Don't run

I guess I should be proud. I should be overjoyed, I should be the supportive husband. Jesus, if I can’t support her now what sort of husband does that make me?

 

But still the words come out of my mouth.

 

“Don’t go,” I say.

 

She looks at me, not quite understanding. “I have to go. I’ll miss the flight.”

 

I could shut up now. Pretend I was confused about the time. Say goodbye properly,  like it could be the last time. Because if this is the last time I see her, I’ll have a lifetime to regret that I spent these precious moments arguing.

 

I know this. I’m perfectly aware of how stupid I’m being. But that doesn’t stop my mouth.

 

“I mean don’t do the run. Stay here with us. A month, Sal! That’s a ridiculous amount of time to be away. The doctors say you’ve only got three months …” I am unable to finish the sentence.

 

She stares at me through fierce eyes, reddened by held-back tears. Sal has barely cried these last fifteen months, in spite of everything the world has thrown at her, Teflon-tough through it all.

 

“Oh stop it, John. You know how important this is. £5 million I’ll raise if I do it. Think of the people that’ll save.  You think it’s easy for me?”

 

No, that’s the last thing I think. I know it’s all self-sacrifice. I can tell the pain you’re in, not to mention the pain you’ll inflict forcing your cancer-festooned body through twenty-six miles a day for thirty days; and the physical pain is nothing compared to the pain of having to leave your daughters behind, for an entire month, knowing that you might never see them again.  And all this you do because you feel you owe it, to the hospital, to the cancer charities, to everyone that help your survive six years ago, to everyone that helped you live long enough to have the twins.

 

I could say this. I could acknowledge her pain, acknowledge how much in awe I am of her Edmond Hilaryesque ‘I’m just going to the other side of the world to run 803 miles – I may be some time’. But I don’t.

 

“You’ve done so much already. Maybe it’s time to stop,” is what I actually say.

 

“You know when I’ll stop,” she says. ‘When I’m dead’, she doesn’t need to finish the sentence.

 

“But why the US? Why can’t you do the run here, somewhere we can come and see you?”  

 

“Because America’s where the money is. I’ll raise six times as much in the States as I would here.”

 

She was right. She was reasonable. If she could raise the money here she would. She wouldn’t cross the globe, knowing that she might never see her family again. Jesus, how can a mother leave her children for a month when she’s barely got that to live?

 

“Wait until the summer,” I say, “we can come with you in the summer.”

 

“I’ll be dead in the summer,” she says, calmly.

 

“So spend your last months with your family.”

 

She gives me a look; contempt isn’t the word.

 

“You know it’s hard for me,” is all she says. “Don’t make it harder.”

 

“I’m sorry,” I say, at last. “I know it’s hard for you. I’ll miss you, that’s all.”

 

“You’ll be there at the finish,” she says.

 

I nod. We’d arranged things with the twins’ school, I’d fly out with the girls so they’d be there to see mummy finish the run. And after the run, nothing more, she’d go through the end with us, with her family. It was just – it was just that a month was a long time.

 

The front door bell rings. It's Josh, her brother. Josh is going with her - has taken a month off work. He’ll be doing everything with her, doing all the tweets and blogs and as many of the interviews as he could. I was jealous of him, in some ways, he could be there for her, with her, in a way I couldn’t, because I had to stay with the girls.

 

“Are we ready?” he says.

 

He walks to the door, allowing us a moment of privacy to kiss goodbye. She’d already said goodbye to the kids.

 

It was Josh who rang me two weeks later. He could barely talk, he was all tears, but he didn’t need to say a thing. 

 

Later that day I had to break the news to the girls.