Teach Me(42)

“Be a doll and get us some coffee, love,” Mum’s sister, Aunt Betty, interrupts. She’s talking to me, of course. She’d never send Kat on errands.

Just make it through the day, I order myself as I head down the narrow hospital staircase, the back stairs that stink of disinfectants and something else, something fouler. I don’t want to think too hard about it.

At the shitty hole in the wall that passes for a cafeteria, I fill up a tray with coffees, because I know everyone else will demand one as soon as they see Betty’s. Betty, her husband Ralph (married since college), my mother (ditto), Kat and Raul (“finally settling down,” at the ripe old age of 28, as Mum put it), Dad’s two older sisters (married for 35 and 40 years respectively before their husbands passed away, though they still wear the rings), the whole bloody clan. At least my cousin Tina didn’t tag along with her deadbeat drug-addled husband to wave the enormous rock (which he probably bought with money he made selling X to teenagers) in our faces. Never mind that he’s a worthless sack of shite—Tina married him, so in Mum’s eyes, they’re both doing great.

I lug the coffees back upstairs and pass them out to the crowded waiting room. When I reach Mum, she wipes tears from her eyes. “Thank you, Jack.”

I soften, taking a seat beside her. I’m being an arse. She’s clearly worried, and rightly so. The doctors said it’s worse this time. The mass that was in his liver two years ago, which we thought had gone into remission, is back. Along with more tumors in his stomach and his esophagus.

It doesn’t look good.

“How are you holding up?” I ask her under my breath.

She leans on my shoulder and sighs. “I don’t know. I just want him to be okay. But if he’s in pain, then maybe it’s better if . . . ”

I pat her hair, but then she sits up and draws in a deep sniff.

“Let’s talk about something else.” She forces a smile, and I know what’s coming. “How are you doing? How’s that lovely lass of yours? You know, we haven’t seen Hannah in over a year—I saw on her Facebook page that she’s back at Oxford. Why didn’t you tell me? We could have driven down to visit!”

“She’s not my lass,” I mutter. “We split up, remember?”

“Oh, you always say that, but you always end up right back with her.” She slaps my knee for emphasis. “She’s the only one who will put up with you, Jacky-Boy, so you better seal that deal fast if you know what’s good for you. You already let the others all slip through your fingers. Pretty soon there will be no women left!”

“Can we not have this conversation now?”

“When is a better time?” She gestures at the family around us. At my sister and the fiancé she hardly knows. At Aunt Betty and Uncle Ralph, currently bickering over whose coffee has more cream. At Dad’s sisters in the far corner, glaring at all of us in their usual judgmental way, like they’re evaluating which one of us is the biggest disappointment of all. “Surrounded by a family that wants better for you. Outside the room of your dying father, who I know wants you to find your place and settle down for good.”

“I’m already in my place, Mum.”

She only pats my cheek. “Temporarily. But you need a real home, Jack, a real woman to take care of you, kids to give you purpose.”

I push back my chair to stand. “I’m going to go see him.”

“He’s sleeping, the doctors said—”

“I’ll be quiet,” I say, already halfway to his room. Really, I just need to get away from all of them. The pressure of all their combined glares at once is more than I can stand.

It’s dark in Dad’s room, quiet but for the soft blip of machinery around him. It is sad to see him like this, the wrinkles on his face more pronounced now, his hairline completely receded and white, his skin pale and flecked with sweat. I ease into the chair beside his bed, careful not to wake him, and finally, I let myself relax.

It doesn’t last long.

“They convinced you to come, I see. Thank your sister for me, would you? I’m sure she had to force you into this.”

I glance over at the bed to find him studying me, his usual, ever-present frown hovering at the corners of his mouth. I bring that out in him. “Of course I came,” I say, because it sounds better than what I’m really thinking, which is Do you even give a shit?

“Alone as usual, I presume?”

I grit my teeth. Be nice, he’s sick. “You know me. Regular lone wolf.”

“When are you going to get serious, Jack? Your sister finally got her act together, Lord knows it took her long enough. You’re supposed to be the older brother, set a good example. Instead, you’re, what, thirty now, and still as lost as ever.”