with his unconscious wife, not knowing shit about her, not knowing shit about us, all of it written on his face like regret, plain for all to see.
I don’t want to be like that. I don’t want to be nearly fifty and look back over my life and feel like my dad looks now.
Everything that’s happened, these last few days — I’m reconsidering a lot.
I’ve made a lot of mistakes. I’ve fucked up, I’ve hurt people. I’ve killed people, I can have a temper, I can be petty.
And through it all, I know what I want now.
Mum used to say to me — when you pick who you want to be with, you have to imagine every part of life, every scenario. Good, bad, happy, sad, painful, beautiful — not just the person you want to do road trips with, but the person you want to be stuck in gridlock traffic with. Not just the person you want to have babies with, but the person you want to grieve with, the person you want next to you on the worst day of your life, at the funeral of someone you love, who’s next to you? Who do you go home to? You don’t need a fair-weather lover, you need the person that’s going to stand next to you in their wellies, staring down the barrel of the storm.
It’s Daisy.
I know it’s Daisy.
If what’s happened to Mum has taught me anything, it’s that everything’s fleeting and nothing’s for sure. We have the moments we have in front of us, and then they’re gone.
My dad had my mum in front of him for fifteen years, fifteen years she needed him, fifteen years he ignored her to sit in his sadness by himself, and for what? To fall back in love with her three weeks before she falls into a coma?
I stand in the doorway of the hospital room watching Daisy.
She’s sitting next to my mum, reading to her.
“Hey.”
“Hi.” She looks up at me from her book. Dog ears the page and rests it on her lap.
I nod my chin over at her. “What are you reading?”
She flashes me the book. Bradley’s Neurology in Clinical Practice.
I sniff a laugh. “Just some light reading…”
Daisy shrugs. “We’re at the part about Sexual Dysfunction in Degenerative and Spinal Cord Disorders, so it’s getting spicy…”
I lick my bottom lip and nod once.
I grab a chair, pull it over next to her. “I’ve been doing some thinking…”
She nods, frowning a little. “Yeah?”
“Um—” I breathe out my nose, shake my head. “You asked me something a year go — about running away with you, do you remember?”
Daisy stares at me a bit nervous but nods again.
“I’ve regretted it ever since,” I tell her. “Literally ever since.”
Her face falters.
I give her a small smile. “I’m in.”
“What?” She blinks, face confused.
“I’m in, Dais.” I shrug. “I want out of this, and I want you, so I’m in — when Mum wakes up and she’s good, wherever you want to go, I’m there. Let’s do it.”
“Really?”
I nod. “Really.”
She stares at me for a couple of seconds, like she’s thinking it all over, processing everything she’s heard, and then she grins, tossing her arms around my neck and kissing me.
I smile down at her, happy she’s so happy and then her face pulls in thought.
“How will I leave Julian?”
“We’ll visit—” I shrug. “It’s not the same as before, we’ll be leaving on good terms, living somewhere fun and exciting and—”
“I like Canada.”
I give her a look. “I don’t think that’s fun or exciting…”
She frowns. “You said wherever I want.”
“I mean—” I give her a look. “Within reason.”
“Nova Scotia’s not within reason?”
I shake my head.
“Oh.” She frowns. “Vienna’s quite beautiful.”
“It is.” I nod.
“I like Hawaii too.”
“Me too,” I tell her.
She beams up at me again but picks her nail, absentmindedly.
“What?” I frown.
“I’ll be nervous to tell Julian.”
I pull her onto my lap.
“Yeah, that’s fair.” Kiss the top of her head. “We’ll tell him together when the time comes.”
She nods, taking my hand in hers.
“I don’t care where we go, Dais—” Push some hair behind her ear. “It doesn’t matter to me. Us together, that’s the part that matters from now on.”
