There’d be no more Bank of Mum and Dad.No more safety net.
And Mum?She’d been forgetful lately.Dad refused to say the word we were all thinking: dementia.Early onset.Another thing I didn’t want to think about.
It hurts to think; it hurts to feel.I wanted to just stay blissfully numb.I was exhausted from crying all night.Whenever I tried to close my eyes, my mind kept replaying the last time I’d seen him.
It was the Sunday before.I’d driven over slightly earlier than usual and found Dad in the kitchen, getting ready to cook lunch while Dave and Mum were out food shopping.Even though I shared a house with my best friend from Uni and could feed myself, my parents insisted I come home every Sunday for brunch of a traditional English cooked breakfast, stay for a roast dinner, and then head off early evening after Dad and Dave got back from the pub.
How could I argue against free food?Even if I had to suffer Mum trying to baby me.To her, I would always be her little boy.But at twenty-five and standing six foot one, I wasn’t that little.I was, however, more of a beanpole than broad-chested like Dad or Dave.I put that down to all the manual lifting they did as landscape gardeners.
Even back in high school, I knew I didn’t want to work for the family business.Not because I was afraid of getting my hands dirty, as some might think, but because of the struggles I’d seen my parents go through to keep the business afloat.The global financial crisis in 2007 really knocked them on their arses.At one point, Dad said the bank might foreclose on the house.
It was the bloody bank’s fault that Dad had taken out a loan against the house.If they hadn’t suggested he expand the business...venture into soft landscaping instead of just paving driveways, then he wouldn’t have needed more tools or more manpower.
I’m not sure if Mum or Dave ever knew just how close we came to being destitute.Well, maybe Dad’s childhood friend Chris did.They’d grown up together, getting into scrapes and adventures, staying out from dawn till dusk like most Gen X kids, it seems.
I was the only other person Dad confided in, even though I was just a twelve-year-old boy.Maybe it was because we were more alike than he was with Dave — not just in looks, but in temperament.That’s what he always used to say: that I looked more like a Wilson, more like him, while Dave looked more like our mum, more like a Hudson.
I remember nothing ever phasing Dad.Well, almost nothing.
A few weeks before, I’d already guessed something was off when he asked me about doing self-injections.
Years ago, when I broke my leg on a school ski trip, the health centre at the French Alps resort prescribed daily blood thinners and mummified my leg in layers of paper bandages.The first time I had to inject myself, I almost fainted.By the end of the week, my belly button looked more like a dartboard.
At the time, I didn’t know why Dad was asking me about injections.And for once, it seemed I was the last in the family to know about his diagnosis.
Later that evening, after dinner, he took me aside.His icy hand sent a chill down my spine, its trembling betraying a hint of nervousness as he gently held my hand.I looked into his blue eyes — so like mine — and saw something I’d never seen before.
Fear.
For a split second, I wasn’t sure if he was afraid of my reaction or afraid of what he needed to tell me.That by saying the words aloud, it would make the looming spectre more real.
He was in excruciating pain.He’d lost weight.His polo shirt hung loosely on his now-hunched shoulders, and his usually full face looked gaunt.It was almost as if he were folding in on himself.Making himself smaller.As if he were trying to hide from the fact that he was in a very real fight for his life against cancer.
Of all the moments my brain could choose to focus on, it tormented me with that one.
CHAPTER 1
