An Impossible Dilemma: A Psychological Thriller Novel (4 page)

Chapter 4

Emily seemed lost in the hugeness of the red leather armchair. She appeared even smaller than she had yesterday, as though she was shrinking before my very eyes.

The concentration on her face was priceless she tried to pull a pair of blue trousers onto a doll. Her trusty companion, Filly, had been propped up beside her in the corner of the chair.

"You ready to go, sweetheart?" I said. My heart breaking as she glanced up at me. Her large grey eyes, too big for her face, were wide with surprise. She'd been so engrossed in what she was doing that she hadn’t noticed us come out of Doctor Wilson’s office.

She looked at Diana and back at the doll.

"I'll finish dressing her for you, sweetie." Diana came around from the desk and took the doll from Emily and smiled. "Did you like the clothes I made for her?"

Emily nodded and also smiled.

"You can dress her next time. It's just our secret though, okay?"

"Okay." Emily smiled again as she stood up. Becoming embarrassed at us all staring at her, she grasped my hand and hid behind my leg.

"Come on, my baby—let's go. Shall we get something to eat?"

"Happy Meal," she squealed, and lifted her clenched fists up to her chin and held her breath, smiling.

“I think we can manage that, can't we, Daddy?" I glanced at Jonathan. He'd not said a word since leaving the doctor's office.

"Course we can. Anything you want, Em."

“McDonald’s, here we come," I said.

I rarely let her eat junk food, but what good had that done her? My baby was dying, and I was damned if I would stop her from having anything she wanted now.

We found a restaurant on the roundabout just before the motorway entrance. The place was full. It always surprised me how children would choose McDonald’s above anywhere else when given a choice.

After nibbling at a burger, Emily walked over to the climbing frame. She stood to the side, watching the other children charging up the steps and launching themselves down the slide.

Jonathan turned to me and reached for my hand. "How are we going to get through this, Vic? I feel like we’re in a nightmare."

I grasped at his fingers, staring into his eyes. I couldn’t tell whose hands were shaking the most. Words were too difficult without crying and I was adamant Emily wouldn’t see any tears. I turned back to watch her.

Emily took tentative steps to the bottom of the ladder, looking at the slide with longing. I knew she wanted to race up them, but she hadn't the energy.

I sidled out from behind the table. “Do you want a turn on the slide, Em?”

She nodded.

I lifted her onto the platform at the top of the ladder, and she slid down the red plastic slide.

"Do you want to do it again, baby?" I held my arms out as she walked towards me.

"No thanks, Mummy." She said, then stuck her thumb in her mouth.

"Do you want anything else? Some dessert, an ice cream sundae?"

Her eyes lit up as she thought about it and then she shook her head, thumb still firmly in place. I could have kicked myself for all the times she asked us for ice cream or to go to McDonald’s and we'd refused. Now we were going to allow her whatever her heart desired and the poor girl couldn't face anything.

I turned back to Jonathan, and he looked away, before hurrying to the bathroom.

This awful situation had hit him hard.

I'd prepared myself for bad news, although I’d not imagined the results to be this bad. But Jon had refused to think about it. He’d convinced himself she would be okay.

I dreaded going home, having to explain everything to Frank and Stephanie. I would be happy to stall the whole thing as long as possible, but Emily's energy was flagging, and she needed to go.

"Don't forget your Pinky Pie, Em." I rescued her My Little Pony toy from underneath the table. She’d been thrilled when she pulled it out of her Happy Meal carton earlier, discarding poor Filly to the top of my handbag.

"Oh!" she gasped, snatching the pink plastic horse from me and holding it to her chest dramatically.

I laughed. An immense sadness gripped my heart and I choked, almost bursting into tears but I controlled myself in time.

Jonathan returned. His face had paled even more, but other than that, he was smiling at Emily, covering his feelings perfectly. "Where to next, my dear?" he said, in a posh accent.

Emily laughed. "Daddy—we're going home."

"Home, James, and don't spare the horses!" He twirled Emily onto his shoulders and galloped out of the restaurant. Her tinkling laughter accompanied us to the car.

She slept all the way home.

“What are you thinking?” Jon asked after several minutes of silence.

“About my mum. For the first time in my life, I wish I’d inherited her gift.”

“You want to be a medium, get visited by spirits of dead people while you’re sitting on the toilet or taking a shower?”

I laughed. “No, you twit. She wasn’t just a medium. She was a psychic. People queued around the block for a reading when I was a kid. There were always women sitting in our lounge waiting for their turn. I don’t remember even one of those women leaving with dry eyes.”

“I don’t know, Vic. Imagine, if on the day you gave birth to Emily, we’d been told this would happen to her. How the knowledge would have tainted every single thing we’ve done over the past five years. Ignorance is bliss, I say.”

“I guess you’re right. What confused me the most growing up is if Mum was such a great psychic, why didn’t she predict her own illness?”

Jonathan shrugged one shoulder. “Maybe you can’t see the future of yourself or close family.”

“Yeah, and like you say, it would drive you demented waiting for things to happen.”

“Anyway, I don’t believe in paranormal stuff. Choose not to believe it. I’d die of fright if a ghost appeared in front of me.” Jonathan shuddered.

I laughed. “I know. That’s why I’ll never watch a scary movie with you
ever
again. Your screaming frightens me more than the movie does. You big wuss!”

Jonathan grabbed my knee, squeezing it playfully.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” I giggled until he let go.

I felt guilty to be behaving like this while still trying to absorb the awful news. However, our whole relationship had been built on laughter and torment and vast amounts of teasing, making it difficult for us to communicate any other way. 

“Besides,” he continued, “if it was true, why has she never come back for a visit? You’d think your mum would move mountains to visit her only daughter. To prove that there is life after death.”

“I guess.” I shrugged. “Dad always said she was with us. He said he could sense her and strange things happened around the house that had to be her doing. But I never saw anything.”

“Yeah, but he did hit the bottle quite heavily after she died, didn’t he?”

“He had to get drunk so he could sleep. He never got over her.” I turned away and gazed through the window, my fingers automatically finding the locket at my throat.

“I’ll make you a deal,” Jon said. “If I go first, I promise to haunt you. So long as you promise if you go first, you won’t even think about haunting me.”

I laughed again, the sadness gone for a few seconds as I imagined myself as a ghost visiting Jon. “I’d make sure I came while you were on the toilet, seeing as that’s your worst fear.”

“Bitch!” Jonathan also laughed briefly.

We reached the farm and sat staring through the windscreen for several minutes. Both lost in our own thoughts, until Emily stirred in the back seat.

"Hey—there you are, Miss Emily. I was about to send out a search party to the land of nod."

"Daddy, you're silly," Emily whispered.

I smiled. "He certainly is, Pumpkin. Shall we go and show Stephy your Pinky Pie?"

She nodded and unbuckled her seatbelt.

I stepped out of the car and met Jonathan in front of the house.

"Ready?" he whispered, holding his hand, palm up.

I nodded. "Ready?" I placed my hand in his.

Emily had gone ahead of us and marched up the hall. She seemed livelier than she had been in a while.

Jonathan kissed my hand and we gazed at each other for a few seconds, then, each taking a deep breath, we followed her in.

Frank was sitting on the sofa, his bad leg propped up with a cushion on the coffee table in front of him. Steph stood in the open plan kitchen, wiping her hands on a tea towel. They both looked at us expectantly as we entered.

I envied them their ignorance—wished I didn't know what I did—wished I wasn't about to break their hearts as Doctor Wilson had broken mine.

Emily stood in front of Steph holding up her bright pink pony.

"What do you have there, beautiful?" Steph said, bending down to Emily's level.

"It's Pinky Pie."

"Well, hello, Pinky Pie. Don’t you have a pretty name? And she's just the right colour for your bedroom isn't she, Em?”

Emily nodded. "I'm going to put her on my dressing table."

"Okay, Em—what do you want to do for an hour or so? I'm going to do a couple of hours on the farm," Jonathan said.

"Can I watch Mary Poppins?"

"You can—how about I go and put it on for you?" he said.

Emily nodded. "Do you want to watch it with me, Stephy?"

"You try and stop me—that's my all-time favourite movie. I'll finish off here, and then I'll be through."

“Okay.” She followed Jonathan into the snug.

Steph turned to face me again and shrugged. “So?”

"Can we wait for Jon?" I smiled an apology, slumping down into the armchair opposite Frank.

The silence was deafening.

I felt certain they could hear the ba-bum—ba-bum—ba-bum sounds coming from my chest.

Frank took his foot off the table and placed the cushion on the carpet by his feet. Then he rubbed his eyes with his good hand.

Stephanie came over and sat next to him. Her eyebrows drawn together tightly over her heavily made up pale blue eyes. I noticed that her roots needed retouching . I knew this was a strange thing to be thinking about considering the circumstances, but my mind seemed to be all over the place.

I glanced behind me looking for Jonathan—needing Jonathan. I couldn't do this alone. I could hear him talking to Emily in the snug.

We had two lounges in the huge farmhouse. A large kitchen-dining-lounge, and a separate lounge we called the snug. There was also a separate dining room, seven bedrooms and three bathrooms. We mainly watched TV in the snug as it was quieter and had the biggest screen.

"Can I get you a cup of tea or coffee, Vic?"

"I'm okay, thanks, Steph." I played with my locket, pulling it backwards and forwards along the chain, making a sawing sound.

Jonathan came round the side of my chair and sat on the arm, bending to kiss me.

"Have you told them?"

"No!" we all said in unison.

"I was waiting for you," I said.

"Oh—sorry."

"Well—are you gonna tell us? I can't stand this much longer," Steph said.

I looked at Jonathan and he nodded.

"She has a rare condition. A form of Cerebellar Ataxia."

"What does that mean?" Frank said.             

My mouth was suddenly dry and I licked my lips several times. "It means her cerebellum is shrinking. Her balance, speech, motor skills, toileting, in fact, everything will eventually become impossible and she …" I couldn't continue. Suddenly freezing cold, I wrapped my arms around myself, looking at Jon.

He pulled me into his arms as he cleared his throat. "There's nothing they can do for her."

"Bullshit!" Steph blurted out. "She's a five-year-old girl, for Christ's sake. Surely they must be able to do something."

"I know—it's so cruel." Jonathan turned away and focused on the photograph of the three of us on the far wall above the sideboard.

I was shaking uncontrollably now. I glanced at Frank, his face unreadable. He’d placed his good hand across his forehead and his fingers trembled.

"Are you okay, Frank?" I said.

He turned to me; his eyes brimmed with unshed tears. His mouth moved as though to say something and changed his mind instead. As he shook his head, the first tears fell.

I wanted to go to him—to comfort him, but I couldn't. I was barely managing to keep myself together.

Steph wiped her eyes on the tea towel, rubbing black mascara down her face. "I don't understand."

"She's not producing an essential hormone which is causing her cerebellum to shrink." I reached for my handbag by my feet and produced the information the doctor gave us. "We have some leaflets here to explain." I dropped them onto the coffee table.

"What’s the cause?" she said.

"Nobody knows for sure. The condition is very rare, but they think we both may have a defective gene," Jonathan said.