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I remembered once hearing my mother say after my father had died suddenly, that she regretted not doing more travelling when he was alive.  I also remembered her often saying there never seemed to be enough time to get everything done, that there would be time enough later on to do all those things they never seemed to get around to doing.

It was a familiar lament made by many others during what seemed to be, rapidly passing years.  Until, inevitably, something completely unexpected happened, and equally inevitably, all those plans became moot.

For Janine and me that moment came when we were both sitting in the doctor’s surgery right after he told us the test results were not as good as he had hoped, and more tests were needed before he could positively tell us what was wrong.  Those words of my mother’s came back and hit me like a ton of bricks.

Janine had been tired much more than usual, and lately, everything had become much more difficult.  It was harder to get up in the morning, harder to contemplate cooking, let alone eating, and all those daily chores were more of a chore than before.  When I asked him to hazard a guess as to what the problem was, he refused to speculate but said it was possible he would know more after the next round of tests.

To be honest, I think he knew already.

I think Janine did, too, and was prepared to put a name to it simply because she was now living the same sort of life her mother had, as had her mother before her.  A rare and debilitating form of cancer.

Janine had known it was hereditary, but when it hadn’t affected her the same time as her mother and grandmother, she had believed it had slipped a generation.  Her mother had the first effects of it in her late 30s and died just before she turned 45.  Janine had reached 45 and wasn’t expecting it.  It could still be something else, the doctor said, but his expression that day was not one of hope.

After that first day, I wondered if our lives would end in a sea of regret, wishing that with the benefit of hindsight, we would have done things differently.  But there was a silver lining.  About a year before, we had talked about the possibility of her getting ill and had drawn up a bucket list and began to tick items off it.  Had Janine always known subconsciously that this might happen?

It was a question I was never going to ask her.

We had moved into the room we both knew was going to be Janine’s final home.  She was too weak and in too much pain to be far from the hospital, and this was, the doctor said, the final leg of the race.

I wanted to believe her when she told me she had made her peace with God and the rest of the world, and that she was not going to go out with any regrets.  We had not finished the bucket list, but we had given it a good shake.  I tried to be stoic in the face of her impending death, but sometimes, that was a little hard. 

We had been looking forward to growing old together, and it was one regret I found hard to reconcile.

Her favourite saying had become better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all. 

And then, one morning, she had asked, “Why was Margaret, given who she was and how badly she treated people and the fact you were one of them, was your first love?”

Margaret had been the subject of many a conversation in those first few months we dated after Margaret had effectively dumped me.  It had made Janine angry, and for that reason, Margaret was persona non grata

It was something I’d not thought about in a long time. I guess it had been on her mind, especially when in the beginning she had said she always believed she had been my second choice.

“You were never a second choice or the rebound girl,” I said then as I did now. 

And while I wanted to believe that was true, to a certain extent it was a lie.  If the truth be told, she had been there and had always had a ‘thing’ for me, and my sister had always maintained Janine had hoped Margaret would revert to type, untrustworthy to the point of inevitably letting me down.  My sister had also always believed Janine and I would end up together.  In her eyes, we were much better suited, and as time passed had proved.

But Janine asked in the next breath, had I always held a torch for Margaret, with the hope that one day she would come to her senses?

“When you accepted my proposal, my heart was never anywhere but with you,” I said, wondering why she was bringing the matter up now.  “I never had any intention of taking her back, or talking to her, not after what she did.”

“You had not the tiniest regret that you wouldn’t get to be with your first love?  After all, that’s the one that makes the most impact on your life and how it plays out over time.  I always believed part of you was always with her.”

Why would she think such a thing when I had never given her the impression that I was anywhere but with her?

“I have no regrets marrying you.  None.  Margaret sowed the seeds of her destruction for better or worse, and I was not inclined to rescue her or help her in any way when everything fell apart.  Going to see her a few months back was not because I was still interested in her or thinking we might get back together.  Just seeing her and what she had become was reason enough to stay away.  No, believe me when I say she was a bullet dodged.”

I didn’t understand why Margaret was even a subject for discussion in her last few weeks when we should have been reminiscing on what we had.  It caused me some concern she should ever think that she was not the woman I had wanted to be with for the rest of my life.

And what had brought this on? I had not mentioned Margaret since that night I left her at the restaurant, and I had made a point of not talking to Margaret either over the phone or by email.  She had tried to contact me, and I had ignored her.  There was nothing she could say that would make me think that she and I should be together.  Ever.

So, I had to ask why she was so worried about my loyalty or that she could ever think that my heart belonged to anyone else but her.  I had, I said, never given her reason to ever think it was not.

“Because she is about six rooms up the passage from here on life support.  She tried to commit suicide and I suspected that might have been because of something you said or did.”

It bothered me that she could think that, but I guess it was not entirely unexpected given her state of mind.  Margaret had never been the subject of any conversation when she was well.

When we first started dating, I told her exactly where I stood regarding Margaret, and it had never wavered since.  It had helped that Margaret was wise enough to stay away.  I might have done something stupid had she shown her face, even after her relationship with William had fallen apart.

I was never going to be her second choice or backup plan.  But I could see, now, those thoughts had crossed Janine’s mind, how the fear of being a second choice could be considered.  The thing is I had no idea how to reassure her I was not interested in Margaret, in a coma or not.

A few days later, though, when I put my head in the door of the room where Margaret was sleeping, I realised it was a mistake.  I should have realised Janine would have spies everywhere.  She was not normally this paranoid, but in her heightened state, everything would have a meaning even if I couldn’t comprehend what it was.

When I walked into the room, she had that expression on her face that I equated to trouble.  Much like being on the Titanic just before it sank.

“You went to see her,” she said before I could even sit down.

“It would seem out of place if I was not curious as to her condition.  And given the fact she was in a coma and didn’t know I was there, and the fact it was only for a few minutes, is hardly worth mentioning for obvious reasons.  You should not have told me if you didn’t want me to go there.”

Her health deteriorated rapidly, the doctor saying that once the pain reached a certain level, she would become virtually comatose because of the pain medicine.  That morning I reassured her that Margaret meant nothing to me and despaired that our last conversation was not of happier times.  The doctor had said the medication would mess with her thoughts, so I should just nod and agree.

That afternoon she slipped into the final stage, and for all intents and purposes, looked like an angel sleeping.  Twenty-three hours later, the longest period of my life, she died peacefully.  She opened her eyes just before passing and smiled. 

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©  Charles Heath  2024

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