Page 129 of Where Do We Go From Here?
When she comes to the end of the story the three adults sit in silence. Wendy pulls another tissue from the box and wipes the tear-splattered table and then her eyes, and then, because still no one is speaking, and because the silence in the room is unbearable, she stands and goes to the bathroom to wash her face. She wishes she had a secret bottle of vodka in her handbag and only barely manages to be thankful that she doesn’t.
When she returns to the dining room, her brother and sister-in-law are still seated. They don’t seem to have moved a muscle. It’s as if time has been suspended in her absence.
‘I’m sorry,’ Neil says, once she has sat back down. ‘We didn’t know. I suppose we thought we knew, but we didn’t.’
‘No,’ Sue says. ‘But how could we? You never said a word.’
Wendy nods thoughtfully at this. She clears her throat before, speaking with difficulty, she says, ‘It was so… awful… that I blanked it out myself. So I couldn’t have told you even if I’d wanted to.’
‘You see?’ Sue says, as if this somehow vindicates her. ‘We couldn’t possibly have known.’
Wendy blinks slowly and turns to look out at the wet garden. Something is happening in her body and it’s a moment before she recognises the sensation as rising anger. She’d hoped to avoid that today, but here it comes, bubbling up. She takes a few deep breaths and then turns back and says, in the flattest tone she can manage, ‘If you’d been there then you would have known. That’s how you could have known. By being there for me.’
‘That’s true,’ Neil says. ‘And I’m sorry we weren’t there for you.’
Wendy nods at him slowly. ‘Oh,’ she says. ‘OK.’
She looks out at the garden again, and tries once again to calm herself with deep breathing, but this time it doesn’t seem to help. When she turns back to face them, she catches a glimpse of something unspoken, something complex going on between them.
‘So is that it, then?’ she asks after a moment. ‘Like, sorry, and we’re all OK? Is that how this is supposed to work? After I… After I… Actually, I can’t even go there.’
Sue is biting her bottom lip.
‘I’m trying here,’ Wendy says, fresh tears springing up in spite of herself. ‘I really, really am trying. But I’m not sure that “sorry” quite cuts it.’
Sue turns to Neil now and strokes his shoulder. ‘I think you need to tell her, honey,’ she says. ‘I don’t think there’s any other way.’
‘No,’ Neil says, squeezing her fingers and then pushing her hand away. ‘No, you’re right.’
‘Tell me what?’ Wendy asks, glancing between their faces, trying to read meaning into their troubled expressions.
‘Look, there’s a reason why we couldn’t be there,’ Neil says. ‘And I know you think I’m an arsehole – and maybe I am that, too – but there was a reason. That’s the thing.’
‘OK,’ Wendy says doubtfully, drying her tears again and blowing her nose. She can feel a fresh bout of anger rising again, already pushing away the sadness. She knows, she just knows that whatever Neil says next is going to make her explode with rage. Because what possible justification could there be for leaving her alone with their dying mother?
‘I had it too,’ Neil says, blindsiding her. ‘That’s the thing. I had cancer as well.’
And just like that the balloon of Wendy’s anger pops. ‘What?’ she asks, unbelieving at first. Her mind is trying to tell her that this is some kind of trick.
‘I found out I had cancer almost the same time you found out about Mum’s,’ Neil says. ‘Talk about timing!’
‘It was just a few weeks before,’ Sue says.
‘No!’ Wendy says. ‘Neil… no…’
Neil nods. ‘Stage two. Testicular. Horrible.’
‘No,’ Wendy says again, fresh tears springing up. ‘But how can…?’
‘It’s OK,’ Neil says, using the flat of his hand to make a calming gesture. ‘I’m fine now. I’m in complete remission.’
‘Complete remission,’ Sue repeats.
‘But for a while back there, things were pretty full-on.’
‘For a long time, really.’
‘Yeah, we had a bad couple of years.’
