Thank u from the bottom of my heart. xxxx
I take my torchlight out of my car’s glove compartment and go into the mouth of the cave. It is dark and dry. My shoes sink into the soft sand. After a while, the soft sand gives way to rock and I start to hear the sound of water dripping. A few yards later I come to the flooded area of the cave. I take my shoes and socks off and rollup my pants, then wade through the water.
When I reach dry stone, I put my socks and shoes back on and walk for another ten minutes or so through the twisting tunnel. It opens out to sheer drop into the sea. BJ is sitting at the end of it. He’s so heavily slumped he looks like a rock in the darkness. He has an oil lamp beside him. I switch off my torch. As far as the eye can see is the ocean. In the moonlight, it glistens like a black, oily mass. Arching over it, the sky is a blanket of stars.
I notice that he’s barefoot. He must not have bothered to put his shoes back on. I sit at the edge beside him and let my feet dangle down. He is holding a bottle of rum.
‘Layla was worried about you,’ I say.
He passes the bottle over to me. I take a swallow and return it. He takes a swig and wedges it between his thighs.
‘It’s funny, isn’t it? There was a time I wished I knew what it was like to be with her, even for a moment. I guess I got my fucking wish. So I can’t complain too much.’
I take the bottle of rum from him and take a huge mouthful.
He turns towards me. ‘If you carry on like this you won’t be able to drive me back to her. That’s what you’re here for, isn’t it?’
‘That’s true. That’s what she wanted from me.’
‘And what Layla wants, Layla gets,’ he says bitterly.
I frown. ‘At first I, too, wanted her to terminate the pregnancy, but now I understand that she is making a moral decision. And that is her right. I can’t force her. She wants to do the right thing, the thing that she can be proud of. I didn’t realize my sister was such a little hero.’
He takes another swig and stares at me bleary-eyed. ‘Yeah. I know. I want to support our little hero and everything, but I can’t. You see, I only ever wanted her. I cannot ever remember a time when I’ve wanted another. All my life, I was waiting for her. And now she wants me to give her the OK to go and risk her life for a fetus that has a high probability of spontaneously miscarrying anyway. How the hell can I be expected to support that?’
‘What will happen if you don’t support her and … something happens?’
He makes a sound. A grunt of deep pain. ‘Something? Define something.’
I remain silent. It’s impossible to say the words.
‘Here’s a question for you, then. What if it was Lily this was happening to?’
I grab the bottle and glug down so fast I have a coughing fit. BJ thumps me on the back. ‘Well, that’s no way to answer the question.’
I look him in the eye. ‘At first, I thought I’d rather tear that baby with my own hands than let it destroy Lily. But a baby is a miracle, BJ. And if Lily wanted it, even if it killed me, I’d support her. I’d do whatever it took to ensure that she got the best holistic support. I’d have the best doctors in the world waiting in the wings, weeks in advance, to pull that baby out of her.’
‘Ah yes, pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional. Smile through da pain.’
‘You’ve got to get your shit together man. Layla needs you like never before.’
‘Never in a million years did I ever think I would be in this situation. I feel like a mastodon dying from hundreds of crude spears in my flesh.’
‘Come on. Let’s get you back.’
He stands and sways slightly before righting himself against the wall of the cave, then turns to go.
‘BJ,’ I call.
He turns to face me. He’s so broken. He looks nothing like the great fighter I once faced. At that moment I realize that he might not be able to survive without Layla. I had been wrong about him. He truly loves my sister.
‘I’m sorry I made you have the commitment ceremony,’ I say.
‘I didn’t do it for you.’
He picks up the lamp and starts moving into the dark passage. With a sigh, I follow him.
THIRTY-EIGHT
Layla
Maddie asks me to lunch and we arrange to meet in an Italian restaurant halfway between both our workplaces. I arrive first and am sitting with a bottle of mineral water when she walks through the door. She does not smile when her eyes meet mine. Not even as she slips into the chair opposite me.
‘How are you?’ she asks.
‘I’m fine,’ I say, surprised by her unfriendly demeanor.
‘Yeah?’ Her jaw is clenched, and her tone is an inch away from downright hostility.
I don’t react to it. ‘Yeah. I’m all right. I’m not in pain or anything like that.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes, really,’ I say, knowing that she is brewing towards some kind of confrontation.
‘Well, you’re the lucky one, then. Because I’m in pain, and I bet you’ve got poor BJ bleeding his heart out.’
I stare at her in astonishment.
Her eyes stab at me angrily. ‘I never thought I’d say this but you’re so cruel, Layla. How could you do this to all of us?’ She takes a shuddering breath before carrying on. ‘We love you so much, and there you are giving it all up for a … a … fucking fetus. It doesn’t love you like we do. Fuck, it doesn’t even feel.’
I sense myself start to crumble inside. My defenses are weak. Everyday I am fighting to keep it all together when all I want to do is weep. Because I’m the one who could lose everything.
Blindly, I reach for a packet of breadsticks and tear it open. All around us are the civilized, muted sounds of cutlery against plates, conversation, laughter, and piped music.
Don’t cry, Layla. Just don’t do it.
I pull a stick out and bring it to my mouth, but my body doesn’t want it. One part of me says it is full of preservatives another part simply feels too sad to even pretend to eat. No one truly understands. Not Ma, not Jake, not BJ, and now, not even Maddie. Tears are stinging at the backs of my eyes. I blink them away, and place the breadstick back on the pristine tablecloth so it is almost perfectly aligned with the knife.
‘Cruel,’ I whisper, my eyes fixed on the knife.
‘Yes, cruel,’ Maddie repeats vehemently. Her voice is strong, indignant, and throbbing with moral righteousness.
I raise my eyes. ‘I’m not cruel, Maddie. You know what is cruel? This world is cruel. Fate is cruel. The God that decided that I should have a malignant cancer growing in my womb at the same time as my baby is cruel. And I’ll tell you what else is cruel. Asking me to kill my own baby is cruel.’
But Maddie is unmoved. ‘We all have to make horrible decisions. Our politicians kill hundreds of totally innocent people everyday in the Middle East and just call it collateral damage. A fetus is not even a proper person,’ she cries passionately.
‘Is it right? Shall I do it just because they do it?’
‘No.’ She stops a moment to change tack. ‘Doesn’t your great love for BJ count for more than this unborn fetus?’
‘Love is love. You don’t understand. It’s the little and unimportant things that give a person away. They call it the waitress test. You can always tell a person by the way he or she treats a waitress. And that’s because the waitress stands for someone who has no future value to you. If I claim to love this baby, then what I do to it will ultimately decide how I will love and treat BJ. How much I will be willing to sacrifice for him if he needed me to?’
‘I don’t want you to die,’ she wails suddenly, her eyes suddenly brimming with tears.
‘Oh Maddie,’ I sigh, and reach out for her hand. Her hand is cold and limp. I grasp it strongly. ‘This is not a death sentence. I am taking a calculated risk. Something we take everyday without knowing we are. I could get struck by lightning while I am sleeping in my bed, or get run over while I am crossing the ro
ad, or get shot while I am in a cinema by a man who is drugged up to his eyeballs with psychotic drugs.’
Maddie sniffs but she is listening intently to me.
‘It may sound like I am being careless, but I am not. I promise you, I’m not. I am going by the findings of the Nobel prize winner, Sir MacFarlene Burnet, who said cancer cells are not foreign bodies. They are defective, mutated cells produced in the hundreds by our bodies. In a normal immune system they are naturally and quickly destroyed. The problem arises when our immune system is compromised, and does not trigger an attack on these rogue cells. So a tumor is not a problem, but a symptom of a failing immune system.’
I take a deep breath. This explanation is as important for me as it is for her.
‘Therefore, I’m going to the source of problem. I am going to fix my immune system so it will do the job that it is designed to do. I truly believe the body has powerful healing abilities of its own.’