Chapter Four

Sebastian

The days after the funeral are a blur of heavy drinking whilst succumbing to the emotions I had bottled up until that very moment I watched the dirt cover Bethany's casket.

I'm sure those images are burned to my retinas just as much as her final night... our last night.

"Seb," she had hushed to me as I succumbed to the sleep that begged me to fall under its spell. The days were long and the nights even harder. She was in so much pain that I swore her moaning was a regular part of life by then.

"Yes, darling. Do you need painkillers or water?" I had asked, sobered that she was cold to the touch, her fingers a pale hue compared to usual pink. Perhaps it should have been then that I picked up that things were deteriorating before my very eyes, but I had been blind to the very things in front of me.

"Make love to me?" She asked, her fingers running through my hair as her hand shook with the effort.

"You're in too much pain," I had brushed her request off, but she pushed just as hard. Begging to connect in what would be our last time. The last sexual encounter we would experience together.

"I'm not; I want you. Need you, Seb. I need to connect to you on such a level," she had argued breathlessly, her phlegm causing untold amounts of problems. That should have been a considerable clue also, the lack of ability to fill her lungs with the air she needed to survive. But I ignored all of that as I sleepily picked myself up off of her lap to stare at her in wonder.

I looked into her eyes, caging her body to the bed as she lay almost too still. She was dressed in a silk nightdress that clung to her very skin, and now, with hindsight, I see she dressed like that purposely.

Here was my dying wife, her hair gone, her cheeks hollow, and her skin sunken, begging for the only thing that connected us on the most primal level.

I leaned down to kiss her, only pressing lightly for fear I would bruise her again and for fear I would dislodge her central line in her chest, which had happened only once before when she had more strength to be intimate.

I remember thinking at that moment that I was somehow taking advantage of her, of using her for my own needs more than hers, but I could never say no to Beth. I could never disappoint her.

So I moved her legs apart carefully, ensuring to keep her comfort at the utmost importance, and then I crawled between her legs, which is precisely where I belonged.

I made love, sweet, long love to her that night, much as I had done on our wedding night.

The sex hadn't been about me; my needs were never on the cards. She requested it, and I made sure she knew at that moment I loved her, something I'll forever be grateful for.

"Seb," she had moaned as her climax took hold of her, her legs shaking, fingers clenching in my hair.

"That's right, my darling. Milk me..." I had verbalised, yet my climax had never been built.

Pulling back, I rested on her tummy again, laying my head on the pillow I enjoyed using.

Thinking about it, it should have struck me as peculiar to that night, the fact that Beth had asked her mother to put Melody down in her own bed.

After all, she had been staying in bed with us since that very day she got the diagnosis. But again, I had been blind to the goings on around me. Moving through time, only just managing to put one foot before the other.

...Completely oblivious to the plan my wife had put in place for her final night.

To say I'm blessed to have been the last person she spent her dying breath with would be an understatement. Yet I missed that too, having fallen asleep at some point in the night only to wake to her... gone.

Her fingers were laced in my hair much as they were most mornings. You see, that was her comfort, playing with my hair, but this wasn't just any morning.

"Always playing with my hair, darling," I joked, moving out of the uncomfortable position I had slept in.

It was then that something dawned on me, her arm fell lifelessly to the bed, and she hadn't greeted me good morning despite being the early bird that never slept in past five-thirty.

"Beth?" I called, returning to the bed fervently as my gut churned with the possibility that it was...

"Beth?" I called again, shaking her lifeless body that was as cold as ice and pale grey.

"No! No, Beth," I muttered as I pulled her flat on the mattress. "It's not time; we haven't completed your bucket list..."

Tears burned my face as they paved the way in their wake, and I did the one thing I promised her I wouldn't. This was the first thing I went back on.

I started CPR, pressing on her chest with all my weight.

"No. Beth... wake up, darling," I wailed at her through a croaked emotional voice that bared my soul.

But she wasn't moving, wasn't waking.

"What are you doing? Stop it!" Tina shouted at me, making me falter as I leaned down to blow air through my wife's lips.

But her presence hadn't deterred me, hadn't stopped me from forging a way forward.

"Stop, Seb... oh! Please, you know she didn't want this. She signed a DNR... stop!" Tina begged as she pulled at my shoulder to force me away from Beth, but I continued pounding on her chest in the hopes I could bring her back, even if only to tell her I loved her one last time.

"Dada?" Melody's voice broke through the pain that was exploding in my chest.

"Get her out of here," I growled, angry and confused that she was here to see this, me trying to revive her mother.

"Please, Seb. This is what she wanted; she didn't want someone pounding on her chest... she wanted to go peacefully," Tina yelled at me.

"She's my wife."

"She's my daughter..." she cried again whilst picking my daughter up.

She cradled her close to her chest, hiding the world from her as I should have been, and that made me falter as she stormed over to Geoff.

"Please stop him. She didn't want this. She didn't want to go in this environment."

I swallowed, staring down at her, her lips a sick shade of blue, chapped and lifeless, much like her face.

But even in death, she was the most beautiful woman my eyes had ever fallen on.

"Come on, son. That's enough now; she's gone... it's time to let her rest peacefully," Geoff pulled me away, his strength more than I presume he owned.

That was when the sobs rose, coming out of me in the most unmanly manner as I scrambled away from him to pull Beth to me, holding her unusually heavy and lifeless body to me as I sobbed into her cold neck.

"I'm so sorry, Beth. I love you... I love you so fucking much!"

To my surprise, my father-in-law embraced the pair of us, holding onto me as I broke down into pieces.

So, yeah... that last night, her last night... it replays in my mind frequently, burned into my retinas like a scar visible for everyone to see.

Why?

Why did she have to go so soon?

Why hadn't we found the cancer earlier?

Why couldn't it have been a different stage, one that allowed her more time, one that might've allowed her the opportunity to fight against it?

I reach for the bottle of scotch, upending it to drain the last remnants into my mouth.