A Second Chance Ch. 01

"Craig!" she gasped when she saw me, and her tears told me this was serious.

"Di, Honey, what's up?" I was flapping how.

She picked up her nurse buzzer and pressed the button,

"I've just called a nurse and she'll get the doctor to come and talk to you, but..." she almost lost it, "I have final stage pancreatic cancer."

She'd been feeling unwell for a while but being my sister, insisted it was just a spring bug and she would snap out of it.

I sat on her bed taking her hand. She squeezed it, but with nowhere near the strength she would have previously.

The nurse arrived,

"Mr Douglas? I'll go get the doctor."

She came back with two, and the curtains were pulled around us,

"Mr Douglas," said the first, his red surgical scrubs separating him from his blue scrubs A&E colleagues. "I'm Doctor Holland, surgical oncology registrar."

"Craig, Please," I said with a smile.

"I'm afraid it's not good news for Diana here Craig, has she told you?"

"Pancreatic Cancer? Yes, just."

"I'm so very sorry," he said, "We've blood-tested and scanned and all of the worst things have happened, and the cancer has spread and is beyond our treatment." He reached down and took Di's other hand, "Diana, I promise that we'll make you as comfortable as we possibly can in the meantime and put you in touch with all of the help that's out there."

"Until I die..." she said.

"Yep," said the Doctor simply, "sorry."

He explained some of the bits and pieces and explained the symptoms she'd had and what they meant, and how this cancer was so particularly hard to spot and so often terminal.

Di did her usual, and got straight down to business,

"So, Doc, how long do I have, or can't you tell me?"

"Only an educated guess Diana," he looked at the A&E Doctor, "About a month or six weeks, could be more, could be less."

"And there's nothing you can do?" I said.

"Sorry Craig, we're past the treatment phase now and it's all just going to be palliative from now on." He squeezed Di's hand again, "So sorry Diana."

I saw Di straighten up, business-like, just as she so often was.

"Well, let's get on with it then..."

I sat on the bed and Doctor Holland told us what to expect, what we could do, and he took my contact details. A nurse appeared with another tablet computer and asked more question, telling us that she would have things delivered, and it would probably be that afternoon, and she had already contacted the district nursing team.

Di said that as far as she was concerned that was it, she would contact solicitors and check her last will and testament, then once that was done, she would just stop eating and drinking and let nature, and the illness, take its course. No point in hanging around and being in pain, fuck it.

"I've always felt that it's the height of good manners to know when to leave the party, Craig," she said to my stunned face.

The doctor noted her decision on the tablet PC they all seemed to carry around with them, he also told her that he had no problem with that process and again, the health service would ensure that she was kept comfortable.

Duly released and dressed, I pushed her out of the hospital in a wheelchair and to a specialist taxi, then back to her place.

"I could have fucking walked to the taxi Craig!" said my terminally ill big sister in the back of the car.

I made her comfortable on the sofa in her spacious ground floor sitting room, confident that a hospital style bed would be delivered later that day or evening.

It came at just gone five o'clock and was set up, in time for a couple of district nurses to arrive and help Di into it. I took a step out of the room and Di changed into a nightdress and at the suggestion of the nurses had a catheter fitted.

I knocked on the door and brought tea in.

"Not for me Craig," said Di, "I've eaten and drunk my last honey, sorry."

It hit home right then. She had gone with her hospital decision, and wasn't hanging around for whatever painful end the cancer would bring. The nurses smiled at me at my stoic and sensible sister, they'd done this many times over, of course.

I contacted my Boss and told him I'd be working from home for a few weeks, from my sister's home in fact, while she... well, until she died in about two to three weeks' time.

My Boss Ray was brilliant.

"Shit, Oh Christ! Craig, mate," he said, "Don't worry about a thing, I'll take you off the rota, ignore the email and switch off your phone, call me... call me whenever mate, I really mean that, anything I can do, any time, honest."

I did precisely that.

Next, I had to ring Anna, to tell her that I wouldn't be back for a while and the reason why.

"Craig!" she said softly and with some sense of relief, "are you on your way home?"

'Home'; yeah, right.

"No," I said, "It's Diana," I said, feeling all the grief of the last two days welling up inside me, "she's..." I caught my breath, "She has final stage pancreatic cancer, so I'll be staying here... for a while..."

"Oh Craig!" she gasped, "Oh my God, Craig!" I could hear her grief and it kind of helped mine along. I could hear her get control of herself, "OK," I could hear as she got it together, "What do you need? Clothes, your car?"

"Yes," I said, "I've got a few days gear with me, but another weeks-worth and some more deodorant and toothpaste would be good. Di's car..." Shit.

Di.

Die.

As a kid, Diana hated the shortening of her name but eventually just put up with it because everyone called her that.

I snapped back in again,

"Di's car is here, and I'll use that if I need it."

"I'll bring everything over Babe," she said, as she would have done before I caught her in bed with her boss two nights before.

"OK... see yah," I said, forcing myself not to close down with 'I love you'.

"I'll be there soon," she said.

We disconnected the call.

I went back into the sick room and the nurses had finished setting up what they needed and the fluid collection bag hanging discretely from the side of the bed.

The nurses explained that with Pancreatic cancer, diarrhoea was sometimes present.

"Oh terrific," said Di, "Just what I need."

"When did you last eat Diana?" said Nurse one.

"Night before last, only had cups of tea today seeing as they might have wanted to operate on me."

"OK," said Nurse Two, "To be honest, there probably won't be much left in your system, and if you're not eating that could be academic."

"No way," said Di, "like I said, I've eaten my last."

The nurses made with a bed pan just in case, and with some more advice for us both left for their next visit.

Anna was knocking at the door half an hour later with a large holdall of spare stuff for me. I opened it, and she grabbed me, hugging me like she hadn't done in ages.

"I'm so sorry Craig," she gasped, "sorry for everything!"

I stood her up,

"Hey Anna," I said, "take a deep breath."

"Sorry!" she said.

"Stop apologising!"

"Sorry," she said again with another soft, teary-eyed grin. It had been a bit of an in-joke with us a few years before. "Have you told Diana about us... about me?"

"No," I said, "and I probably won't, if that's OK?"

"No, of course," she said making like she was zipping her lip.

"She's through here."

And so, my watch began. Nurses came in twice, three then four times a day and checked things were 'proceeding as expected'. That first afternoon she had contacted her solicitor who came the next morning and 'arranged things', then it was the funeral director, the funeral celebrant (no priests for my sister), and a few other phone calls and emails that I left her to. She had the TV remote and her iPod Blue-Toothed to her stereo, and she 'got on with it.'

"Why don't you go home Craig," she said just like my big sister, her gradual physical worsening becoming more obvious as the days went on.

"S'alright Di," I said, "work's given me leave," I straightened, "nothing good on telly anyway..."

"Yeah..." she giggled, then gasped, coughing with the effort, "but the last thing you want is to have to hang around here all day..." she struggled for breath.

"Di, it's OK," I said feeling the emotion of what was going on, "I wouldn't, and more than that COULDN'T, be anywhere else."

She reached out and took my hand, giving it a gentle squeeze.

"Thanks," she hissed.

"Don't worry," I said, "I've got this."

She smiled and drifted off to sleep.

She was sleeping, unconscious at least, for much longer periods now, and I changed the TV channels or the CD's in her player. I slept for shorter and shorter periods on the other hand, having the alarm on my phone set for every four hours during the night and sleeping across the room on the huge sofa she had.

After a few more days dehydration kicked in and Di's speech became slurred, and she started to see things and have the occasional conversation with people that weren't there, including our Mum, which was actually kind of nice in a strange way.

When her pain became most pronounced seven days on, she had an electronic morphine pump fitted to control it, sadly it also meant the end of any kind of communication with her, and she knew that.

Anna was a nightly visitor, helping out with things and talking to Di like the old friends they were, and on that night, she came into the kitchen beside herself.

"Anna, Honey, what's up?" I took both of her hands.

"Di," she managed to gasp out, "she's... just told me... begged me... to look after you!" I wrapped my arms around her and held her while she wept it out of her system, "I'm so sorry Craig!" she burst out a few times, her tears soaking my shirt.

By the time I went back in, Di was asleep, and on reflection I'm glad. there's no way I could have said goodbye to my big sister.

"Trust me," said the nurse seeing my look as she rigged the small, clear plastic machine on the pillow by her patient's head, "she's still in there, so carry on talking to her, tell her what you've done that day, talk about what you did when you were kids, play her favourite CD's to her still, it'll all help."

I managed to mouth an 'OK' to her, and when Anna came back in it was her turn to hug me.

On the very last morning, and as the 'Florence and the Machine' CD came to a close, the lovely, bouncy, Nurse Ruth was laying hands on the still body of my sister, as she had once or twice a day for seven of the last awful seventeen days.

She didn't look at me as she took her stethoscope, placing it softly on Di's chest. She moved it twice, closed her eyes, then removed it, placing it around her neck, just like they did on the TV.

"There," she said with a soft, almost relieved smile, "She's gone Craig," she put a hand on my departed sister's cheek, "God Bless you, beautiful."

Neither Diana and I had never been religious but for me it was just enough, and perfectly done.

Nurse Ruth contacted a duty Doctor who came round and checked what he needed to and declared and signed the necessary paperwork.

It was the strangest thing, but for me there was a massive sense of relief, if only because it meant that I was no longer in charge, and the very carefully laid plans of my big sister could roll out.

I contacted the funeral directors on her list who were there quite quickly and escorting me out of the room with a simple 'Diana's orders mate,' followed by, 'we've got this Craig, don't worry', she was taken out and away with the bag of clothes she'd already chosen to wear on her final trip; blue jeans, her preserved and best-occasions-only 'Les Misérables Anniversary Concert' T-shirt and her black Converse trainers and favourite big, fluffy, fleece jacket she wore when not dressed 'posh' for work.

For want of something to do I tidied up.

I dismantled the hospital bed, having watched the team put it together weeks before, and carried it out into her garage for collection the next day. I pushed the sofa back to where it had always been and had a big tidy up, even running the vacuum cleaner around.

I made myself a mug of tea, sat in her armchair and drank a toast to my occasionally stroppy, often serious but ultimately lovely big sister, pulling over the plastic folder that held the list of things I had to do after her death.

I didn't feel any great sense of loss, didn't feel the need to grieve, there would be time for that later. Diana and I had already done this with Mum after her death, but I was so thankful that in those first evenings sat by her bed, Di had talked through what I had to do and made me, and later Anna, write down what had to go where and all that kind of thing.

I opened her laptop and sent the emails already written, numbered and saved in her 'drafts' folder to her work-colleagues, who would have the task of telling the world of finance that the scary-efficient Diana Douglas had died after a short illness and funeral details were to follow, no flowers but donations to Cancer Research.

She'd spoken with the funeral directors and arranged what she wanted and paid upfront. Cremation, no embalming, no limousines, no flowers; ashes with Mum's at the Garden of Remembrance, simple.

I had only to go and register her death, collect the certificate, take it to the Funeral Directors then wait for a phone call from them to tell me when it was happening.

I phoned her solicitor and told her, and she said she would put everything into place as discussed with Diana before her death.

Finally, it was a phone call to the Cancer Research Charity Shop who would come and collect her clothes that I was busy bagging and tying up and placing in the garage, bar a few things heading in other directions.

There were a few family photographs of Mum, Diana and me, one with Anna, and they could all stay there until I knew what would happen with the house. By Four O'clock you would have been hard pushed to know that Diana Douglas had ever lived there. I sat on the sofa with yet another mug of tea and closed my eyes.

I woke up at the tearful face of Anna knelt by me, who'd let herself in through the kitchen door.

"Craig," she hissed, "I'm so sorry, you should have called, I'd have..."

"It's OK Anna," I said sitting up and coming to my senses, "it was early this morning, and being Di of course, she'd already told me what I had to do."

"Yeah," said Anna wiping her face, "have you eaten?"

"No," I said suddenly realising that I did feel rather peckish.

"Let's order in," she said, picking her phone out of her jacket pocket.

Chinese food arrived and we ate it at Diana's large dining room table, chatting about Di in the way she would have wanted us to.

"To Diana," she said raising her wine glass, even though it only held fruit juice.

"Diana," I said.

Anna caught her breath.

"Are you staying here tonight?" she said quietly, "You could come home, if you wanted to get away from... from all this?"

I knew I could come 'home' but I just wasn't convinced it was home anymore. Whatever the untimely death of my sister had done, it had cured me of the other upset, the loss of my relationship, of the woman I'd been in love with.

"No," I said, "I'll stay here."

Anna looked across at me.

"I've lost you haven't I..." she said quietly.

I took a deep breath,

"Yeah, sorry."

Anna looked down at the table,

"I think I knew I had, that night," she said, "I could see the hurt in your face." She took the last of the paper napkins that had come with the food and wiped her eyes, "still can't explain it," she said, "Not sure why I brought him back, not sure why I slept with him," she grinned, "or why I kept on sleeping with him for that matter."

Curiosity made me want to find out if the bastard had dumped her or was still sleeping in my old bed. I fought it quite successfully though, it really was none of my business anymore.

"Water under the bridge, and as Diana would have said, 'time to move on'," I said as positively as I could.

"Yeah," said Anna with a barely controlled bottom lip.

We sat there, staring at each other and I knew I had to stay strong. I knew my deeply hidden feelings for Anna could roll straight out again and we'd end up in bed together and making out that it was all OK, but I just knew that once or twice a month, I'd have nights away and wouldn't relax, not knowing if my cheating girlfriend was screwing another bloke.

"Diana has left a couple of things for you," I said standing up, "Very insistent!"

"Oh, well... you don't have to do that now," I could feel that she might be trying to hold out for as long as she could.

"You'll be pleased," I said, my cold and callous approach from the night I caught her and Sean pushed to the back of my mind; I was still cross, but this woman had been here each night while my sister slowly died, arriving at four, leaving at eleven or twelve, sometimes later, and I knew Di would have given me the mother and father of bollockings if I was mean to Anna after that kind of care.

I stood and pushed my chair back, stepping into the hallway.

"Here," I said standing by the antique, dark, old-oak hat, coat and umbrella stand, picking up the last two of Di's outdoor coats. The first was a virtually new, long black raincoat, the other Di's wax cotton Barbour jacket, "She told me I had to give them to you, as you always looked so much better in them than she did."

"Yeah," said Anna, "she told me that, especially the Barbour." She hugged the old waxed-cotton retainer to her chest.

"Well, you were walking her dog in the rain, only fair she loaned it to you."

Anna laughed genuinely, for the first time since before that horrible night.

She had always loved walking Diana's old, chunky, black Labrador Dewi, and he worshiped her as well. Whenever we went to Di's place for a visit, after lunch or dinner, Anna would find his lead, clip him on and head over to the nearby country park and walk his legs off; when the weather wasn't so kind she wore Di's Barbour, and as with virtually everything the hot brunette ever wore, it made her look like a colour supplement fashion model.

"Here," I said, "she wanted you to have this as well," I handed her a framed photo of Di and Anna knelt and hugging and kissing Dewi, his mouth open and tongue lolling, his eyes squeezed shut as if he was smiling at being kissed by his two favourite women. Dewi had gone to his rest a year before, and his ashes under his favourite tree, the one in the garden he'd laid under from May to October.

She looked at the picture and smiled, kissing then hugging it.

"Thank you, Craig," she said then looked up the stairs, shouting, "And thank you Di!" She blew a kiss upwards. "Craig..." she said, her mouth opening and closing as she thought, "No, it's OK."

"What?"

"I was going to make you an offer, but I know you'll say no."

"OK," I said with narrowed eyes, guessing correctly what she was going to suggest.

"I was going to ask you to take me upstairs and make... sleep with me, one more time, just for old times' sake, but I know you too well, and I won't insult you by doing that." She looked at me, "I was right, wasn't I?"

I nodded,

"Yeah, thanks but..." I stepped towards the front door, "As undoubtedly tempted as I am, it wouldn't do either of us any good in the long run." I took her hand, and kissed it, "However it ended Anna, I had just the best time, and I'll never forget you."

Her face broke, almost crossly.

"Well, couldn't we..." she started then stopped, biting her bottom lip, "no..." she closed her eyes, "sorry Craig," she picked up her bag and lay both of her new coats over her arm, "time to move on. Once the dust has settled here then we'll meet up for dinner and decide what we're doing with the house."

I opened the door and let her out, watching as she climbed into her small car and drove out of my life.

I went to bed in Di's room, the master bedroom with the king-size, freshly made with clean sheets that morning, the smell of the fabric softener not as pronounced as when Anna was doing the laundry.