Waiting to die

End your story in a way that leaves the reader with a sense of uncertainty or doubt.

Lonnie shifted against the pain in his back, no matter which way he stood, sat or lay, the pain had been the one constant since the age of nineteen when he had been thrown from an army vehicle while serving his mandatory year of service to his country.

The pain, however had reached a level of 18/10 and while a constant in his back, the rest of his body throbbed in ways he couldn’t describe to his daughters who called daily.

A dog barked in the distance, Lonnie groaned, the pain pushing through the drugs which made his head foggy. A trip to the toilet loomed, straightening himself, both feet firmly on the floor although his upper torso still swayed. Without glancing at the bed, soft snores whispered about the room as his partner of thirty years slept, unaware of the pressure in his lower back, the shakiness in his legs and the black spots that covered the walls when he tried to see in front of him.

They had given him eighteen months, twenty months ago and since then he had been waiting to die. They all had.

Gripping the wall he lowered himself on to the toilet, relieving himself just in time.

His watch flashed 3am. He had taken the oxy a mere six hours ago, the fentanyl patch at his lower back doing nothing to stop the burning, throbbing running up and down his spine.

The walk to the lounge took what felt like an age. The early morning chill seeping into his aching bones, reminding him he lived, he moved, he had a lot to be grateful for despite the cancer prognosis. Stage four prostate, metastasised to the bones. He couldn’t even say the word metastasised.

Slumping onto the couch he pulled a blanket over his chilled flesh, falling into his memories.

“Dad, remember we don’t always get what we pray for, in the way we expect, but we will fight this together.” His daughter, Lisa’s whispered words had been warm against his ear despite the dread that had filled him as he sat in the wheelchair outside the oncologists office that first day.

Until then he had assumed the increasing pain in his lower back and into his groin a symptom of the age progression of his old army injury. He hadn’t been able to see her face, but her voice had been thick with emotion, the same emotion that threatened to suffocate him when they had exited the doctor’s office. The PET scan image seared into a part of his brain that wanted to forget. A skeletal image, his internal image, the body stripped of the outer layers, exposing the frame, soulless, damaged, infected with a disease that was busy eating him from the inside out. A disease that had infiltrated parts of him that no one ever saw.

The images of grandchildren and not watching them get married or seeing photos across social media as they travelled the world taunted him.

Lisa’s hand had gripped his, warm and shaky. He couldn’t smile. Didn’t know how to react. He just prayed silently to a God he had only recently come to know. He prayed for all the wrong he had done, he asked for forgiveness and for strength and above all he prayed for the family he would lose through this dreaded disease. A disease other people got, not him.

The sun peeped through the curtains, the glow settling against the orange and beige carpet. Nella shuffled into the lounge. “You ok?” She croaked from the door, a cigarette already in her hand, her auburn hair standing up in places. Her slim frame hunched into her gown. He stared across at her remembering how he had thought her so beautiful at a point in their lives, now he wasn’t so sure what he wanted.

An image of his wife, grey haired, chubby and pale, with chocolate brown eyes that could singe the hair of a cat with one glance. The mother of his four amazing daughters.

He sighed and tried sitting up, wanting to scream as pain tore through him. His punishment for being a player. Since the diagnosis, he had come to the assumption that his philandering ways, hurting the two women he loved, cancer being the punishment sent for him to atone his sins.

He knew she could read his facial expressions but lied none the less. “I’m Ok, I went to the toilet, couldn’t get back to sleep.”

It was pointless either way, she knew him like the back of her hand. “Never mind, I will get your pills.” She said, already shuffling down the passage, to the kitchen, to the pile of medication he needed to take daily sometimes every few hours, especially in the past month. The pain had spiraled to a whole new level.

Lonnie flopped back against the couch and closed his eyes. His kids had immigrated to various countries ten years before, his wife, fed up with having to share him, finally made the break and left to be with her children and grandchildren, something he had never expected.

A love hate relationship since the tender age of seventeen still lingered even after fifty something years. Loved from a far but hated when close, maybe hate was too strong a word, given the fact they had lead good lives, raised four well adjusted and completely different daughters. Nine grandchildren, one of which had graduated from University, the first in his family. Lonnie had left school at age fourteen to care for his siblings, the eldest of five, in a family headed by alcoholic parents.

Maybe cancer wasn’t about punishment, maybe it was about regrets which is why the disease continued its steady path of destruction. Regret at not finishing school, regret at not preventing his father from abusing his mother, regret at getting a young girl pregnant.

He paused in his thoughts, so much regret but not that one.

Lisa’s face swam before his closed lids. His biggest pride and joy, his first born, eloquent with words, faithful to their God and a proud mother to his first grandson and first granddaughter and then another daughter. Fierce protector and wife. His heart swelled just thinking about her.

Next, his second child, the most stable in the way of strength and determination. Proud mother to her two girls and long suffering wife and a director of an international company, travelling the world.

His third daughter, a gentle soul, proud mother also of two girls and stubborn woman, the quiet gentle, sometimes frightened woman who sees the good in all around her.

And his youngest, his bright star who arrived unexpectedly nine years after his third daughter and mother to two sons.

God had blessed him with all these women and then some.

He had listened to their tales, wiped their tears and healed broken hearts with daddy hugs. Fiercely wanting to break the boys who had hurt his little girls, knowing deep down there were daddies out there that felt the same about him.

He smiled, Lisa's words playing in his mind. “You are a shit husband but you have always been a wonderful father.” While said in jest, it was the truth.

Lonnie opened his mouth took a pull on the pump bottle and threw the tablets in, Nella changed the fentanyl patches and he lay back on the couch. Within a few minutes the meds began to kick in, a feeling of euphoria settling around him. Sundays were always peaceful, no calls from the girls, no work calls, just quiet.

Too much quiet, too much time to think and ponder and regret and wonder. Sleep came then.

“Hello dad, how are you today?” Lonnie sighed and raked a hand through grey hair, sometimes he wished for their “Brady bunch” calls rather than separate calls with the same questions, each time the ‘how are you’ was asked he tried masking the pain and the seriousness of the creeping blindness that threatened.

“You didn't put your usual message on the family group, we were worried, anything we need to know about?” Lisa’s voice bounced loudly into the room, she always raised her voice on a video call, he smiled inwardly, his eldest, already in her fifties clearly battled with hearing, but like him, refused to acknowledge the age afflictions.

“Just lots of weakness today.” He lied again, nothing she could do from her new country.

“And the pain?” Ah she knew him too well, plus Nella had obviously messaged the girls to update them.

“Same same.” He downplayed the constant. “How was your weekend.”

Lisa laughed and began a brief rundown of the weekend. Highlighting the ever cheekiness of her cat, all the kids had left home and she knew how he felt about empty nests, experiencing the feelings he had felt all those years ago when his girls had one by one left his nest.

“Belle, when are you leaving for the States?” When Belle called he tried distracting her by asking about her all encompassing work, from the parts of her face he could see on the screen, in between the black spots, she frowned then ran with the conversation, knowing it distracted him from his situation between the four walls he saw day in and day out. The monotony of being trapped, unable to drive, unable to walk too far.

When he spoke with Lulu, it was normally six in the morning her time, before he boys left for school, her quiet time she called it. Time to bond with him and tell him all her hopes and dreams, her fears and joys. These were the times he loved, the times he could counsel and reassure. He knew his girls called him the man who healed women with broken wings.

That is how he had met Nella, the woman with the broken wings, shortly after she had been widowed.

He began to tire again but his phone rang for the fourth and final time that day. Little Beth, his gentlest of daughters, his little ostrich who shied from seeing the truth, preferring to be in the moment for the moment, for him. “Daddy.” She still called him daddy and he thrilled at the word. “Daddy we finally found a house, a home to call our own. Oh dad, I wish you could see it.” Her voice travelled through the phone and warmed him. Her excitement ricocheting. “The girls will each have their own rooms, it is not very big, but it will be ours!”

“I am so happy for you guys. It has been a long hard road, I know.” He bit his lip, each of his kids had fought a battle of their own and each had come out the other end, stronger for it.

“I am so proud of you.” His swallowed, mouth dry, eyes heavy once again, tiredness had crept up but he felt rather than heard her pain as she paused before answering.

“Thank you daddy, that means a lot. All I ever wanted was you to be proud of me.”

In that moment, he knew, he needed to atone, he had hurt all these wonderful women in his lives.

When he woke up, he would write them each a letter telling them how much each one of them contributed to his life. How without each one of them, he would not be the man he had become. He needed to tell them how much he loved them but he would do that later.

Right now, the pain had given him a reprieve and while the medication worked, he needed to close his eyes, just for a little bit and then he would write the letters.

His lashes tickled his cheeks as they fluttered close, heart rate slowed, his chest rose and fell, Nella’s hand brushed against his chest as she tucked the blanket around him, the fog of meds pulling him into a slumber so peaceful, he wished it would last forever.