The back veranda of the old farmhouse looked down over the lake, facing west so afternoon sun drenched the ancient sofas and rickety chairs left over from when they’d lived here. This had been their favourite place as children, and it was their favourite place now. Richard had fought every inch of the way with this disease but in the last couple of weeks his fighting had ceased. He wanted to see no one but Ginny. ‘I’m closing my world down,’ he’d told Ginny when she’d had to turn away requests from old friends to see him. ‘I’m severing ties.’ He’d slept more and more, and out on the veranda Ginny had found some measure of peace.
What she had to do now… What she had to tell him…
Severing ties? Ha!
But Fergus was right behind her, and his presence helped a little. It made the impossible seem possible-just. She climbed the veranda steps and turned to where they’d organised Richard’s daybed.
The bed was empty.
Why? Richard had trouble moving. She’d left him set up with everything he needed, but if he’d had to go to the bathroom… Had he fallen?
Abandoning Fergus, she hauled the screen door open and headed inside. ‘Richard?’ she called. ‘Richard?’
Nothing.
He wasn’t in his bedroom, but he hardly used his bedroom, preferring to sleep where he could watch the stars. He wasn’t in the bathroom or in the kitchen.
She came back out to the veranda at a run, concern deepening to fear.
The bedclothes were flung back as if he’d just left. He’d had his oxygen cylinder on a trolley, so he could tug it with him if he needed to. It was gone.
‘What’s wrong?’ Fergus asked but she ignored him.
‘Richard?’
And then she saw her car.
It was at the far side of the house to where Fergus had driven in. It was a small red sedan, a bit battered and not particularly noticeable. But it was noticeable now.
There was a garden hose snaking into the driver’s side window, and rags wedging the rest of the gap closed. Richard’s oxygen cylinder was lying on its side, abandoned beside the driver’s side door.
‘Richard,’ she screamed, but Fergus was before her. He’d seen. He was down the veranda steps, crossing to the car in huge strides, hauling the car door open.
Richard was slumped at the wheel. As Fergus pulled open the door, he toppled sideways.
He would have fallen right out, but Fergus held him. He crouched and caught him, breaking his fall, hauling him free from the car in the one swift movement.
Ginny’s hands were on his neck, feeling for a pulse, feeling…
There was one. She had a pulse. Thready, but a pulse nevertheless.
‘He’s breathing,’ Fergus said, and her world somehow started up again from a dead stop.
‘Richard,’ she whispered. ‘Richard.’
He opened his eyes and stared at her. He even managed a sickly smile.
‘Richard,’ she said again, brokenly, fighting nausea.
‘You could,’ her brother said softly, his voice the thread of a weary whisper, ‘have filled the bloody thing up with petrol.’
Fergus carried him back to bed.
Once Richard had been too heavy to carry. The cystic fibrosis which had killed her younger brothers early had been gentler with him, slower in its deadly progress. He’d had a time when he’d almost seemed normal-when his body had almost seemed as if it could be healthy.
That time was long past. Her good-looking, vibrant brother was now an emaciated thread of a man, close to death.
That afternoon he’d come within a hair’s breadth. Ginny trailed behind Fergus, carrying Richard’s oxygen, still trying to fight down the waves of sickness.
She shouldn’t have left him. She’d wanted a walk. Then, when she’d stopped in on the way to the hospital, he’d seemed fine.
‘Go,’ he’d said. ‘Go be a ministering angel to someone else for a change and let me enjoy the sunset.’
She faltered as she reached the stop step of the veranda and Fergus set Richard on his bed and glanced back at her. ‘He’s fine,’ he told her as she set the oxygen tank down. ‘Richard’s fine.’
She wasn’t. She needed the bathroom. Fast.
When she came out Richard was settled back on his pillows, attached again to oxygen. He looked even paler than usual, but his chest was rising and falling with reassuring rhythm.
The sight of him made the nausea return. Ginny plonked herself down on the back step and stuck her head between her knees.
‘See what you’ve done to your sister?’ Fergus said mildly, and Richard grimaced.
‘She did it to me,’ he whispered. ‘Hell, Ginny, I just assumed…’
‘That I had a full tank,’ she managed.
‘I didn’t even look. A few minutes, then splutter, splutter…I couldn’t believe it. All that trouble.’
‘So is life that bad for you? That you want to finish what’s left of it now?’ Fergus’s voice was nothing but conversational. Ginny was staring down over the lake, trying to control the shudders that threatened to be her undoing. She felt sick to the soul. Too much had happened too fast and her mind was having trouble catching up with her stomach.
But Richard was alive. That was all that mattered for now, she told herself. Everything else could take care of itself at some future time.
‘Who the hell are you?’ Richard was asking, and she tried to focus enough to listen.
‘I’m a doctor, mate,’ Fergus said. ‘Fergus Reynard. I brought your sister home.’
‘I’m supposed to say thank you?’
‘We didn’t save your life, if that’s what you’re suggesting,’ Fergus said mildly. ‘Seems Ginny did that by being lousy with her petrol buying.’
‘I was going to fill it up yesterday,’ Ginny whispered. ‘But it was raining. I thought there was enough to get into town again tomorrow, and the weather’d be better.’
But neither man seemed to be listening to her.
Maybe she wasn’t listening to herself.
‘So why did you decide topping yourself was a good idea?’ Fergus asked.
‘Is that any of your business?’
‘I imagine it’s your sister’s, and I think Ginny’s past asking.’
‘Leave us be,’ Richard said wearily, sinking into his pillows. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘I’m guessing it does. To Ginny as well as to you.’
‘I’m dying anyway.’
‘Are you scared, then?’ Fergus asked. ‘Of what’s to come?’
‘No.’
‘Then why?’
‘Ginny’s stuck here,’ he managed, and took a few gasping breaths of oxygen while Ginny took that on board.
‘You think I mind that?’ she demanded. ‘You think I resent spending a few weeks of my life with you? Richard…’ She broke off, unable to go on.
‘You’ve done this so often,’ Richard muttered. He swivelled a little so he was staring at Fergus, and his eyes were almost fierce. ‘I had two kid brothers with this damned disease. My father sloped off and our mother coped via the bottle. She died of cirrhosis of the liver when Ginny was sixteen. Ginny’s done the lot.’
‘You’ve been there, too,’ Ginny whispered, and her voice broke.
‘You know that’s a lie, and I won’t be with you for this one,’ Richard whispered, and closed his eyes. ‘You’ll be alone. When I thought there was time this afternoon…’
‘You’d just get it over with,’ Fergus ended for him.
‘What else is there to live for?’
