“I can fix this,” I said quietly, looking between them. I wanted her to know. I wanted this woman, this woman who has loved me in ways I could never fully comprehend, to understand that I would try to make it right.I can fix this.
“There’s nothing to fix, sweet girl.” She smiled up at me, but I could still see the pain behind her eyes.
“No, I can, I promise, I?—”
“Shh,” she hushed. “I’m ready. This time comes for all of us eventually. I am not afraid. I have the two people I love most in the world with me.”
“Please.”
But she just shook her head. Or at least, that’s what I saw in that tiny inconsequential movement. But it hurt. It hurt like nothing else. Her acceptance was like a knife to the stomach, one that cut deep and left me bleeding, but my grandmother filled the wound with the happiest parts of herself. In her peace and calm was a thread that slowly began to stitch the gaping hole in my heart. In my fear and my desperate need to make things better, I found clarity.
I knew there was nothing I could say or do to fix this situation. There was no way for me to rewind time without removing Maura’s autonomy. I loved her. I loved her with every fibre of my being, and although the instability of her passing shook me to my very core, my grandmother deserved the dignity of deciding how her story would end. She deserved every ounce of grace I could give her.
I stumbled out of the room and into the hallway a moment later. The cool air pricked my skin and did little to pull me from the numbness settling over me. I lifted my eyes to meet Thallor’s, searching desperately for the words within me. But those words weren't necessary with him. His strong arms pulled me into a hug, that familiar burning scent of home bracing me against the reality of my own thoughts. I just stood there frozen and unable to form coherent sentences. Honestly, I wasn't sure what I was trying to say. I melted into his embrace, feeling overwhelmed by my own grief and the guilt I felt for so desperately wanting to stay in his arms instead of returning to thatroom.
“Fix it,” I whispered into his chest.
Thallor’s arms loosened around me as he shifted to meet my eye. I could see my own sadness reflected back at me. I knew he could feel my pain, even if I didn’t really understand how. A long, heavy silence stretched between us as he gave me the space to formulate my thoughts.
“Please,” I begged, my voice trembling as I lifted my gaze to his once more, “just fix it. I need you to help her… I need you to make her pain go away.”
He looked at me, remaining silent for a moment longer. It was as if his heart was breaking too. For Maura, for me. “She’s suffering. And Iwishshe wasn’t. Make her comfortable before?—”
The end.I didn't bother speaking the words. Because I knew how bitter they would be in my mouth–no amount of soap or water could ever wash away the rancid taste they left. I wondered, for a second, if he was hesitating. But with a kiss to my forehead, on a steadying squeeze of my hand–an action that bared more weight than he would ever know–he followed me back into the room as my grandfather looked up at us.
I didn't really have the emotional energy to explain who Thallor was, or why he was there. Either way, my grandfather seemed to understand. I don't know if it was the way that he was always one step behind me or the way I couldn't seem to let go of his hand. Either way, my grandfather knew, and I was grateful for that.
My grandfather left the room a moment later, keen to speak to a doctor about something or other. Something technical. Scientific. Sterile. Something that didn't quite grasp how the sadness gripped me. The way it refused to let me go. Thallor stepped up to Maura’s side, taking her hand in his. There was something almost comical in the difference in hand size, his almost dwarfing hers in the palm of his hand. But what reallystruck me was how gentle he held her, cradling her hand as if it was the most precious thing in the world.
He closed his eyes for a moment, reciting a few silent words–the whole thing taking less than a couple of minutes. But when he was done, I noticed the colour return to Maura’s cheeks. Tears began to flood down my face and spot on the leather of my boots. Thallor’s always lingered for a moment longer before he stood and gently pressed another kiss to my head. He didn't say anything after that, and I was grateful. Because his tender actions spoke volumes. More than words ever could. And then he slipped out into the hallway before my grandfather walked back in.
Goodbyes were a curious thing.The word, in its simplest form, is uttered again and again between friends and parents and lovers and strangers. Sometimes we mean it and sometimes we don't. But it's often said so casually. An intangible concept that we seldom reflect on once the words have slipped from our lips.
For most of our lives, goodbyes are just that—something to say in passing with friends when parting ways after weekends spent together. We say it at the end of the day and when we hang up the phone. But laced into those words is the thread of quiet, unspoken understanding that we will meet again.
But this time, I won’t.
I sat there for a long time, in the sterile lighting.
I sat there whilst the doctors spoke words of‘I’m sorry’and ‘There’s nothing more we can do.’ I sat there whilst my grandfather cried with his head in his hands, the strength to withstand hisown emotions waning as quickly as my own. I sat there until I missed the insufferable buzzing of the machines, hoping that it might replace the silence that was a little too loud. I sat there hoping I could make sense of it when all was said and done. Desperately trying to understand how I’d ever be able to stop missing her. How I’d fill the gaping hole in my chest that she’d left behind.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Iblinked back tears as I looked up at the picture of my grandparents on the wall. The old, black and white picture of two people so young and unbelievably in love. Their smiles were incandescent and warm, shining through the photo to the point where I could almost feel them.Almost.But as I stared and stared, that glow of happiness faded out until all I saw was black and grey. Until all I saw was my own loss and the family that I was losing.
I knew that death was a part of life, something that came for us all in the end. Some earlier. Some later. For some, it came in ways that were more painful than was fair or just. And whilst I could accept that it would happen to us all, that didn’t stop the sadness raging through me like wildfire. It left nothing in its wake except the ashes of happy memories and the stark reality of my own failure. I should have done more. I should have acted faster. But after everything that had happened, all I was left with waswhat-ifs.
Death is said to be sudden and aggressive. It’s said that the sadness bombards you all at once, ripping through your life likea tornado, leaving you with little else than the debris of your own broken heart. But that’s not how it is. Not really.
The minutes? They blurred into hours. The hours? They blurred into days. And in that time, the pain only got worse. It crept in slowly because it found my heart to be welcoming. It stayed because it found my heart to be warm. All at once, it set up shop inside my chest, boarding up the windows and locking the doors and refusing to fucking leave.
The days following Maura’s death were some of the hardest I’d ever experienced. The endless tears and choked back sobs slowly faded away, leaving a hollow longing that felt like it would never let up. The irony of it all–the cruel, twisted irony–was that the memories of her hurt the most. They glowed the brightest, but they also scorched a hole inside me. I wanted to rot in my sadness, festering under my duvet in the hopes that maybe, I too would fade away.
It took me four days to get out of bed. The world's weight felt too heavy, and sometimes it even rolled over to give my numbed muscles some respite seemed too much to bear. I forgot how to do daily tasks. Or at least that’s how it felt. The emotional energy required to do even the most mundane of things, like showering or brushing my hair, was simply too much. I just lay there for hours on end, in a suspended state between wakefulness and sleep. I let the outside world pass me by; I let it continue on without me because my life didn’t feel whole without her.
It took me a week and a half to finally speak to Thallor. The words had come out as broken fragments between sobs and swallowed tears. He’d been patient, doing everything he could to keep me tethered to reality. Day after day, he would bring me meals and cups of tea–all remaining untouched. And when he wasn’t doing that, he would sit with me and stroke myhair as I cried.
Toward the end of the week, he had helped me into the shower when I was finally ready to wash the sorrow from my skin. He was tender and loving, and even though I had found it difficult to formulate sentences or express how I was feeling, he understood. He always understood. At some point, I had mustered up all the energy I had to mutter the single word “Stay.” And he had. He’d slept in my bed with me ever since.
