Love story

62

"It's my fault," Toby's shaky voice woke me suddenly from a restless sleep. I rolled over to find him lying on his back staring at the ceiling. His pillow was wet from tears, so was mine. I looked at the clock beside my bed,
"Toby it's four in the morning, go back to sleep. And it's not your fault," I whispered,
"It is." His voice was filled with sadness and anger, "I had cancer, there's a gene isn't there? The cancer gene? I gave our beautiful, kind, sweet little daughter cancer. She's five years old Spencer. She's only five years old."

I didn't know how to respond to that, there was no real way to make Toby feel better when he got like this. I put my arm around him and kissed his forearm. Then, at some point, we must have fallen asleep.

That afternoon we told Poppy. Toby and I fought back tears to try and make poppy less afraid but she could sense that we were upset and that, combined with her slightly irrational fear of hospitals made her eyes fill with tears.

I cradled her in my arms like she was a baby again and tried to make her feel better. But I couldn't.

Have you ever just looked at someone and thought, my freaking god I love you. I adore every ounce of you. I never want to lose you. My god I could lose everything but not you. Never you.

That's what I feel when I looked at Poppy and at Jake and at Toby.

And now there was a chance that I really would lose Poppy and I couldn't let that happen.

"I know what I need to do," Toby said, sitting opposite me at the kitchen table. For the first time since we heard the news Toby didn't look completely helpless. Somehow this made me feel a pang of hope which I brushed aside. You know what they say about hope- it breeds eternal misery.

"What?" I asked
"I'm going to join the army Spence. To pay for Poppy's treatment, to make sure that she gets better." He must have seen the shocked look on my face. "She has to get better and as things stand I don't think we'll be able to afford her treatment if I don't do this." He looked proud of himself.

"Toby you can't do that you'd be  gone for like six months! Something terrible could happen to you!" Even as I was saying it I knew that it was a good idea. I hated the idea of something bad happening to Toby but I also knew that there wasn't really any other way to pay for her treatment.

Toby saw it in my eyes and he even smiled slightly,

"Spencer I'm doing it. I'm joining the army, I'm joining the army for Poppy."