No Reason To Die by Hilary Bonner

bed in order to use the bathroom next to her bedroom.
    Moira’s eldest daughter Paula, also a pretty, fair-haired young woman, but a little plumper than either of her sisters, was sitting by her bed. The two women were watching TV. Kelly found himself glancingtowards the screen as he entered the room. Anything other than look at Moira. An old episode of
The Vicar of Dibley
, a programme which had always been one of Moira’s favourites, flickered away on Plus. Kelly had once bought Moira the entire video set of the comedy featuring Dawn French as a village’s first woman vicar as a birthday present, and the two of them had sat up in bed one night and watched virtually the whole lot straight through – something Kelly had, rather to his surprise, found that he had enjoyed every bit as much as Moira. It had been dawn before they had finally fallen asleep, his arm around her shoulders, her head resting on his chest, with the video still running. The memory hurt. Kelly concentrated hard on the flickering screen. In her bed by the window, Moira laughed weakly. She always had had a ready laugh, but it used to be a deep rip-roaring rumble of a laugh, which had always come as something of a surprise from such a small woman. A great hip-shaking eye-watering belter of a laugh. Kelly had teased her that she had the filthiest laugh in Devon, and that had always set her off all the more.
    His eyes filled at the thought.
    ‘Hello, John.’ Moira’s voice was even weaker than her laugh.
    Shit, thought Kelly. How could anyone cope with this? What were they all supposed to do? Just sit around and wait for her to die?
    Aloud he said: ‘Hello, sweetheart.’
    He made himself smile and walked over to the bed where he perched on the edge and took her hand. Moira had always been pretty and all three of her daughters had inherited their mother’s looks. Her fluffy blonde hair still retained its original colour inspite of her age and illness, and she continued to look surprisingly good even though there were dark circles beneath her eyes and her skin was pale to the point of near translucence. In fact, she looked almost beautiful. Her face was drawn, thin skin taut over exposed cheekbones, while previously Moira’s face had been quite plump, and although pretty, never beautiful. Not really. Her illness had added a sculpted look, and in the low light of the bedroom the yellowish tinge, which Kelly knew had been acquired due to liver deficiency, appeared only to give her skin a cream hue. Yes, she really had become quite tragically beautiful.
    She had lost a lot of weight, of course, but she exhibited none of the usual signs of a body ravaged by cancer. That was because Moira, an experienced nurse who knew all about the illness she was bearing so gallantly, had, when she had been told the degree and extent of her cancer, opted to decline conventional treatment. Moira had believed that with her kind of cancer and the extent to which it had already destroyed her liver, her life expectancy would be much the same whether she put herself through the rigours of chemotherapy and radiotherapy, or whether she didn’t.
    And both Kelly and her daughters had accepted her decision that she would rather live out her last few months without having to cope with the cruelties she knew those treatments could inflict, instead choosing to allow her illness to take its course while striving to enjoy whatever of life was left to her. Her courage so far had been extraordinary, although Kelly was bewildered sometimes by the form it took. It was Moira’s way to barely discuss her illness, and if shedid ever mention it, to do so in such a manner that she gave no indication at all that it was terminal. She knew, though. Better than any of them, she knew.
    ‘How are you doing, darling?’ he muttered, cursing himself as he became aware of what he had said. How was she doing? What a stupid fucking question. Whether she chose to talk about it or not, the woman was dying.