I was between a rock and a hard place. Despite what Trish
had said about there being no reason for me to feel guilty about looking for
female company, how could I not feel
guilty? How would I live with my conscience, knowing I would be breaking my
promise that I would never let it happen again? And if I did go ahead, as sure
as eggs were eggs Liz would know. She knew me as well as I knew myself.
Possibly better. All it would take was a fraction less eye contact than usual,
a subtle shift in my body language, or a miniscule change in my speech.
Trish could be right in saying Liz would probably tell me to
go ahead if she knew I had a problem, but equally she could be wrong. She was,
after all, just expressing an opinion. If only I knew how long Liz would live.
If I knew, I would probably find the strength to hang on. But nobody knew. The
problem was, how long was I expected to wait? I had held off doing something
about it for years already.
I had two sleepless nights stewing over it and decided to
have a word with the family. It they said they thought it was okay for me to go
ahead, I would go ahead. And if they thought I should wait? Well, I would cross
that bridge when I came to it.
I suspected that Caroline and Greg would be all right with
it, and when I phoned them and explained I turned out to be right. They both
told me to do what I had to do. I didn’t think, however, that Kristen would see
it that way. I would need to handle it very carefully with her. She saw her
mother every day, and a phone call was not the way to put it to her. I called
her and said there was something I
needed to talk to her about.
“Is it something we could discuss over the phone?” she said.
“I’m a bit tied up at the moment.”
“Not really,” I said. “And it is quite important.”
“I could come over before I pick the children up from
school? About two o’clock?”
“That would be fine. I’ll see you then.”
“There’s nothing’s wrong is there? I mean, Mum’s OK? Well,
you know what I mean.”
“No, nothing’s wrong.”
“How did you get on with your counselling session?”
“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”
An extract from my book WILL YOU TELL HER, OR SHALL I? A
true story. My story. The story of how I lived with the ten-tear terminal
illness of my wife. Available on www.booksthepublishersmissed.com
Twitter: Maximillian19
FB: facebook.com/Booksthepublishersmissedcom
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