LUCY
I couldn't find the Ladies....must've raced past it in my fugue. Discovered a unisex disabled toilet instead, tucked into a corner near the stairwell.
After locking the door behind me I stop dead in the middle of the tiled floor. Hugging myself and shaking like a leaf. Praying that the dam inside will finally burst after all these months, and give me some relief.
Even if it's only a tiny little leak? Pleeeease?
If it doesn't, and soon? I think....I know....that I'm just going to implode under the immense pressure of the emptiness engulfing me. Become a black hole and the nothingness will stay forever.
***
I didn't cry when that loathsome thief called Alzheimer's climbed into his head two years ago. Took him away before any of us fully realised or even came to grips with it.
Stole my Daddy, then cruelly and briefly handed him back on occasion. An hour or two if we were really lucky. Before he was taken hostage once more.
And I didn't cry when I went home for my usual monthly visit. When Mummy finally fessed up about her bowel cancer. Far too advanced by then for anyone to do anything....but wait.
This time, I didn't leave. My old bedroom became my haven once more.
I had to be the strong one, that was my job. To be strong....and not allow anything to get me or them down. Love them....
Keep my chin up so they won't feel sad. Get them through another day, and then another. Love them....
Look after them. Take care of them both, just as they did for me while I was growing up. Love them....
And that's just what I did for the last....for their final six months.
I loved them.
Only it wasn't a job. And from the beginning to the end it never was. It's just....it's just what you do!
When you love someone more than anything in the universe? That kind of love is never a labour.
If I had the hindsight of all the terror, pain, sadness, fear, loneliness and heartbreak....
Would I have still done it?
Stayed home. Loving....caring for them day and night.
Even after Mum demanded that I put her in a hospice, and place Dad in a full-time care facility. Said I should be living my own life instead of watching theirs end.
It was the only order of hers that I ever dared to disobey in my entire life. And I think that deep down? Mummy was secretly relieved when I flat-out said no.
How could I ever send them off to die amongst strangers? I'd never be able to forgive let alone live with myself afterwards....never!
Dylan had summed it up, at the airport when I left Australia.
Even though I'll always wish it never had to be in the first place.
In a heartbeat....I'll do it all again for them....in a heartbeat. Forever. For the ones I love.
Mum died on the Monday in the early evening.
LaLa arrived home a few weeks beforehand. We took turns staying in her bedroom and were both by her side by the end.
It wasn't....peaceful.
I had to tell Daddy, even though he was lost in his own little world.
Yet something must've gotten through? My words or maybe the utter agony in my voice, that I tried to hide from him.
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