The Trouble With Dying Read online

  My death. The end of my life—one I don’t even remember.

  But it’s not just my own life on the line: it’s Tess’s too. She needs to be nurtured and loved, and if I’m no longer around to do it, who will?

  I watch Nate chatting about Tess’s latest escapade, and I’m warmed by his love for my daughter. But Nate isn’t her father; Geoff is. And if I die, Tess’s future lies in Geoff’s hands.

  Is Geoff even capable of nurturing our daughter? I’m not sure. He’s fond of her, yes, but more in a when-it’s-convenient kind of way. He palms Tess off to Mum at every opportunity, and he seems to be forever choosing work over family. Mum, of course, would do anything for Tess, but my mother looks about sixty and at that age shouldn’t have to return to full-time parenting.

  I don’t trust Geoff’s parenting skills. Somehow—live or die—I need to provide for my daughter, guarantee her the happy childhood she deserves, and without overloading Mum in the process. But how can I do that from up here?

  I can’t.

  But I have to.

  Okay, how? Think, Faith, think.

  My brain feels like it’s fighting through sludge. There must be something I can do.

  A trust fund? Would that help? Maybe. It would at least ensure Tess is well educated and living in comfort. But even as I think it my heart squeezes tight, because really, what I want more than anything is to ensure Tess is well loved.

  I need to find an adult Tess; someone who not only hears me but also has the life experience to advocate for my daughter, to choose what’s best for her. Someone who will ensure Geoff steps up as a parent—and in the event he doesn’t, will fight to give Tess the home she deserves.

  Even as I think it, defeat drags at me. What I really need is a miracle.

  As if sensing my despondence Nate grasps my hand, and his warmth and strength make me feel less alone. I close my eyes, concentrating on the comfort of his touch.

  “Thank you,” I say, but he doesn’t hear.

  If only he could be my miracle person. But he’s not.

  That’s okay. I’ll keep searching. I’ve still got five days and this place is swarming with people. Patients, visitors, staff . . . All I need is one person who can hear me.

  Right. That’s my plan, then.

  Suddenly I feel more positive. I can do this. Get used to moving, find my miracle person, then put things in place.

  Precisely what things, I’m not sure. I guess I should find my lawyer . . . and my bank manager . . .

  Which means my miracle person’s going to have to do some detective work. Then, step two, convince a couple of professionals that I’m really talking to them from halfway to the grave. And, step three, get them to act for me.

  No problem.

  Pressure builds in my skull.

  Who am I kidding?

  My last shreds of positivity drain away. A headache flares behind my eyes. And if I’m feeling like that up here, it’s worse for Faith-in-the-bed. I force myself to take a rallying breath, and a couple more.

  Reality check: a trust, or anything else I can manage, would be fantastic, but it’s not critical. Tess’s happiness—that is critical.

  And how happy will she be when she’s hearing all those ‘your mum killed herself’ stories?

  My insides shrivel. Even as I think it I’m feeling the shame, the self-doubt she’ll heap on herself through her teens. I don’t know why, but I remember those feelings, and I’d do anything for Tess not to suffer them herself.

  Bottom line: she needs love and support. Plenty of it.

  Dry-mouthed, I assess and reject possibility after possibility, but it’s futile. My heart already knows there are only two ways of ensuring Tess’s happiness: wake up and live, or prove my suicide bid was actually an accident.

  # # #

  “You’re right.”

  Gran raises an eyebrow at me. “Fancy that.”

  “I need to stop thinking and do.”

  “Good.”

  “I need to know what really happened. So—” and why has it taken me more than a micro-second to decide this? “—I’m going to visit the accident scene.”

  Gran’s lips twist. She shakes her head. “Sorry, dear. Bad news.”

  More bad news. Joy.

  “I think you’ll find you can’t move that far.”

  “You’re joking.”

  She looks pained. “Sadly, no. Your link to your body is too strong. Test it. That’s the best way. Then you’ll know.”

  “But . . . how am I going to prove anything if I can’t move?”

  “Yes. Well. It’s going to be tricky.”

  Tricky? It’s going to be a damn sight more than tricky. It’s going to be impossible. If I can’t check the balcony how will I find evidence and prove it was an accident?

  Not that I’m Sherlock Holmes.

  Then again, maybe I am. Who knows?

  Gran.

  Hands on hips, I turn to face her. Yes. Gran knows. She knows way more about me than I do. She knows way more about everything, actually. She could be really useful, if only she’d do the decent thing and forget her stupid rules. It’s not like we’re sitting a bar exam or anything.

  Her gaze slides away from mine.

  “Come on, Gran. Help me out here. How else will I find the evidence?”

  “You’ll think of something.”

  “I have, Gran, and you’re the answer. I’m stuck here with—” I gesture at the bed “—her, but you’re dead. You can go wherever you like. You can do the detective work for me.”

  Our eyes meet, mine full of hope, hers rather more troubled.

  “Faith. Darling Faith.”

  She sighs deeply, as if my Darling status pains her.

  “I’m not sure how to say this, because you’re not going to like it and there’s really no way to dress it up.” She closes her eyes briefly. “I’m not allowed to use my afterlife skills to assist you in your life journey. Sorry. I’d love nothing more than to help you, but the rules of Death are quite categoric.”

  The rules of Death. Her words send a slithery shiver down my spine.

  Gran’s still speaking. I force myself to listen. “No spectator interference,” she concludes.

  “But you’re not a spectator. You’re my gran, Gran. You changed my nappies, taught me poker, checked out my boyfriends. I remember it all. That’s not spectating.”

  “True, but that was when I was alive.” She regards me with a nostalgic smile. “Life is interactive. We help each other travel our journeys. Once we pass over, though, our journey ends and we have . . .” She pauses, looking skyward, as if a word is going to fall out of the ceiling. “. . . knowledge. And with that knowledge comes power.”

  “That’s what I nee—”

  “Power,” she continues, “that in the hands of a living person would be so momentous it could negate their entire life’s learning. So you see, darling, once we pass over we must indeed become spectators. It’s the third rule of Death.”

  My stomach clenches tight. I don’t want a journey where I have to watch myself die, only to then watch my daughter eaten up by gossip and rumours that have nothing to do with her. What the hell kind of journey is that—for me, or for Tess?

  I open my mouth to speak but Gran beats me to it.

  “Look. I’m already stretching the rules just being here. I’m happy to be your sounding board, and keep you company, but anything more than that will land me in serious trouble. Purgatory serious,” she adds, with emphasis. “You may not like it, but this journey is yours and yours alone.”

  Fear whines in my ears. Loneliness carves up my soul. I’m going to die here, alone, in the dark, with people all around me who don’t even know I’m there.

  “I know you’re worried,” she continues. “And it’s true, critically ill people don’t always recover. Their journey, their task, may prove too difficult. But you’re an Osbourne, Faith. And we Osbourne women are made of tough stuff.”

  I avoid her gaze. I’
m pretty sure I missed out on the tough-stuff gene.

  Her lips curve briefly as she picks up my thought.

  “We’re intuitive, too,” she adds, then arches a brow at me. “You included. Trust your instincts, Faith. They’re right.”

  Hysterical laughter threatens. My only instinct is to curl up in the fetal position.

  Gran pointedly ignores that thought. “My advice is to practise. Practise moving, practise communicating, work out your limitations—then find a way around them.”

  Already I feel like a failure. She’s asking the impossible. How can I, a disembodied woman who doesn’t even know her own husband, rise above the rules of Death and win back my life?

  “You can,” says Gran. “Trust me. Do what I’ve said, trust your instincts and you’ll know who you can count on and what you have to do in order to succeed.”

  “You mean in order to stay alive,” I say flatly. Because that’s what she means, isn’t it?

  She hesitates. “Yes.”

  That’s me screwed, then. Because it doesn’t take an Einstein to see I won’t get out of this mess alive. And while it’s nice to see Gran and know there really is some kind of afterlife, the enormity of it all—my imminent Death—is overwhelming. A gulping sob escapes. I’m never going to hug my daughter at graduation, I’ll never tell Geoff he’s got his priorities wrong, and I’ll never work out who Nate is to me.

  Death sucks.

  Chapter Eleven

  A faint, feather-light touch to my cheek stirs me from sleep. I ease my bleary eyes open and see Geoff kissing Faith-in-the-bed’s cheek. But whereas Mum’s touch made me feel warm and loved, and Nate’s touch made me feel a very different kind of warm, Geoff’s kiss leaves me feeling . . . nothing.

  He straightens, and now I do feel something: relief. Then, close on its heels, confusion. Why don’t I like my husband being close?

  How long has he been here? The idea of him watching Faith-in-the-bed, talking to her, without my knowledge is unsettling. As is the fact that this is already Day Three. Today I’ll be halfway through the rest of my life.

  “I’ll drop by again later.” He shrugs into his jacket. “I’ve got to head in to work now.”

  Maybe I should feel upset that work comes first for him, but I don’t. This morning his absence suits me just fine.

  And, given Gran’s ‘trust your instincts’ comment, I’m comfortable feeling that way about my husband.

  Geoff pulls up short in the doorway, narrowly avoiding a collision.

  “Nate,” he says, with about as much pleasure as he’d get from wading through excrement.

  Nate raises an eyebrow but doesn’t respond.

  Geoff stands aside for the taller man. “I was just leaving.”

  “No problem.” Nate barely glances at him as he brushes past. “I didn’t come to see you.”

  I chuckle. Fair enough: insult for insult.

  Geoff doesn’t think it’s remotely funny, though. His expression turns territorial—but if Nate notices he doesn’t show it. He removes his jacket with casual ease and slings it over the bed-end, pointedly ignoring Geoff who, reddening, eyeballs him like a bullfighter facing the bull.

  Geoff opens his mouth to speak, then thinks better of it. Jaw tight, he about-turns and, without so much as a ‘goodbye’, strides off up the corridor.

  Only then does Nate allow himself the luxury of looking at the other man, undisguised loathing all over his face. Wow. There’s no love lost there.

  Finally, Nate blows out his cheeks, rotates his shoulders, and transfers his attention to Faith-in-the-bed. He approaches the bed and shoves his hands in his pockets, watching her as she breathes. In-two-three, out-two-three. In-two-three, out-two-three.

  “Sorry about that.” He closes his eyes. “I know, I know, I shouldn’t let him get to me.” He glances around the room. “Coffee. That’s what I need.”

  A pulse works at his throat. His gaze grows intense. “Actually, that’s not what I need and we both know it.”

  He pauses. His mouth quirks in a half-smile. “But we’re not going there, because we never go there, because you don’t want to go there, right?”

  The half-smile falls away. I wait, hoping he’ll clarify, but long seconds pass, marked only by the ventilator’s gentle p-shhhing.

  He stands there, motionless and silent—but his expression tells me more than I could learn from words. Nate’s angry. But I don’t think he’s angry with Geoff anymore. I think he’s angry with Faith-in-the-bed. Me.

  It doesn’t make sense. Faith-in-the-bed is barely alive, yet he looks like he wants to have a piece of her.

  Nate’s expression doesn’t change. I begin to feel uncomfortable. What’s his problem? Why is he here if we’re not on good terms?

  After what seems an aeon he takes a deep breath and pulls his hands from his pockets, clearly making an effort to haul himself out of whatever dark place he’s in.

  “You’re impossible, Pix, you know that?” Still he watches Faith-in-the-bed, but now his eyes are soft, tender.

  He steps close and bends to leave a lingering kiss on her forehead.

  “By the way,” he murmurs, “good morning.”

  My forehead tingles. My breath comes shallow. The room throbs with life, as if it’s just gone from black-and-white to colour.

  A chaotic mix of worry, confusion and excitement hits me. This isn’t good.

  He smothers a yawn. “I’m beyond tired. Think they’d hook me up to an IV and let me lie here with you?”

  He stretches, long and deep, and his tee shirt rides up, revealing tanned, taut muscles above his jeans. Languorous heat seeps through my body, and suddenly I’m seeing those muscles, feeling these feelings, in a whole different setting.

  His home. Everybody’s out. We’re sprawled on the couch listening to Red Hot Chilli Peppers.

  “You’re on. Go get the cards.”

  He stands and stretches, arms reaching for the ceiling, and I catch a glimpse of his belly, tanned and ripped. I stare. He has a six-pack. Nate’s grown into a man. When did that happen?

  I drag my eyes north, and he says, cocky as ever, “You know you’ll never win, right?”

  “Sure I will. I’m wearing way more than you.” I stand and lift the band of my hoodie. “See? Layers.”

  Layers that are about to come off, piece by piece, with every hand I lose. Suddenly my confidence deserts me. I’m a good poker player, and I know I can beat Nate and win this bet—but as I look into his eyes, and he looks into mine, the world shifts around us and suddenly this is about so much more.

  Nate takes a step towards me. He’s close enough to touch. My breath hitches. Languorous heat seeps through my body. He holds my eyes captive. Time stands still.

  —Stop this! Reluctantly, I pause the memory. It dates back at least ten years, but the feeling’s exactly the same.

  Well, I’m married to another man now. The past is the past—over. Gone. I can’t go thinking Nate’s anything but a friend to me, because he’s not. I married Geoff.

  “No, you’re right,” says Nate, and for a moment I think he’s agreeing with me. “The IV option’s out. Guess it’ll have to be hospital coffee instead.”

  He grimaces, yawns, murmurs, “Back soon,” and heads off in search of a coffee fix.

  The silence is full. Full of that memory. It wants to play out in its entirety, and I’m tempted—so tempted—to let it. But I mustn’t. Already I’m starting to believe Nate and I have a future together, and on the basis of what? Fragments of memory taken out of context, past hopes presenting as truths, and who knows what else my battered brain might be doing?

  So much for Gran’s trust-your-freaking-instincts comment. If Nate and I really had a future together, I wouldn’t be married—with a child—to another man. That’s the bottom line.

  I may not feel love for Geoff right now, but who am I to judge? I don’t have memories of all that we’ve shared. I don’t even remember him. And that’s not his fault.
/>   I owe it to my husband and Tess to wait for those memories to return. We’re family. Family. I’d never forgive myself if I woke up and broke our family unit, only to then rediscover the special something our marriage had been built on, once it was too late.

  I need to un-learn these feelings for Nate before it destroys my family. Because without family, what am I?

  # # #

  Nate’s not back yet, but I’m not bothered. I’m not. Truly. I’m too busy practising, trying to master the art of moving.

  Up, down, up, down . . .

  Okay, I am bothered. He said he’d be back, and he’s not. What might that mean?

  He also said he cared, but that’s the past coming back to haunt him. He’ll just want closure with me before I die.

  Oh, stop it, Faith! Stop thinking. Just practise. Practise like your life depends on it—which it does.

  Up, down, left, right . . .

  It’s not like he has nothing else to do. He must have work commitments and . . . well, life to be getting on with.

  What does he do for a living?

  Up, left, down, right . . .

  I pause, frown, scour my mind. That’s weird. I’ve had memories about him, I’ve listened to him talk about our past, but aside from the fact that his mother annoys him I don’t actually know much about the adult Nate.

  Who are you, Nate?

  I suppose I could ask myself the same question of Geoff, but it’s Nate who fascinates me, leaves me wondering . . .

  Up, down, left, right, up-left, down-right. Repeat. Repeat again. I’m so distracted, pondering the enigmatic Nathan Sutherland, that at first I don’t notice where I’ve gone.

  Through the wall.

  Shock ripples through me.

  I reverse back into my room and stare at the clinical-white, absolutely-solid wall. Everyone knows hospital walls are paper-thin, but there’s a big difference between hearing straight through them and passing straight through them.

  This half-dead business has loads of disadvantages, but if I can pass through solid objects . . . well, that could be quite useful.