Hello Stranger

“I’m the one who should be sorry,” she whispered. “I should never have dragged you out so late with your mum at home like this.”

“You didn’t drag me,” I told her. “You’re perfectly entitled to have a great evening with your friends, and I’m perfectly capable of leaving you to enjoy it.”

“Still,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

I called out the emergency doctor to sign off my request for an increase to the morphine driver for Mum, and he signed it off easily, barely needing to look at his fragile patient or listen to her moans of pain.

It was a dramatic increase, and it worked.

Her pain eased off as soon as it had settled, and, right before my eyes, my mum eased off along with it.

Mum slumped. She wheezed. She faded. Those few remaining petals preparing to fall.

“What can I do? How can I help?” Chloe asked, but I shook my head. There was nothing.

She was still at my side when the other doctor left, sitting alongside me with her hand in mine.

“It’s going to be a long night,” I told her. “Maybe you could get Romi to cover your shift in the morning if you want to stay up with me.”

She nodded, and grabbed her phone. “Of course I will.”

I didn’t sleep and neither did Chloe, watching my mum until sunrise started up outside the window. Chloe had kept it together and so had I. She’d ventured off into the bathroom once or twice, feigning a toilet trip when I knew full well she was crying. The redness around her eyes betrayed her more than her sad little smile.

The sun was up when Mum finally stirred into life, woozy-headed as her eyes fluttered and fixed on mine.

She reached for my hand with weak fingers, barely managing a squeeze.

“Are you in pain?” I asked, but she shook her head.

“No, darling. No pain.”

I was relieved. Even if for one fleeting moment, I was relieved.

Her time wasn’t over. Not just yet.

But soon.

Soon she would be gone.

I looked once again back up at the list on her wall. The squiggle of handwriting still awaiting its peace.

Put my toes in the sea.

“Ready for the beach, Mum?” I said.39ChloeJackie was barely moving as we fastened her into the passenger seat. She was fading as we wired up her oxygen, yellowing fast.

I was choked up in the backseat as Logan headed for the coast, trying my best to keep a smile on my face when his eyes met mine in the rearview. Most of the time, I managed it. Other times not anywhere close.

He kept chatting to his mum along the way, even though she was barely able to answer, and even as the world crashed down around him, he managed to sound like him. Calm and steady, and every bit the Logan Hall I knew, until every now and then there was a crack in the calmness. Until every now and then, I heard the choke in his words.

He was hurting so bad.

It was strange to watch the other cars pass on the other side of the road outside the window, people going about their regular days. Kids pulling faces in the back, and people chatting, laughing. People on their way to work. Others off on happy days somewhere. So many people, so many lives.

Ours was sombre and beautiful all at once.

I knew it right down in the core of me, just how close to saying goodbye Jackie was. I could feel it. Hear it in every one of her shallow breaths. And even though it had been obvious since the day I met her that she was reaching the end of her life, it was still a shock deep down in my stomach, to sense it so close.

I couldn’t even imagine the pain Logan was in as he took his mum on her final wish of a journey. I could feel his hurt in the air. Feel it thumping deep in my heart through every mile.

He’d stopped talking by the time we pulled into Frensham Beach car park. He chose the bay off to the right and off the beaten track, and there wasn’t a soul in sight on a Friday midday. Not over on this part.

Thank you, universe. Thank you for the quiet.

The sky was cloudy, but the air was calm, and the sea stretched out away from us, blue as far as the eye could see. Jackie managed to open her eyes nice and wide as we helped her into her wheelchair, and they sparkled bright as she saw the waves.

“Gonna put my toes in the sea,” she said, and Logan nodded.

“Here we go, Mum. Toes in the sea.”

He pushed her down to the sand, keeping her steady all the way. The wheels of the chair kept turning, even when the sand tried to suck them in. They kept turning, over and over, and kept letting us closer.