J & P Book 6 - Remember Me And Smile

Chapter Two

"Next week?"

She looked up at him again, that fiery expression he recognised well, but that he'd so rarely been on the receiving end of over the years, in her eyes.

"Well, when I say next week, I mean, on Thursday. This Thursday coming. It's at the hospital. I was hoping you'd be able to come along with us."

Jenny stood up. "You had no right to make that appointment without consulting me, Patrick, and you know it."

"We can cancel it, Jenny, it's not a problem. Just give it some thought first, would you?"

"Paul did not want this for him, Patrick."

"I appreciate that, Jenny, but..." He almost said it but managed to stop himself. Paul wasn't here anymore.

"But what? What, Patrick?"

He sighed, standing up. "I'll go. Thanks for the drink, I'll leave it."

"No," Jenny said, softening somewhat. She moved closer to him. "I'm sorry. Let me just get my head around things. Have your coffee. Please."

She picked it up and passed it to him.

"If you're sure," he said, looking at her curiously. He hadn't seen her in person for almost a year, and she didn't seem to have aged in that time, despite the difficult year it must have been for her. He was acutely aware that his jet-black hair was starting to grey, and his face beginning to wrinkle; Claire never tired of pointing his faults out to him. But Jenny was timeless. Still the twenty-two-year-old beauty he'd fallen for across an open plan office, even though she was now actually almost forty.

She sat back down, picking up her tea. He mirrored her action and sat, too.

"It's not what Paul wanted," she said again. "But, I must take your wishes into account too, Patrick. I always wanted Andrew to have equal relationships with the two of you, and I know Paul felt the same way."

"I appreciate that, Jenny. You've both been very gracious over the years, considering you could have easily cut me out of Andrew's life when we separated."

Jenny nodded. "Does Andrew know about the appointment?"

"Yes. He wants to go through with it. He's hopeful that they'll find he isn't at high risk and then he can put your mind at rest."

Jenny sighed. "Paul was offered those tests when he was a teenager. He said no. He didn't want to know. He knew if he'd found out he was at high risk of developing the cancer, he'd feel like he was living with a death sentence. He wanted to live without that."

"I'm surprised," Patrick commented. "Given his profession."

Jenny nodded. "I think he knew he wouldn't win the fight, if it had been passed on, which it was, of course. At least he had, what, fifteen or so years free from that knowledge."

"Was this before you met that he made that decision?"

"Yes. He never told me. Didn't want to worry me. But, obviously, it came up in conversation in recent years." Jenny was staring into space. She looked so sad, so empty. It pained Patrick to see her looking so lonely.

"And what do you think?"

Jenny was still looking into the distance. "I think it needs to be Andrew's decision. I'll speak to him. And I'll make sure I'm there too, if that's what he wants." She took a drink of her tea.