Page 131 of Where Do We Go From Here?
‘You can barely tell,’ Sue says, resulting in a brief glare from Neil. ‘Well, you can’t,’ she insists.
‘God,’ Wendy says. ‘And you said your first surgery? So there was more?’
‘Yeah, lymph nodes,’ Neil replies. ‘They had to take those out, too. But that was a bit later on.’
‘Oh, Neil!’ Wendy exclaims. ‘You should have told me! I would have been there for you.’
‘It’s OK,’ Neil says, shaking his head. ‘You were there for Mum. And I do appreciate that, sis. Because I really couldn’t be there, myself.’
Wendy starts to cry again so Neil stands and moves his chair to her side.
‘Hey, I’m fine,’ he says, caressing her hair. ‘And I’m sorry I couldn’t be there for Mum. But we really were in the wars for a while back then.’
Wendy sighs and shakes her head. It’s too much to take in in one go. She wishes she could go and lie down – wishes shecould take a break in her mountain cabin, alone, to digest it all. ‘But you’re honestly OK now?’ she asks, again.
‘I am.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘One hundred per cent sure.’
‘Thank God,’ she says.
‘Nah, thank chemo,’ Neil, says.
‘And are there…? Have you, you know… God, I can’t think of the word. Have you got secondary issues? From the chemo and whatever?’
‘Side effects, you mean?’ Neil asks.
‘Yes. Exactly. Have you?’
Neil glances at Sue, silently asking her a question by raising one eyebrow.
Sue nods sadly and chews her bottom lip.
‘D’you want to…?’ Neil asks. ‘Or shall I?’
Sue shakes her head. ‘You.’
‘So, yeah,’ Neil says, turning back to Wendy. ‘We can’t have kids. So that put a bit of a spanner in the works.’
‘Kids?’
‘Yeah. I’m infertile now. Sperm count is a big fat zero.’
‘Gosh, I’m sorry. I didn’t think you wanted kids, anyway,’ Wendy says.
‘Oh, of course we did!’ Sue says. ‘Welovekids. And I was… Sorry, Neil. I’ll let you… whatever you decide.’
Neil nods and wipes his face with the flat of his hand. He clears his throat loudly. ‘So, yeah… Sue was actually pregnant,’ he says. ‘She was pregnant when I got ill. And so we didn’t – we kind of thought one was enough, one could be enough – and it wasn’t 100 per cent sure I’d be… you know… infertile.’
‘And I would probably have been too old to try again, anyway,’ Sue says. ‘I mean, it was a miracle I got pregnant then, in the first place. Well, we thoughtit was a miracle.’
‘So yeah, we decided, well, if we can’t have more, well, one’s enough. So we didn’t, you know, freeze any spunk.’
‘But I lost it,’ Sue says quietly, looking out into the garden. ‘I lost it at four months. It was a boy. And we lost him. So…’
‘We think it was the stress,’ Neil says.
