and dull, a reflection of her life with my father, a reflection perhaps of how she felt about him.
When my father was diagnosed with cancer, I had an immediate sense of him not lasting long. I have no idea how I knew. In the beginning all the specialists were saying things like prostate is the good one to have, very slow growing, etc., etc., but I knew he wasn’t going to be with us for more than a year.
I didn’t feel bad about it. Which I still feel bad about. I remember calling my mum one day from work, just a few weeks before he died, and he’d been rushed into hospital because he was spiking a fever. My mum had to go because he was barking at her about what to bring him from home, and I remember hearing his harsh voice in the background, and closing my eyes, just for a few seconds while I said a silent prayer: “Please put him out of his misery,” I said. “Please let this be the end.”
It wasn’t. He clung on for another three months. I went to see him a handful of times. It had been awkward between us for years, and the penultimate time I went to see him I had to fortify myself with booze or I might have ended up saying something I’d regret.
I had a bit more than I intended, and I’ll admit, I was extremely … happy when I walked in the room.
“You’re drunk,” he managed to sneer, through the tubes. I just looked at him, the booze having exactly the intended effect. His comment floated over my head, and I kissed him on the cheek, steadying myself on the bed railing because I very nearly fell on top of him, all the while having no reaction at all.
The last time I saw him was awful. In the three weeks since the last visit, he had shrunk to half his size. His hair had gone, leaving a few wisps of white; his face entirely sunken. He was in a drug-induced coma by then, the pain medication knocking him out most of the time, although occasionally he would rouse for one of the nurses to feed him ice chips to assuage his thirst.
I had absolutely no idea what to say to him, this man I had struggled with my entire life. I wanted something seismic to happen at the end. I wanted him to wake up so we could somehow forgive each other, say we loved each other, move on with some sense of closure, for I knew this would be the last time I saw him, but he didn’t wake up, and nothing was said. I just sat awkwardly in a chair I pulled up next to the bed and looked at him. After a while I slipped my hand into his and stroked it, remembering how strong I thought he was when I was a little girl, how much I had loved him when I was tiny, when he thought I was perfect, before I grew old enough to fill his life with disappointment. I remembered slipping my tiny hand into his when I was small, how he looked at me, his eyes filled with … well. Not love, exactly. Sometimes love, but it was always mixed with a little confusion.
“Who are you?” he’d sometimes say, affectionately. “Where did you come from?”
“This is my changeling,” he’d introduce me to people, which made me feel special until I grew old enough to read fairy tales myself and realized a changeling is a fairy, elf, or goblin baby who’s put in the crib to replace the stolen, perfect baby.
I did cry, though, that day in the hospital, holding his hand. Horrible as this is to admit, I think I cried less because my dad was dying than for the dad I had never had. I cried for the missed opportunities, for not having a dad who loved me unconditionally and unreservedly. I cried for not having a dad who accepted me exactly as I was.
And I think, in amongst the tears, I cried with relief.
My mother grieved appropriately for a woman who had lost her husband of almost thirty years so tragically, and then, after six months, she blossomed.
Looking at her now, you would never imagine she had ever experienced a day’s unhappiness in her life.
Two
The first thing my mother did after my father’s death was put our big old house in Gerrards Cross on the