Everyone tried to make Sally feel better. It was no use because she felt empty and numb. For the past week or so, life had turned upside down. Even when her sister visited to cheer her up, it failed. Her children were staying over at her parents’ as all she could do was stayed in bed for days while doing her own research. She had cried so much that her eyes stung so badly. When she closed them, she fell back to sleep.
“Cancer? What do you mean you have cancer?” Sally asked, panicking when Nathaniel informed her of the visit he made to the hospital. “You are healthy, it can’t be. Why were you even at the hospital?”
“I was doing my regular check-up that is all.”
“So I guess our trip is cancelled.”
“For now. After my surgery and treatment, we’ll go. I promise,” Nathaniel said putting his arms around her waist.
After being diagnosed with cancer, the hospital became a second home to Sally and Nathaniel. They trusted the doctor. They followed the doctor’s advice and had the surgery to remove the cancer. The trip back and forth was gruelling, and it took a toll on everyone, but it affected Nathaniel most as the treatment was aggressive to his body. Once a strong person, Nathaniel became fragile as he shrunk.
“We need some more milk, Sally,” Nathaniel said one day when they were at the hospital while waiting for another round of radiotherapy.
“I’ll get it later,” Sally patted Nathanial’s dried hand gently.
“The supermarket is near and you can get the milk when I’m in there,” Nathaniel replied weakly.
“Sure. I’ll get it when you go in.”
Five minutes later, Sally walked to the supermarket next door to shop for the groceries. They were running low on foods and toiletries at home. Sally shopped as fast as she could and when she was loading the shopping bags into the car, the hospital called. Without closing the door or locking the car, she ran back into the hospital, to the place where she saw Nathaniel last.
Her face turned pale, and she grew weak in her knees. The doctor and nurses had stopped working after seeing the flat line on the screen. The doctor pronounced the time of death before leaving the room to deliver the unfortunate news to Sally. She couldn’t remember what the doctor said because from then on, Sally was in her own world. Through the glass window, she watched as the nurses worked around her husband before she rushed into the room to hold her husband’s hand.
A funeral was held and Sally couldn’t remember much of it. Family and friends tried their best to comfort her, but at the end of the day when she watched the coffin being lowered to the ground, she knew she was alone and broken.
“Please take Flora and Finn,” Sally whispered to her parents before they left the cemetery.
“Why don’t you come home with us?” her father asked.
“I can’t,” she felt a lump formed in her throat. “I need to do this on my own.”
“Okay, but we are just a call away,” her mother pulled her into a hug and she wept uncontrollably.
Sally had been replaying this scene over and over again like a broken record. After one week of staying in bed and researching on Nathaniel’s cause of death, she finally got up. She knew life will never be the same for her or her children, but she will and must try, for Nathaniel. When she looked in the mirror on the wall, she didn’t recognise herself. She needed to comb her hair, brush her teeth and shower. Most importantly, her children needed her.
“Why are you fighting so hard for this case?” the man in an expensive black suit asked her two months later when Sally sat across from him in the hospital’s conference room. “Please don’t take it to heart when I say that by suing the hospital, it will not bring your husband back to life.”
It would be a lie to say those words didn’t hurt because it certainly cut Sally like a blade. After spending so much time in looking for Nathaniel’s cause of death, she found out that the doctor was a fraud. The doctor falsely diagnosed Nathaniel with cancer and put him on unnecessary treatment which killed him.
“My husband didn’t need the treatment. There was a misdiagnosis by your doctor,” Sally answered. “No, it won’t bring my husband back, but everyone will know about this. If I can help, it will stop another wife from being a widow and making children fatherless.”
“You are being irrational. You are still grieving.”
“I am clear headed despite what I am going through. You have no idea what it feels like and I pray, you never have to go through what I went through.”
At that said, the grieving widow marched out of the office and carried her daughter while holding her son’s tiny hand.
Carina Lim bears different messages through her fiction. These messages could be useful in life. She can be contacted at mermaidgal03@yahoo.com
