Normally, I’d believe it was thanks to his long day at work.
But…I’d read up on his condition, and I knew the symptoms in and out.
Night sweats and fatigue.
Those were the ones I and only I knew that Ren had.
In everyday life, he was the poster boy of good health.
But when it was just us in bed, a scary little beast would sit on my pillow and whisper falsities about what Ren projected.
I didn’t trust that he wasn’t hiding how he truly felt.
I didn’t believe he was as pain free as he made us think.
Instead of suffering silently, I should have spoken up—and I did, of course I did; it wasn’t a matter to brush aside. I told Rick Mackenzie at Ren’s last check-up, even as Ren glared at me as if I’d betrayed his confidence.
But the oncologist had just smiled and nodded and, in a bedside manner that I didn’t appreciate—either stress or pregnancy snappiness—said unfortunately, it was to be expected.
Ren was stable, but he was still sick.
His body was fighting the good fight, so of course, he would sleep soundly.
His system was hoarding rest like a starving man hoarded food.
And I got that…but it didn’t make it any easier.
The past eight and a bit months had made me believe in a fairy-tale.
The knowledge of what existed in our future was muted somehow beneath summer sun and lazy Sundays around the pond.
I’d stupidly allowed time to fuzz the urgency inside me, and I cursed myself to the depths of hell when, a few days later, my worries were vindicated in the worst possible way.
I stood in our kitchen in our new house.
It wasn’t entirely finished—the walls were yet to be painted, curtains put up, and fireplace installed, but we’d moved in a week ago to a night of seduction in a bare bedroom with just a king mattress that we’d bought.
We kissed in every room to christen the place. And eventually, we would have sex in every room, but for now, I was too heavily pregnant for Ren to touch in any other manner than with tenderness.
I’d burst into tears as Ren carried me over the threshold the first time and paraded me around the first home we’d ever owned.
Our home.
No one else’s.
Ours.
It wasn’t overly large but had a cosy reading nook, cute living room, and country kitchen. Our bedroom was a simple square with large glass doors that led to a wraparound deck that welcomed the outside in.
The whole design was like a large tent with the main dwellings in the middle and sleeping quarters on either side.
We were twenty-three and thirty-three, both so young, so happy, so blessed.
And as I looked up from where I stood in the kitchen, the view of rolling meadows and untouched perfection better than any dream—I melted at how incredible it all was.
I rubbed my bulging belly, poking at the tiny foot making itself known in my side.
I sighed contentedly as I kept one eye on the view and one on cutting the crusts off Ren’s turkey and mayo sandwiches.
Height of summer and he was working late.
The field had been cut three days ago and allowed to air dry in the heat. He’d turned it this morning and raked it into long rows, and now, as the sun hung low in the sky teasing with dusk, he was about to bale.
No rest for the farmer in summer.
Packing the sandwich into a bag with an apple, bottle of water, and a couple of Hershey’s Kisses, I left the sun-drenched house we’d built and waddled my way down the garden with its flagstone pavers, through the yet-to-be-painted gate, and to the meadow beyond.
The sound of the tractor churned and coughed, the motor of the baler whirring in rhythm and clunking with age as loose grass went in one end and spat out the other as a rectangle bound by string.
Halfway across the large field, the crunch of metal and the abrupt sound of an engine ceasing wrenched my head up.
Oh, dear.
The first cut of the season was always the thickest, and the old equipment sometimes didn’t cope.
Peering into the setting sun, I caught sight of Ren as he leapt from the tractor and went to investigate the attached baler.
He staggered a little from jumping from a height.
He stumbled forward as if gathering his momentum.
I thought nothing of it.
I’d seen him trip from the tractor a thousand times.
He might not be the most agile, but he was springy.
My eyes stayed on him, expecting him to solve the puzzle of his legs and stay upright.
Only…this time, he didn’t find his feet.
His arms didn’t spread out for balance. His body didn’t twist for purchase. His spine rolled, his head flopped, and he tumbled forward, vanishing into the rowed grass.
For a second, I couldn’t compute what had happened.
My retinas still burned with a picture of him standing.