A Mighty Boy by Sarah Pullen

Author:Sarah Pullen [Pullen, Sarah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781783523856
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2017-07-12T04:00:00+00:00

After

Silas is dead.

He lies in our bed, unmoving, still. His eyes are sunken and swallowed by dark circles. I can’t absorb this information. This is the moment that I’ve been dreading since that day we were given his diagnosis in hospital all those months ago. It’s finally here and I fight it. I’ve known for so long but knowledge has not prepared me. How can I be prepared for this? Where has my vital bear of a boy gone? Ben and I cling to each other. We cling to our son. The tears stream down our cheeks. I hear an animal groan, guttural, a noise wrenched out of a place so deep and so dark that I can’t recognise it. Is it coming from me? I feel it reverberate through my chest so it must be.

The community nurse knocks at the bedroom door. She has arrived early, summoned by our frantic early morning phone call triggered by our night of panic, by our fears that Silas was suffering in those last, long, lonely hours.

She enters the room, her face soft with compassion. She has been part of the team looking after us so well these last few weeks. She feels our loss and tiptoes round our grief. I stare at her uncomprehending. Why is she here? What is she doing in my house? Who is she? Why is she intruding at this time? Should I know her? I can’t process my thoughts. They drift through my head, wispy and unformed. All I know is I want to be alone with my son. I need to be alone. I glare at her. She touches my shoulder.

‘I need to confirm time of death,’ she whispers. ‘I’m sorry,’ she adds.

I nod, shifting to let her touch my son, my boy, my baby, my love. So still, so pale, so strange, so wrong. She checks her watch. My eyes follow her, willing her to go, to leave Ben and me alone.

She moves out of the room. ‘Take as much time as you need,’ she says. ‘There’s no hurry. I’ll makes some calls and if you need me I’ll be downstairs.’

I watch her leave. How many times has she had to do this before? How many children has she witnessed die? How can she bear such a burden? This one time is surely enough to rip me apart, to tear my sinews from my bones, to shred my organs and leave them in tattered, bloody heaps. I turn back to my son and fight the bitter taste of vomit as it rises in my throat. This is it! The rest of our lives to be faced without Silas by our side. Without his trademark huge hugs, his sunny morning face, his unadulterated love and his quick spark of mind. All of that is undone. I am undone. I am unravelling, strands are escaping and disappearing. I don’t recognise this place. I don’t recognise myself. I longed for his suffering to be over and only now do I understand that his release is truly the start of my own torture.

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