Page 74 of Always, in December

‘Brain tumour?’ Josie repeated thickly. It didn’t make sense; it wouldn’t fit together in Josie’s mind, like pieces of a puzzle that you couldn’t jam together no matter how hard you tried.

Helen was crying. Helen was crying. Josie watched the tears fall onto the top of her lip, watched her wipe them away with her sleeve. Those tears didn’t look real, either. ‘He had cancer, Josie,’ Helen said, her voice choked.

‘No, he didn’t.’ Because Josie would have known, wouldn’t she? That wasn’t the type of thing you just didn’t tell someone.

‘It was terminal. A brain tumour. He was expecting to . . .’

‘No.’ But the pressure behind her eyes, in her throat, was building. ‘He would have told me.’

‘I think he was going to,’ she said softly.

‘How do you know this?’ Josie demanded.

‘He told me,’ Helen said, her voice hitching.

Josie shook her head. That didn’t make sense. Why would he tell Helen, and not her? ‘But they said aneurysm.’ It was all she could do – focus on the straight facts, on what had been explicitly said. Because it didn’t make sense. Where was he now? Where was he? If he was really dead, then why were they telling her out here? Why not take her to him, let her see for herself?

‘I know. And he couldn’t have known about that, from what the doctor said – they come about very suddenly. So I don’t think he was expecting it to happen . . . now.’ Josie was shaking her head, over and over, the room swirling out of focus again. ‘Look,’ said Helen, clearly making an effort to sound more like her usual self, for whatever good that would do, ‘stay here, I’ll go and find out the details.’ Josie looked at her. She didn’t want details. The details didn’t matter, not if it was true.

But instead, she just said, ‘Ok.’ Her voice sounded numb, cold and empty. It didn’t sound like hers, just as her body, in that moment, didn’t feel as if it belonged to her.

‘And we need to call . . .’ Helen looked at Josie, shook her head, blinked back tears. ‘I’ll sort it. I’ll come back. This isn’t . . .’ But she didn’t finish. She just squeezed Josie’s shoulder so hard that it hurt, though Josie was grateful for that, because then all she had to do was focus on that one part of her, on the dull pain there, instead of on how she felt like she was being ripped apart, like parts of her body were attacking one another.

It wasn’t real. It was all she could think as she watched Helen at the desk, speaking to the receptionist, then searching for something in her handbag. Max wasn’t dead. Her grandmother . . . her grandmother had been the one who was ill, not Max. Surely he couldn’t have had a tumour, couldn’t have hidden that from her. How had this happened in a matter of moments? She felt she should be crying, screaming, shouting, demanding answers, but instead her body seemed to be slowly shutting down the more she thought about it, so that she couldn’t so much as blink.

When Helen came back to her, Josie saw that she was clutching something in her right hand. A letter, Josie noticed dimly.

Helen sat down next to her, rested one hand on her shoulder, and lifted the letter in another. ‘He gave me this to give to you,’ she said softly. Josie shook her head, but she took it when Helen pressed it on her, only noticing when she saw the paper shaking that her hand was trembling. She set it down in her lap, stared at it. Her name was on the front, in Max’s handwriting. Josie.

Josie looked back at Helen, shook her head. ‘I don’t understand.’

Helen’s eyes were wet, her chin was wobbling. ‘He rang me,’ she said softly. ‘To explain everything, and to ask my advice.’ She took a breath. ‘I suggested waiting until after Memo got a bit better, because I was worried how you’d handle it, but I . . .’ She hitched in a breath. ‘I’m so sorry, my darling.’

Josie wished she wouldn’t say it. I’m sorry. She knew first-hand why people said that, what it meant.

‘Can I get you anything?’ Helen asked.

‘Water,’ Josie croaked, not because she wanted it but because she wanted to be alone right now. Helen nodded and got to her feet. Josie watched her cross the waiting room, then looked back at the letter in her hand. But she didn’t open it. Because if she opened it, she knew, then that would make it real.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Three Days Earlier

Max stared down at the page, wondering whether to screw the paper up for the fifth time and try again. Nothing he’d written sounded right. Because how the fuck were you supposed to explain something like this in a letter?

He took a sip of his coffee, strong and black the way he liked it, and stared out at the Bristol street below from where he was perched at the windowsill in his sister’s tiny flat. His parents had chosen to stay in a hotel, thank God, after deciding to come to England for what would be, he was sure, his last Christmas. He took a breath, held it, then blew it out again. He’d come to terms with that, and he’d had longer than the doctors had initially thought to do so. Six months, they’d given him, when he’d found out just over a year ago. Right before he’d met the girl he’d fallen in love with, the girl who would make him wish, more than anything, that he had just a bit more time.

He looked over his shoulder to see Chloe shuffling into the room, her dark eyes bleary. She always looked like this in the morning – softer, somehow, when she first woke up, as if it took her a while to build up that front she so often hid behind. She glanced down at the crumpled papers on the floor.

‘How’s the letter faring?’ she croaked. His heart gave a painful tug. His baby sister. She was the one he was most worried about leaving, because he knew that she had tried the hardest to keep it together, to keep things normal, since he’d got his diagnosis. He was sure she’d go on like that until the end, because she knew it was what he needed, no matter what it cost her.

‘I’m not sure. I’m not very good at letters.’

She grunted, shuffled to the adjoining kitchen to switch the kettle on. ‘Just write what’s in the heart or . . . something like that.’

He tried for a cocky smile, neither of them wanting to break in front of the other. ‘Thanks, o wise one.’ He glanced towards her bedroom. ‘Liam still asleep?’

She yawned, nodded. ‘Nothing can wake that man, I tell you. This one time—’