‘Do you really mean that?’ I ask quietly. ‘You don’t think this matters?’
He looks up, his expression set, almost angry. ‘She’s going to die, Milly. She’s going to decline and die – it’s just a matter of how and when.’
My hands curl into fists on the table. ‘And meanwhile her quality of life doesn’t matter? You don’t care about that?’
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‘What quality of life?’ he bursts out. ‘Do you think it seriously matters that she learns her letter sounds when she’ll be blind within a year? Or that she has her food cut up for her when, according to Mr Williams, she’ll be on a liquid-only diet by the time she’s seven? Do you really think any of this matters?’
‘It matters to Alice.’ My voice is shaking. ‘I thought we agreed we wanted to keep things normal for her as long as possible.’
‘Nothing about this is normal.’ He pushes away from the table so hard it moves across the floor, and I have to stop it from hitting me.
‘Matt—’
‘I can’t do this.’ The words come out low, flat, despairing. ‘I can’t do this, Milly.’ His back is to me, one hand raked through his hair.
‘What do you mean, you can’t do this?’ I’m afraid to dissect what he’s telling me. ‘We have to do this, Matt.’
‘It’s too hard.’ His voice breaks. ‘Seeing her this way… losing something almost every day… it’s too hard.’
I stare at him, caught between the wild grief I know he feels and anger that he’s making this about him.
‘And how do you think Alice feels? She’s the one who has to endure it all. For her sake we have to be strong. Please, Matt.’ I don’t think I can do this without him, and yet I realise I already am. Over the last few weeks he’s withdrawn, not just from me, but from Alice. ‘Matt, please. I need you. Alice needs you.’
He shakes his head again. ‘I’m sorry…’
I can’t stand to hear that stupid sentiment yet again. ‘Don’t be sorry,’ I snap. ‘Be strong. Do you think this is easy for anyone? I feel as if I’m bleeding out, every single day, and I have to hide it, act like I’m coping when I’m not. But I do it, Matt, because if I don’t, what will happen to Alice? Don’t you want whatever time she has left as a normal little girl to be happy for her? Don’t you want these memories to count?’
‘Count for what? The ending is still the same.’
‘But the way we get there can be different.’ I think of Anna’s mother, who torpedoed her whole life, and Anna’s childhood, in her grief. I won’t be like that. ‘These moments matter, Matt. They have to.’
But he just shakes his head, and then he scoops his keys off the counter. ‘I’m going out.’
‘Going out? Where—’
‘Just out. I need some space, Milly. I’ll be back later.’ He leaves without looking back at me.
I stand there, staring around the empty room in disbelief. After a few minutes I start tidying up, because I don’t know what else to do. I’ve read the statistics; I know parents who lose a child are more likely to divorce. But I don’t want that to happen to Matt and me. I don’t want to add another grief onto an already unbearable one.
But what if I don’t have a choice? And, even worse, I think as I mindlessly put cups into the dishwasher, what if Matt is right and none of this really matters?
Thirty-Two
Anna
‘Hey, Anna.’
I stare at Jack in shock, amazed to see him at my front door, even though I’ve just buzzed him in, after he’d texted me this evening asking if he could come over.
It’s been a month since Milly and I had a drink together, and I hoped that our friendship might restart. It hasn’t, and Milly hasn’t been in touch even once; the carefully worded text messages have gone without reply.
I know I can’t blame her. Who has emotional energy for fraught friendships when their child is dying? And yet I think of them, and of Alice, almost constantly. I wish I had stayed part of their lives, so I could be the support to them now that I know they must need. Instead, I’ve been shunted off to the very periphery of their lives, which I know is my own fault. If I hadn’t made that desperate, pointless bid for custody… if Jack hadn’t said…
I give him a not-entirely friendly look. ‘What are you doing here, Jack?’
He looks a bit taken aback by my animosity, but I haven’t seen him in five years, and the last time I saw him I asked him to go away. What did he expect?