“Egg and bacon toastie,” a voice from behind the counter calls out.
She got up to get her lunch then nodded to me for us to go. “I’ll eat this in my room. I have to go back now.” The walk back to her room seemed to take so much longer, she walked slowly holding my hand as we wandered down the corridor.
At her door she turned round and gave me a hug, “Thank you. I love you, remember that.”
“I love you too, sweetheart. I’ll come again later this week.”
“Yes, do,” then she went into her room and closed the door.
I asked one of the nurses, “How long will she be here this time?”
“Sorry, I don’t know. Depends on how long she takes to respond to treatment,” he replied.
I nodded and signed myself out.
I didn’t feel ready to leave yet, so I sat at a bench near the carpark looking out at the bushland round the hospital. Magpies were warbling their reassuring tune, and parrots and lorikeets swooped in and out of the gum trees as if watching me. I sat for a while; it became cooler as the afternoon lengthened, but I was reluctant to go.
Then I noticed a silver car drive in and park straight outside the hospital. A man in a dark grey suit got out, looked over at me and waved. I shook my head and blinked, hoping it was just an illusion. As I watched him walk to the front door, the sunlight stretched out and wrapped him in a glowing light, and he was no more. I hurried back down to the ward but the door was locked, and I could see through the glass doors nurses and other people in white coats running back and forth, wheeling machines through the corridor and to her bedroom.
The man in the dark grey suit walked through the glass doors towards me and as he brushed past me whispered, “She wanted to go alone. Go home.”
Hers was the long and painful journey. I recall the last roll of the dice on the roulette wheel and know that that one is mine. It has been two years now, I try not to count the days. I know now what to expect, the same silver car and the man in the dark grey suit. I wonder whether it will be sudden or more drawn out? I pack my bags and look at my airline ticket, reassuring myself that the date and destination is correct. I’ve decided to die at home, where it all began, a small hilltop village in Greece, close to my ancestors, close to the Mediterranean Sea.
