What Doesn't Kill You by Laura E. James

Author:Laura E. James [James, Laura E.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, contemporary, family, relationships, dark choc lit
Publisher: Choc Lit
Published: 2016-12-08T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Two

Griff

‘You did everything you could, Mr Hendry. You’ve given Ozzy the best possible chance.’

They’d find out if that was true in the next few hours.

The gravel crunched beneath the Land Rover’s tyres. With the vet’s words ringing in his ears, Griff had no recollection of the journey to his cottage, only a sense of how empty the car was. And that he’d arrived. He had to be there for Dylan.

The vet was being kind. Griff knew the patter – he’d recited it a thousand times to Coastguard Rescue Officers distraught at losing a life; to fathers whose sons believed they could tame the sea; to mothers who took their eye off their child for one second. He’d said it to everyone whose desperate attempts to rescue, resuscitate and alter the inevitable outcome had been in vain. They needed to hear they’d done something right because at that moment, swamped with fear and guilt, they thought themselves the most wicked, the most selfish, and the most careless being on the planet. They deserved to know their final act was one of kindness and courage.

As the engine shut down, Griff waited for the familiar thump of Ozzy’s tail. Silence.

‘Stupid fool,’ he muttered. How was the brain able to think one thing one moment and completely reverse it the next? He fastened his hands behind his neck, and winced as his shoulder jarred. It was nothing. An over-stretched muscle from where the dogs had yanked at their leads. He’d experienced worse at the gym.

What a banal thought.

His mind kept flitting between explicit visions of Ozzy, lying in the road motionless, half-hidden under a van, to the ordinary and everyday problems of gym injuries. ‘I should be concentrating on Ozzy,’ he said. ‘Working through what happened. Putting together a plan of action.’ He lowered his arms and glanced at his reflection in the rear-view mirror. He should have shaved this morning. ‘Man!’ He smacked his hands down on the steering wheel, this time ignoring the wrench of his shoulder. He had no time for trivialities. There was too much at stake.

As he opened the door, the arctic wind assaulted his face – fierce, unrelenting daggers stabbing at his eyes already sore from the horrendous rigours of the day. They stung, and they watered, but Griff fought to keep them open. Behind lay images of mud-caked spades, fresh, deep, dark holes, hand-made wooden crosses, and cold, small bodies wrapped in fleecy blankets. Commemorative rosebushes, shrubs of remembrance – a garden graveyard for his pets.

And if he further developed that picture he exposed images of his mum, and her small body swathed in cumbersome, blue blankets, cannulas the size of barrel taps plunged into the backs of her child-sized hands, and the rasping heave of her chest as she gasped her final breath.

Beyond that was a panoramic view of the crematorium, with its vibrant flowers and evergreen wreaths, and a girl in a navy dress and black patent shoes, her too-blue eyes clouded with grief and hostility, staring back.

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