The Story of Our Life by Shari Low

Author:Shari Low [Low, Shari]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781784978242
Publisher: Head of Zeus
Published: 2016-05-18T04:00:00+00:00

21

2015

The Prognosis

‘Do you need some help there?’ Shauna asked, as she watched me search through the wardrobe for my jacket. It was there last week. Or was it yesterday? It was definitely bloody there.

‘No, it’s fine.’ I know I snapped at her. Didn’t mean it. But it was just so… aaargh, where the fuck was my jacket?

I saw her back off and turned to say something, when I spotted the jacket, hanging on the hook on the back of the bedroom door. Shit. I was sure I’d already looked there.

I pulled it on and headed downstairs.

‘Ready, honey?’ she asked brightly, like I hadn’t bit her head off two minutes before. How did she do that? She just let everything bounce off her like she was made of Teflon.

‘Shauna, I’m sorry, I…’

‘It’s fine. Come on, let’s go. Traffic might be heavy on the way there.’

Out in the driveway, I was halfway round the car when I remembered, and doubled back, climbing into the passenger side instead. I didn’t drive any more. Just one more kick in the nuts to add to the others. According to the DVLA I’d be banned from going behind the wheel for at least a year, possibly longer, depending on the results of the meeting today.

I didn’t even want to think about what that would mean for my work or my day-to-day existence. Couldn’t drive to meetings. Couldn’t jump in the car and pop to the shops. Couldn’t nip to the school to pick up Beth. On the scale of things, it wasn’t life or death, but it was bloody inconvenient.

Life or death.

That’s what today was all about, but I already knew the answer. It was all going to be fine. Benign. I was already feeling much better than before the op. A few pills, a bit of recovery time, a couple of inches of hair growth and I’d be on the road back to normal life – even if it was on the bus.

‘You okay?’ Shauna asked me for the 3423rd time.

‘Yeah, I’m fine.’ It was like a role reversal. All these years, she’d answered ‘I’m fine’ to questions when she clearly wasn’t, yet now I was doing the same. And, just like I used to do, she was pretending to accept it.

I knew I was being rough on her but I just needed to get today over with. Turn the corner. Put all this behind us.

It was two weeks since the op and the wrap-around bandages were off my head now, but that left me with the physical version of a split personality. From the front I looked like a normal guy with a bad haircut, but when I turned round the back I looked like a man who’d lost out in a fight with an axe.

I’d kept the dressing on the wound and pulled a hat on so I didn’t scare kids. Thankfully, Beth hadn’t been phased at all. Made of the same strong stuff as her mother.

We drove most of the way in silence.

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