The Legacy, Caroline Bond [popular books to read txt] 📗

‘No, she came up with four,’ Josie interrupted him, taking control. ‘Noah,’ she pinned him with her eyes, ‘have you inherited MND from your dad?’

There was a moment when they were suspended in time, before their futures switched tracks and crashed, then he said simply, ‘Yes.’ Jesus, it was such a relief.

As if they were one, they breathed out together.

Neither of them said anything. They didn’t fall into each other’s arms or cry or shout or even move. They just sat opposite each other, with the truth irretrievably there, slap-bang in front of them. It eventually fell to Josie to pick it up and start dealing with it. ‘How long have you known?’

‘Known? For definite? Four months.’ He’d had it confirmed by a neurologist, privately, a month after their dad’s funeral. That had been a doozy of a late Christmas present. ‘Suspected?’ He tried to convey how deeply sorry he was in his tone of voice. ‘About seven or eight months, maybe a little longer.’

‘So you’re in the early stages.’ He nodded. ‘Symptoms?’ she asked.

‘Tiredness. Some pain in my joints. My hips and my right arm are the worst.’ Josie’s expression was unbearable. ‘But nothing I haven’t experienced after a heavy night out.’ So it began – the joking and minimising. Neither of them laughed.

Josie bit her lip. ‘Oh, Noah. All this time! Why on earth didn’t you tell me?’

‘I’m sorry. I thought it was for the best. I was trying to keep it away from you and Lily.’

‘For the best!’ Josie’s voice rose an octave. ‘Abandoning us. Running away. Letting me think… all sorts. What exactly was the plan, Noah?’

He couldn’t look at her. He focused on the cracked floor tile in front of the cooker. ‘At first it was just that I didn’t know how to break it to you, but as things went downhill for Dad and I saw the impact on him, I came to the conclusion you’d be better off without me, once I’d sorted out the inheritance. So I decided to fuck us up.’ He stopped, shocked by his own brutality. ‘My plan was to make you so fed up with me, so pissed off, you’d think that me leaving was better than me staying.’

‘And what was that supposed to achieve, other than hurting and confusing me, and Lily?’ she pushed.

He sighed, defeated. ‘It would put some distance between us. I’d move out and we’d split up. I was trying to get it all sorted before it became obvious I was ill and you were tied to me until the bitter end.’

‘Like you think Megan was?’

He nodded. It sounded stupid, said out loud, but was it really that ludicrous to try and protect the people you loved most?

Josie suddenly changed the dynamic in the room by getting up and going over to the dresser. She opened a drawer, came back with a copy of an email in her hand.

‘I want you to listen to something. And, Noah, I mean really listen. This is what Megan wrote:

I’ve thought long and hard about whether to write to you or not. I very nearly didn’t. I don’t really know you, and you don’t know me. I have no idea what your marriage to Noah is like, or what sort of husband he is. No one knows what someone else’s relationship amounts to, not really. But, given the circumstances, I think my experience might be relevant – whether it’s helpful is up to you to decide.

What I’ve learnt, having lived with, and lost, Jonathan, is that any relationship worth hanging on to is a partnership. It’s two individuals with separate identities, likes, dislikes, views, emotions, opinions, who forge a bond that ties them together, for better and for worse. It’s a couple. Two people. Not one. You don’t meld into each other, like the books and films would have us believe. That’s romantic crap. Love is a choice, an active decision you have to make every single day – every moment of every day. When someone falls ill and their illness becomes terminal, that choice becomes a promise.

Josie’s voice wavered, but she took a breath and read on strongly, clearly, filling the kitchen with Megan’s words:

I still don’t know what I would have done if I’d known Jonathan was going to get ill when I met him – was, in fact, already ill. But I know I chose to love him.

It was my choice to start a relationship with him, when I knew he was married. My choice not to back off, when it all came out. My choice to want him enough to stick it out and face the wrath of his family, until Eloise walked away. And, when he fell ill, I still had choices to make, though they were obviously far harder.

I think you have the right to decide what happens in your relationship with Noah, however impossible those choices may seem.

Josie took a breath to pace herself. She looked up at Noah, double-checking he was listening. He met her steady gaze, feeling anything but steady. She read the last few lines slowly:

If Noah has MND, I am truly sorry. If he hasn’t, then I’m glad, but I’m still sorry, because your relationship sounds like it is under threat either way. Whichever it is, I wish you luck. I really do. I won’t contact you again. Please forgive me for intruding, but I felt I had to. Megan.

Josie laid the sheets of paper on the floor. ‘So you see, Noah, Megan did make her own choices. She wanted to be there for your dad because she loved him. And I love you. And I think you need to respect and trust me enough to make up my own mind about how we deal with this.’

Only then did they embrace, fiercely and firmly.

Noah cried. Josie did not.

Eventually she pulled away from him. ‘Go up and get some sleep. I’ll be here. I’m not going anywhere. I’ll wake you in time for us to go