Page 117 of The Art of Loving You

He’s there, he has his back to me as he gazes through the glass. I don’t need to say anything. He senses me watching, turns and greets me with a huge grin.

‘Sid. Should you be here?’ I ask.

‘At eighty-two probably not, but—’

‘You know what I mean.’

‘Your mum brought me in. She’s just helping Alice have a shower and whatnot. They’ll be along in a bit.’

‘She’s gorgeous isn’t she?’ I turn my attention back to my niece.

‘Norma used to feed me tinned prunes and custard for pudding every Thursday. She looks a little like that. All wrinkly and—’

‘Sid!’ I object to my niece being compared to a dried fruit.

‘And I loved those prunes, Libby. Really loved them.’ His pale blue eyes water. ‘You’ve all become like family to me. I’m lucky to have met you all. You’ve brought me much happiness.’

‘And grief, and worry, and—’

‘But that’s what families are for, Libby. Not just the good but to support each other through the bad. Life isn’t all beer and skittles, you know that.’

‘I know,’ I say quietly.

In her cot, Chloe stretches her mouth into a yawn and waves her tiny fists. I worry she’ll dislodge the tubes and wires but a nurse had run through everything with me and I knew an alarm would sound if she did. Besides, it isn’t like Chloe is alone. There is someone with her at all times. She begins to open her eyes but then, as if it’s too much effort, she closes them again. It doesn’t matter. She’s got plenty of time to see the world, the beauty of it all. I only hope that one day she gets to see my face. We watch her wriggle. The tiny rabbits on her sleep suit look like they are hopping.

‘I’m having an operation today,’ I tell Sid.

‘I didn’t think you are dressed like that for fun,’ he says, nodding at my dressing gown, my panda slippers. ‘I know, duck. I know. Your mum told me.’

‘What if … What if something goes wrong and I don’t make it and I don’t live to see Chloe grow up and—’

‘But what if you do? What a privilege and a joy that would be. Me and Norma were never blessed but now … now through you lot it’s like I’ve got a family of my own again.A daughter. Granddaughters. A great-granddaughter. People who will give me a good send-off when it’s my turn to go, rather than the empty church I’d resigned myself to. Chloe will have plenty of people to love her with or without you but, Libby, I reckons you’ll be fine. I really do. I know the thought of the tumour’ – he doesn’t flinch from the word and I love him for it – ‘being in your brain is enough to give you the heebie-jeebies but there’s no reason to think the worst of the surgery.’

‘Except the consent form I signed. All the things I’ve been told might possibly go wrong.’

‘You must stay positive, duck. You’re doing the right thing having the op.’

‘Am I?’ Now it is almost time I am petrified I’ll go to sleep and never wake up again. Never see Chloe grow, fall in love, have children of her own. I pinch the bridge of my nose to stop myself from crying. It doesn’t work.

‘Yes it’s absolutely the right thing. If you hadn’t agreed, your mum would have been devastated. You’re a good girl. Not shellfish at all.’

I laugh through my tears. ‘That’s what Jack would say if he was here.’

‘You know what else he would say? Live your life to the fullest. Laugh. Love. I never thought Norma would go before me. I wanted us to slip peacefully away together in the house. Now I’ve a very different life to the one we’d planned but’ – he glances back at Chloe again – ‘it’s a good life and yours will be that too. Different to when you had Jack. The before and after life. But it will be what you make it. Life’s an adventure. Don’t knock it til you’ve tried it.’

I nod, too overcome to speak. He hugs me tightly. As ever, he smells of tobacco and Polos and safety. I never want to let go but he releases me.

‘Squeeze me any tighter and I’ll be piddling all over your slippers, duck. I’d better find the loo. My bladder ain’t what it was.’ He hobbled down the corridor, his walking stick tap-tap-tapping out his goodbye.

For the longest time I watch Chloe. Every minute movement, a kick of her leg, a shift of her head, is miraculous. It is while she is screwing her face up to demand her breakfast that I sense him, next to me, shoulder to shoulder.

‘You’re back.’

‘I’ve come to say hello to Chloe.’ Jack nods at the glass before turning to me with sad eyes.

‘And goodbye to me.’ It isn’t a question. There’s a deep knowing inside me that this is it. The end of us.

It is too much.

---