“He’s very weak, Rory,” Aunt Tricia says, quietly, through the phone.

            What medical training Rory has, considering physiotherapy never prepares you for end-of-life care, kicks in. “How much longer do you think?”

            “The doctors say a year at most, with treatment.”

            “And he’s—doing the treatment?”

            “No.” Aunt Tricia clears her throat. Her voice is surprisingly strong, just a bit wobbly on certain syllables. “No, he doesn’t think that will do any good. He’s been through so much of it already. He’s done with that.”

            What must this be doing to her? Her husband, no longer her husband and yet still—technically they’ve remained married since he went to prison, even though she knows the truth and Rory knows she knows—miles away from her in a strange building, strange hospital, whom she’s only seen on visits, now suddenly home with her, wasting away before her, with her every moment.

            “So how long without treatment?” he dares to ask.

            “Four, five months at most. But—I don’t think he’ll make it that long, to be honest, Rory.”

            His aunt’s words hit him like bricks to the chest, to the stomach, to his head. Rory blinks; inhales. Uncle Paul: the person who taught him to ride a bicycle, who took him fishing, who introduced him to rugby, who opened his arms and said, “Come here, laddie,” who said it was all natural and affectionate—the one person who truly seemed to care about Rory—the one he clung to and the one he ran from—dying. Body and mind wasting away, deteriorating.

            He never thought this day would come, somehow.

            “I’ll come see him. Soon? Should it be soon? Like in the next week?” Rory tries to picture the calendar on his phone. He doesn’t have anything pressing coming up, and even if he did, he could cancel it. Those strong arms (hands) fill him with dread, but Uncle Paul is family. The one person who may have cared. Maybe.

            “You could likely come within the next month, I’d think.” Aunt Tricia is not sure. This is much worse than he’d previously thought. Previously she’d said he had cancer and was being treated. Previously the doctors thought they could get the cancer under control. Previously Rory never thought his uncle would be released from prison anytime soon.

            His uncle isn’t even sixty-five yet.

            “If you want,” Aunt Tricia continues. “Please don’t feel as if you have to, love.”

            “No, no, I’ll come.” Somehow he just has to go. He has to see him, one last time, for a reason or reasons he can’t even identify. He only knows that Uncle Paul is his uncle, more a father than his own father ever was. And yet. “I’ll look at my calendar and get a train down in the next few days. Or drive.” You can’t be too sure. He’s seen patients in physio go very quickly, very suddenly. Coming to appointments one week, gone the next. Rare cases, sure, but still they happen. And cancer is a different beast.

            “Good. I’ll let him know. I think—I appreciate it, Rory. He’s in a lot of pain, just be aware. He’s lost a lot of weight. I just want you to be prepared, love.”

            He hangs up shaking, trying to imagine Uncle Paul dying, dreading the trip, dreading entering that house. He’s only ever been to their house in Rotherham a few times, since they moved there when he was thirteen. He never wanted to go, and he doesn’t now.

            And yet. He is dying.

            And doesn’t it serve him right, Rory thinks.

            But no one deserves to die slowly, painfully, not even a child molester. Right?

            Rory is two people, two trains of thought in his head, two parallel tracks. How can they ever meet?

            He walks out of the kitchen slowly, wondering if he should wait a few days or go tomorrow. He could likely get a train tomorrow, and the trip shouldn’t take more than two hours. But driving would be nicer.

            “What’s up?” Martyn asks, looking up from the telly. He already knows who it was on the phone.

            Rory puts his hands behind his head, suddenly feeling as if he might crumble. “He’s—not well. I’m going to go see him.”

            Martyn sits up. “Yeah? You sure?”

            Rory pauses, then nods. He can’t not go; he’d feel worse doing that. “She doesn’t think—doctors say five months, she doesn’t think he’ll last that long.”

            Martyn sighs. Rory says, “They let him out.”

            “Did they?” Martyn blinks at the telly. “Blimey. I’m sorry, mate.”

            Rory is, too. Sorry for what has already occurred and what is to come, and everything in between.

            He searches for trains on his phone, then says, “Might be faster if I drive down.”

            “Might.” Martyn nods.

            He quickly calculates the distance. “There’s a train going out tomorrow at nine twenty, takes five hours. Driving is supposedly faster.” According to the app on his phone. He’ll leave by seven, get back by evening.

            “You want company?” Martyn looks at him, and Rory can’t look away, that loyal face that has already followed him to the depths of hell and back, through the trial years ago and reliving everything, the best friend anyone could ever have. Family, even. He can’t make Martyn go through any more of this. But Martyn is offering, the generous twit. And if there’s one thing Rory’s learned, it’s that when Martyn offers, he really means it.

            “Your car, you drive, I’ll just be the passenger.” Martyn stands, taking his plate to the kitchen. “Unless you’d rather be alone.”

            “No, no.” The last thing Rory wants is to be alone on this trip. “I hate for you to have to—see any of it, though.”

            “I’ll go out in the garden, won’t I? I’ll leave you all alone, give you your space.”

            Rory nods and goes out to check his tyres.

#

            The house is dark and quiet, except for what Rory thinks might be an oxygen machine, but when he glances past Aunt Tricia into the lounge he sees no machinery. Just Uncle Paul, sounding like a machine, chest rising and falling like incredibly high ocean waves.

            Something twinges in Rory’s stomach. He and Martyn have come for the day; no longer. Perhaps he should regret not staying longer.

            “It’s good to see you again,” Aunt Tricia is murmuring to Martyn, who will stay out here in the hall or wherever he wants to go, so Rory wanders into the lounge. Then he stops, as if an invisible wall prevents him from going any further, his body screaming Death, death, death, run away. The room is dimly lit by the weak morning sun coming through the blinds, lighting up part of the bed and Uncle Paul’s left hand. On the side table—the sofa has been moved, where in this small house Rory doesn’t know—are various pill bottles, a glass of water with a syringe and straw, tissues, plastic packs of what looks like Butec. Uncle Paul lies incredibly still, eyes closed, flat on his back, his chest rising like a balloon’s inflated it, then lowering like nothing’s there at all. He is rail thin, so thin Rory is sure that under the blankets and his shirt, every bone is visible. Yet his face is clean-shaven, the way he always liked it. The thought makes Rory’s stomach roll.

            Aunt Tricia enters behind him, going around to the other side of the hospital bed. Uncle Paul moves one leg, barely but enough to shift the covers, and Aunt Tricia takes his hand. “Paul, Rory’s here to see you.”

            Rory’s heart beats like a hammer, harder and faster than he expected so quickly, snatching away his breath. How can he do this? It’s just like before, it’s just like all those times, except it’s Rory finally coming to him instead of the other way round, coming and letting him—

            “Rory,” Uncle Paul says, half a question, and Rory’s throat closes and he sees grey. That voice, that dreaded voice, now so weak. He wouldn’t wish such pain on anybody.

            Uncle Paul’s eyes are half open, and Rory steps up closer, closer, seeing the Butec patch on Uncle Paul’s left arm, his veins, his yellow-tinged skin. Yellow already.

            Uncle Paul moves his head, focusing on Rory. His eyes aren’t yellow yet at least, a good sign, or perhaps not. His lips tilt into a smile, weak but reaching his eyes, and his hand moves, lifting off the blanket. Rory grasps it almost without thinking, and immediately wishes he could let go, but he can’t, not when Uncle Paul is hurting, dying.

            The hand is bony, rough, still warm. He will not think of all the previous times Uncle Paul reached out to him. Touched him. He is only doing this to comfort.

            “Good to see you,” Uncle Paul says, voice scratchy, his lungs working their damndest lifting his chest up and down like a suction mechanism.

            “It’s good to see you,” Rory says, wondering if he’s lying or not. “Nice setup here.”

            “Isn’t it?” Uncle Paul grins, coughs, then grimaces, eyes closing. Rory rubs his hand with his thumb, up and over the knuckle, back and forth, trying to imagine it’s one of the elderly patients he works with at the hospital. He is only here to comfort.

            Aunt Tricia says, “I’ll be in the kitchen,” and walks out. She doesn’t look awful, but she’s a nurse, albeit not a hospice one; she’ll hold up until the end.

            Rory could never be a hospice nurse or doctor. He’d never know what to say. At least with physio you’re doing something, suggesting things, talking about what can be done for improvement. With physio there is always hope.

            Uncle Paul’s eyes flicker open again. “How are you?” Rory asks, hating that question, but what else is there to say?

            Uncle Paul grimaces, half smiles. “Getting along.”

            “Good.” Rory rubs his hand a bit firmer and swallows down whatever’s in his throat, not knowing what else to say.

            “Good to be home.”

            Rory lets his thumb stop moving but continues holding the hand, trying not to feel it, wondering what he endured in prison, wondering if he blames him for it. It was Rory, after all. All him. Rory put him there.

            “How’s . . .” Uncle Paul inhales. “Life, for you, lad?”

            Rory wants to be sick at the familiar nickname, but at least it’s not more intimate. “Fine. Still working in Glasgow, at the hospital. Good work.” He had been so relieved to move to Scotland when Martyn took the job there. Away, away from everyone, from everything he’d ever known. But Martyn was right; you can’t ever completely get away.

            “Aye. You’re good at . . . helping people.”

            Rory never thought Uncle Paul cared much about that. He should have known. He knew, years ago, that Uncle Paul was just a person, just a man. He is no different now.

            Uncle Paul moves his leg, face contorting, and Rory says, “You in pain?” Those patches are long-lasting, but sometimes the long-lasting drugs aren’t quite as strong.

            Uncle Paul doesn’t say anything, as Rory figured he would. “You want anything?” Rory asks. “I mean can I get you anything? A book, or food, or . . .?”

            Uncle Paul smiles at him and barely squeezes his hand. “Nah, ‘m all right, lad.” His cheeks are sunken, skin hanging off the bones.

            Rory nods, feeling the death all around, his skin prickling.

            “It means a lot—to see you,” Uncle Paul wheezes, barely squeezing Rory’s hand again. Rory squeezes back, holding the dead weight of the hand, a strange hand, less his uncle’s than some unknown dying man’s. Uncle Paul’s getting tired; his eyes won’t stay open.

            “I had to come.”

            Uncle Paul blinks at him, wondering. Can he see right through Rory? Can he see that Rory doesn’t mean it? But Rory really does, in some way, too. Rory always loved him, everything else be damned. He has to know that. There is no more time left.

            “I love you,” Rory says simply, throat closing up, and he tilts his head back to stare at the ceiling, swallowing down tears. When he looks back Uncle Paul’s eyes remain closed, but he mumbles, “I know, lad.”

            Please know, Rory thinks, but he said he does, and that has to be enough, and Rory’s going to break anyway, he needs to get out of here. “I love you too,” Uncle Paul mumbles, barely audible, and Rory’s entire body seizes, holding itself together, trembling in the dusty light. Uncle Paul is nearly asleep, still breathing like a freight train, and Aunt Tricia is back in, leaning over him, checking everything the way a nurse does. Rory stands. “He’s tired,” Aunt Tricia says, and Rory nods, collecting himself.

            “If you need anything,” he murmurs, hands on her arms, “you let me know.”

            “Of course, love.” She hugs him. The odds of her letting him know are nil, but he had to say it anyway. He can do nothing else for her.

            “You tell me if—let me know,” he says.

            She nods. “I will. Thank you for coming.” She smiles at him, sad. Tired, too. Has she been crying? He cannot tell. She will undoubtedly be glad as well when this is all over; perhaps more than Rory. Rory hates himself for the thought.

            “Of course.” He steps towards the door and she turns that way, so he walks out, into the entrance hall, dark and gloomy. Martyn slips into the hall from another room, silent.

            “Have a good trip back,” Aunt Tricia says, lingering near the lounge, and he and Martyn nod and wave and shut the door quietly, walk down the steps to the car.

            In an unspoken agreement Martyn gets in the driver’s side, and Rory sinks into the passenger seat, the sunlight bright, Martyn’s phone playing the Arctic Monkeys.

            “How’s he doing?” Martyn asks, pulling onto the road.

            Rory shrugs. “He’s dying.” He hears Uncle Paul’s breathing, sees his sallow face, his dull eyes, his soul. Dying.

            He cries.

            Not yet to the motorway Martyn pulls into a car park of an electronics shop, shutting off the engine. Rory stares out the window, unable to face him, but still the tears come, the image of the face, the fear and powerlessness and inevitability. He should have said something more. He should have been a better nephew. But Uncle Paul should have been a better uncle.

            No matter now; all is forgiven. Damn, he should have forgiven him verbally, he should have, he should have, he should have. Would it mean anything to an unrepentant man? It doesn’t matter; Rory should have anyway.

            “Come here,” Martyn says, reaching over the centre console, and Rory gives in to him, crying into his jumper, probably getting snot all over it too, but it’s not the first time that’s happened.

            When he can finally catch his breath Rory says, “I should have said more.”

            Martyn watches him. “What did you say to him?”

            “I told him—I loved him. But I should have forgiven him.”

            “Should you have?” Martyn asks, eyes on the road as he starts the car up again.

            Rory’s breath hangs in his throat, suspending him. Should he have? He knows he thinks he should, but does he really want to? Should he really have to? He doesn’t know. He has no idea at all.

– Erin Donoho