The Last Goodbye (25 page)

I was tired, my legs felt like they had been poured full of lead and, although I wasn’t usually one for napping during the day, I felt I could lie down and sleep for a week – but I didn’t want the day to end just yet because days like this were such a rarity. I wanted to savour every minute of it. It was such a weight off my mind having Kate back on side again. Now it just left Noel – one down, one to go. I decided I was going to talk it out with him after the kids had gone to bed that night. I couldn’t bear the atmosphere around the house any more especially seeing as the kids had picked up on it. We both needed to act like grown-ups. And the stress wasn’t good for the baby.

“Hey, Mam!” she said as she stopped on the street in front of an A-frame board on the path.

“What?” I said warily as I read the sign:
Bodyart: tattoos, piercings on the spot.

“Can I get my nose pierced?”

“No way!”

Things might have been going well between us but I wasn’t a complete walkover.

“I knew you wouldn’t let me.” She started to laugh. “Maybe a tattoo?”

“Keep on walking.” I steered her by the shoulders past the shop.

On the way home in the car I stole a sideways glance at her while we were stopped at traffic lights and was hit with a huge pang of guilt. I really hoped I had made the right decision in not having the surgery like Doctor O’Keeffe had advised. I wouldn’t admit it to Noel but the odd time the doubts would get to me and I would wonder if he was right. Was I putting this baby inside me before our other children? Kate chatted away and she didn’t seem to notice I was thinking. She opened up to me about Aidan and how much she really liked him. I just concentrated on driving and let her talk. When I got home, I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I said to Kate that I was going in to bed for a lie-down for half an hour. I didn’t have the energy to remove my clothes so I got in under the duvet fully clothed.

When I woke and saw the daylight giving the room that early morning glow, I knew I had slept all night. And I couldn’t believe that I was still wearing my jeans and T-shirt. Noel was asleep in a mound under the duvet beside me. I raised myself on one arm to look at the alarm clock over on Noel’s side of the bed. It was 6 a.m.. Jesus Christ, I had slept twelve hours straight! I lay there for a while thinking about everything, wishing Noel would be my support. We never fought. We were just one of those couples. People often said to me that we were both too easygoing to fight and I knew what they meant. But then, when he was mad with me, in this case madder than I had ever seen him before, it worried the life out of me.

I shook his left shoulder that was raised.

“What, what’s wrong?” he said sleepily, pulling the sheet up over his shoulder.

“We need to talk.”

He rubbed his eyes and looked at his alarm clock.

“It’s seven minutes past six – go back to sleep.” It was nearly time for him to get up and he was trying to make the most of the few minutes that he had left in bed.

“I can’t, Noel, it’s driving me mad. I don’t like it when we fight.”

“And you think I do?” He sighed as he propped himself up against the headboard.

“No, I know you don’t – that’s why I want to sort this out before it goes on any longer.”

“Have you made your mind up?”

“I can’t have the surgery, Noel – I just can’t do it. No matter how many times I think about it I just can’t do it.” I could feel the baby kicking. I pulled up my T-shirt then, showing him my bump.

“Look, Noel – just look.” As if performing on cue the baby kicked, visible from the outside. “I can’t do anything that would jeopardise it.”

He let out a long and frustrated sigh and looked up at the ceiling.

“Okay.”

“What?”

“Okay – I’ll support you. If this is what you want, I’ll support you.”

“Really, Noel – no more mention of surgery?”

“That’s it – that’s the end of it. If this is what you want, then I’ll go along with it but I just pray to God that it will all be okay.”

“Of course it will – sure you won’t get rid of me that easily.”

“I don’t want to get rid of you.” He put his arm under me and pulled me in tight so that my head was resting against his shoulder.

“I love you, Eva.”

“And I love you. I told Kate about everything yesterday.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah, it was like there was a tiny chink in her armour and I got to see my real daughter for a while. We had a great day together. Just like old times. She has come to terms with the baby – her friends all think it’s cool, so that helps.”

“Does she know that it might be cancer?”

“Well, I didn’t want to completely scare the life out of her so I just said it was a ‘growth’.”

“I see – well, it’s probably for the best. We should probably tell the boys later on too.”

When we told the boys, Patrick just shrugged his shoulders and Seán asked if we were done so he could go outside and play football. Again, we hadn’t used the ‘C’-word. I had debated it in my head whether we should just be upfront with them but, since I didn’t even know myself that it was cancer we were dealing with here, there was no point in going down that road.

Chapter 34

A few weeks later I was due back at the hospital for my next appointment. I think they were hoping I would have changed my mind about the surgery but the more life I could feel growing inside of me, the more I knew that there was no way I would change my mind.

As feared, the scan showed that the mass had enlarged once again. I could see it myself on the screen. I saw on Doctor O’Keeffe’s face that he was worried about it. He stared intensely at the screen, deep in concentration, as he did his measurements. Thankfully he didn’t mention surgery to me this time, which I was grateful for. We had made up our minds and I didn’t want to open it all up for debate again.

Although Noel had agreed to accept my decision, I knew it didn’t sit well with him. Our truce was fragile and all it would take would be for Doctor O’Keeffe to make another recommendation and the wound would be opened all over again. The good news was that the baby was doing well, they were very happy with its growth and movements and the mass seemed to be having no effect on him or her whatsoever. This brightened my mood considerably and I knew that I had made the right choice.

I didn’t mention it to them but I was starting to feel a lot of pain in my abdomen – pain that I knew wasn’t coming from the baby. I presumed it was from both the baby and the tumour putting pressure on my organs. But I was afraid that if I said anything it would just strengthen the argument for surgery.

The pain got worse over the next few weeks and I was trying to manage as best I could but, when I woke up one Saturday morning and couldn’t even get out of bed, Noel called an ambulance. I could see the look of pure fear and terror on the kids’ faces but I wasn’t able to talk to them. The pain had gripped me while I was being put onto a stretcher and wheeled into the back of the ambulance. Noel held my hand the whole way to the hospital. By the time we got there, the pain had eased off again but even I was frightened by how forceful it had been.

Doctor O’Keeffe was waiting for me as soon as we came through the doors.

“Don’t tell me they called you in on your day off?” I said.

“Never mind that – there’s no such thing as having as a day off in this profession. How are you doing?”

“I’ll survive.”

I couldn’t help but notice a worried look on his face.

He carried out another scan.

“It’s as I suspected, Eva. The mass has enlarged and now, with the pressure of your growing uterus, it is putting pressure on the other internal organs and causing torsion. Without surgery it will continue to get progressively more painful.”

“I’ve come this far, doctor, I’m just heading into the third trimester, I’m on the home stretch, I can’t do it now.”

“I had a feeling you might say that.”

I smiled at him. “We’re getting to know each other very well.”

“What I would suggest, Eva, is that we look at delivering the baby early by Caesarean section and try to debulk as much of the mass as possible at the same time.”

“How early?”

“Well, you’re coming up to twenty-seven weeks now and the pain is just going to get worse. I’d like to keep you in hospital from now on, I’m afraid – there is a risk of placental abruption if the mass continues to get bigger. I am quite keen to get a biopsy of this mass and if the results show that it is cancer, I would be eager to start treatment sooner rather than later. I think thirty-two weeks would be a good time – there is usually a good outcome for babies delivered at this stage in a pregnancy with very few complications – obviously there will be a stay in the special care unit but usually after a few weeks, once they have put on weight, the babies are able to go home.”

“I see.”

“We can give steroid shots for the baby’s lungs to help the foetus to achieve lung maturity.”

“Eva, you have to do it,” said Noel. “I let you make the decision on putting off surgery but, now that Doctor O’Keeffe is saying there is a good chance for the baby, then we need to go with what he is recommending. You have a responsibility to the other three as well.”

“Okay. All right.” I was past fighting at that stage.

The next few weeks were tough. I was on a ward with five other women being treated for complications of pregnancy. One was a diabetic, two more had high blood pressure and another woman was being monitored for premature leaking of waters. It was grand to have their company during the long days. There was a TV at the end of the ward but most of the time I was too exhausted to get out of bed to watch it. The pain was awful but there wasn’t much I could take because I was pregnant. It felt as though my organs were being squeezed and twisted inside out. Noel would bring the kids in to see me but I didn’t like them seeing me like this. I could see their worried faces, Kate’s especially. I tried to put on a brave face for them but some days I just didn’t have the energy. Mam would come in and sit with me, her fingers knotted around her rosary beads, moving them swiftly through her fingers, but no matter how much she prayed it didn’t ease up the pain. It didn’t help that it was a warm summer – one of the hottest in years. I could see the colour on Noel’s face from working the land when he would come in to visit me in the evenings. Kate had a sprinkling of freckles across her cheeks and along the bridge of her nose – it reminded me of when she was a little girl. She looked so healthy and beautiful. When I told her that, she had a fit of course – telling me they were the ugliest things and how she had spent hours putting on loads of make-up to cover them up and then I had to go and point them out straight away. I could never say the right thing as far as Kate was concerned.

One day when Noel had taken the boys to the coffee shop to get a sandwich and Kate and I were alone she asked me out straight.

“How serious is it, Mam?”

“I’m not sure, love. They won’t know until they deliver the baby and then they can operate.”

“But why can’t they do that now? I can see you squirming in the bed in pain – it’s horrible!”

“I’m sorry, love – in a few more weeks, once the baby has developed a little bit more and is a bit stronger.”

“I wish this baby had never happened.”

“Kate!”

“I do, Mam – it’s caused nothing but trouble – look at everything you’re going through for it!”

“Well, it’s hardly the baby’s fault, now is it, Kate?”

“I guess not.”

“Look, once the baby is born, they can do the surgery and then I’ll be right as rain again.”

I knew Noel was finding it tough at home. The kids were on their summer holidays from school so he was trying to occupy them, keep Kate out of trouble, as well as staying on top of the farm. Mam was helping out too. She would call over and do the washing and make dinner in the evenings. Noel was saying that Kate was out with Aidan from the time she got up in the mornings until last thing at night and he didn’t like it. She didn’t even bother coming home for her dinner any more. He wasn’t sure what way to deal with it. Noel never was good at the discipline. That was my job – that was the way we worked. He was also reluctant to come down too hard on her with everything going on. I told him not to worry, that it was just her way of coping. Things would all get back to normal after I came home. It was coming up to Kate’s fourteenth birthday so I told Noel to get her a pair of the Levi’s that she so desperately wanted. He balked when I told him the price of them.

“We can’t afford them!” he said.

“Ah Noel, go on, she’s going through a tough time of it at the moment – she could do with a little cheering up.”

I felt so guilty for the kids, being wheeled in to see me and sit around a boring hospital when I’m sure they just wanted to be out playing with their friends in the sunshine. The boys would sit on the plastic chairs until boredom set in and they would start nudging and poking at each other before it would escalate and Noel would tell them to stop because the other patients on the ward were resting. He would give them money and they would run out to the hospital shop and stock up on sweets and other things full of neon colourings and e-numbers and bars so chewy that I was worried their teeth would come out stuck in the mess.