Читать книгу Obsession: The bestselling psychological thriller with a shocking ending - Amanda Robson, Amanda Robson - Страница 12

I am living within my own personal nightmare, the sort we all have to wade through at some point in our lives. Nothing seems real. Nothing tangible. One day I will wake up to find that this is not really happening – that my sixty-six-year-old mother will carry on mothering me forever.

Craig has tried to comfort me. He held me in bed while I cried. He listened to me when I vented my anger – listened with his ears and with his eyes.

Rob came round to see me a few afternoons ago, when I was still at home on my own with the children. He fitted me in in the middle of his home visits. I made him a cup of tea and he stayed for an hour, making me feel guilty for taking up his time. When he left, he pressed his card with his mobile number on it into my hand in case I needed any advice – day or night. He told me the dire statistics for my mother’s stage of ovarian cancer and lectured me on pain relief. I asked how Carly was because I hadn’t seen her since our dinner party. He didn’t reply as he was too busy fussing over my mother.

Carly. I think of her blue eyes, the deep blue of the sea. I didn’t manage to pop and see her before I left, but I know from Craig that she is helping me, by helping him with the children while I stay with my father in Chessingfold, over an hour away. My mother is incarcerated in St Richard’s Hospital, laid low by her chemo, so I’m chauffeuring him between their bungalow and the ward. And Craig, my rock, my brick, is looking after the kids on his break between shifts. Even though I miss him and the children dreadfully, I don’t want the little ones here at the moment. They must not see my mother like this.

My parents’ bungalow is packed with family treasures and memories; photographs, ornaments, tarnished silver cutlery. A conch shell I found on the beach when I was three. When I hold it to my ear I can still hear the sea. I spend too much time looking into the past, not knowing who worries me more; Mum or Dad. They met at school when they were fourteen. A lifetime together. I don’t suppose they can remember a life apart. Dad hardly leaves my mother’s side. He sits with her while she has her chemo, watching its poison drip into her body. He sits with her as she sleeps.