The Last Goodbye Read online

  WHAT AM I GOING TO TELL BOB?

  The thought circled Ally Bishop’s mind the entire drive to the small rural Victorian town of Woodend. True, she also spared a little time to fume over what a cold, unfeeling jerk Tyler Adamson was. But most of her thoughts were for the old man she was about to disappoint.

  She was the one who had insisted Bob think about making contact with his estranged sons. She was the one who’d encouraged him to give his sons a chance to prove themselves, even though Bob had insisted they wouldn’t care. And now she was the one who would have to deliver the cruel news that the one son she’d been able to track down wanted nothing to do with him, as Bob had so heartbreakingly predicted.

  She still couldn’t believe that Tyler had walked away from the news that his father was dying. That he didn’t care. That it meant nothing to him that any last chance to reconcile or make his peace with his parent was about to disappear for good.

  It wasn’t as though she was one of those eternally optimistic people who only saw the best in people—her work as an advice columnist for Melbourne’s most popular daily newspaper ensured that she was exposed to pretty much every peccadillo, flaw, peculiarity and weakness of human nature possible. In fact, she’d thought she was impossible to shock—until Tyler had coolly thanked her and walked away.

  She glanced out the window as she passed the first houses on the outskirts of town. The turnoff to her friend Wendy’s house came up on her left but Ally kept driving. Ten minutes later, she steered her car into a parking spot at the Kyneton District Hospital.

  She didn’t get out immediately. She needed a moment to gather herself for the task ahead.

  According to Bob’s doctors, his cancer was so widespread, so invasive, he had months, perhaps only weeks, to live. And she’d offered him hope. Now she was about to snatch that hope away from him.

  She sighed heavily and scrubbed her face with her hands.

  Not for the first time, she wondered how she had become so entangled so quickly in the concerns of an old man who, to all intents and purposes, was a stranger. After all, she’d only been living in Woodend for four weeks, house-sitting for Wendy. Prior to Bob’s collapse, they’d only shared a couple of brief chats across the fence that separated the two properties. She hadn’t even known his last name before he’d been admitted to hospital. And yet she’d taken on his cause as though it was her own.

  Feeling about a million years old, she climbed out of the car and walked toward the hospital. Bob was dozing when she entered his ward, his face slack. She guessed he’d once been a strapping man—big boned, muscular—but age and illness had whittled him away, reducing him to little more than skin and bone and sinew. As always, his frailty made her chest squeeze with sympathy and she couldn’t help flashing back to the awful, terrifying moment when she’d glanced over the fence and seen him sprawled unconscious on the grass. The twenty minutes she’d sat beside his too-still body, holding his hand while she waited for the ambulance to arrive had been the longest of her life.

  Bob’s eyelids flickered as she sank into the visitor’s chair. His eyes opened and he blinked a few times before focusing on her. She smiled.

  “Hello. How are you feeling?”

  “I’ll do.”

  Not once in all the turmoil and anxiety and uncertainty of the past few days had Bob let on that he was afraid of what his future held.

  “Have you seen the doctor today?”

  “He came by again. Wanted to make sure he’d given me enough of those little white pills to keep me well and truly off my rocker.”

  “Good. Because you don’t need to be in pain.”

  Bob pulled a face. She was well aware that he came from a generation of Australian men who’d chop off an arm before they admitted a weakness.

  “How are you doing with your crossword-puzzle books? Do you want me to get some more for you?”

  “I’m fine for the moment, thanks, love.”

  Tell him. Tell him and get it over with.

  Ally shifted to the edge of her seat. Took a steadying breath. “I spoke to Tyler today,” she said.

  Bob stilled. It was a moment before he responded. “Lazy bugger finally found the time to call, did he?”

  Ally opened her mouth to explain that she’d confronted Tyler in person after he hadn’t responded to her phone message, then thought better of it. Bob didn’t need to know all the details, only the important ones. She could spare him that, at least.

  “I don’t think he’s going to come, Bob,” she said gently.

  Bob’s hands found each other on top of the sheet. Then he nodded. “No surprises there, I guess. Never did have time for the old man.”

  Only the muscle working at his jaw gave any hint that he was grappling with strong emotion.

  She wondered again what had gone so wrong between Bob and his children, what words and deeds had been said and done to put so much distance between them. One thing was clear—Bob certainly wasn’t about to volunteer the details. Which meant that Ally had done all she could to help him on that front.

  “I’m sorry, Bob.”

  “Not your fault, love.”

  He asked about her column then and she pulled her latest letters from her bag and read him the juiciest problems. After fifteen minutes of offering her his pithy take on her readers’ issues, Bob started to slur his words a little and she knew he was getting tired.

  “I’ll let you get some rest now. But I’ll see you again tomorrow, okay?”

  “You don’t have to come in here every day. You’ve got your own things to do, all those letters to answer,” Bob said.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow,” Ally repeated with a small smile.

  She kissed him on the cheek before exiting the room. She let the smile fade when she was in the corridor.

  Feeling sad and heavy, she drove to Wendy’s house. Mr. Whiskers wound himself around her ankles the moment she opened the front door and she took the hint and fed him immediately. Then she tried to settle down to get a start on tomorrow’s column. Her mind kept drifting to Bob, however, unable to let go. She told herself over and over that Bob was not her responsibility, that she’d done all she could do. It didn’t make any difference.

  Ironic, really, since she’d spent practically all her adult life and much of her childhood ensuring she was as self-sufficient as possible. At thirty-three, she was a master at forming friendships that encompassed favors but not obligations, and relationships that offered companionship and passion without commitment or promises.

  Yet here she was, worried and anxious over an old man she barely knew.

  It’s because he’s so alone.

  But at the end of the day, everyone was alone.

  Shaking off her somber mood, Ally reapplied herself to solving other people’s problems.

  IT TOOK TYLER JUST OVER an hour to reach the outskirts of Woodend the following morning. He drove into Main Street, taking in the changes that ten years had wrought, a little surprised by how prosperous and lively it all seemed. There was fresh paint on shopfronts, more bustle along the sidewalks, new planter boxes and paving and a brand-spanking-new supermarket complex.

  He frowned, struggling to reconcile the present with his memories of a town that had always seemed too grim and too small and too isolated. A town he couldn’t wait to escape.

  He drove farther north until he found the hospital. The morning sun was warm on his back as he strode toward the front entrance.

  He had no idea what to expect. What to say to his father. How he would feel when he saw him for the first time in over a decade.

  He’d told Gabby that he didn’t hate his father, but he wasn’t sure it was true. Once, he’d wanted his father’s love and approval as much as any little boy. It had taken him a long time to accept that he would never hear the words of support and unconditional love that he craved. And longer than that again to understand that the fault wasn’t with him, but with his father and, to a certain extent, his mother.

&nb
sp; Just do it. See him. Listen to whatever he wants to say. Say your bit. Then it’s over, once and for all.

  He approached the reception desk, breathing in the medicinal smell shared by hospitals the world over, thinking about the phone conversation he’d had with Jon last night.

  They weren’t the closest of brothers. Even as kids they’d never discussed what went on within the four walls of their home. There had never seemed much point—their parents ruled their world, and there was nowhere else to go. So they’d endured, until one day when Jon was barely fourteen years old. He’d taken a hit from their father, but instead of curling into a ball to brace himself and endure the next inevitable blow, he’d gotten off the floor and squared up to the old man, both fists raised, his whole body trembling with rage. Tyler could still remember the shock and fear in his father’s face as he’d realized his eldest son was taller than him. And the dawning anger as he understood that his days of ruling the roost with a casual cuff or kick were over.

  Robert Adamson had never dared raise a hand to Jon after that and he was always careful to ensure his eldest son was out of the house before he laid into Tyler. A part of Tyler had wanted to hide behind his brother’s newly found strength, to run to him and tell him what was still going on when he wasn’t around. But the bulk of him had been too ashamed. Watching his brother stand his own ground had made him feel even smaller and less powerful and more trapped than he had before. It had taken Tyler many secretive sessions on the bench press at his friend Jimmy’s house and hours of shadowboxing before he’d gotten the courage to stand his ground in the same way when he was thirteen years old. The beatings had stopped, but not the verbal abuse.

  So perhaps it wasn’t so surprising that Jon had sounded more cautious than pleased when he’d heard Tyler’s voice over the phone last night. Family had never been associated with happiness for either of them. And when Tyler had revealed why he was calling, Jon had laughed outright.

  “If that old bastard thinks I’m getting on a plane to play the dutiful son by his deathbed, he can think again,” he’d said.

  Tyler hadn’t tried to talk him around. He’d done his bit, passed on the information. Jon had chosen his route, and Tyler his own. As always.

  The woman behind the reception counter directed him to his father’s ward. Tyler followed the signs and started counting off numbers as he looked for his father’s room.

  “Excuse me. Visiting hours don’t start until ten.”

  He turned to find a gray-haired nurse walking toward him.

  “I’ve driven up from Melbourne. I won’t be long.” It wouldn’t take five minutes to say what he needed to say, after all.

  “Who are you visiting?” the woman asked.

  “Robert Adamson. My father.” His throat closed around the unfamiliar word.

  The nurse’s expression softened. “Of course you are. I can see the family resemblance now. I’m Sister Kemp. Before you go in, can I grab some contact details from you? We don’t seem to have them on file.”

  Tyler hesitated a moment. “Sure.”

  He followed her to the nurses’ station then handed over his cell and home numbers.

  “Lovely. I know our social worker will be pleased to know Bob has family looking out for him. You can go in to see him now, but keep it short. He’s had major surgery and you’ll find he tires very easily.” She gave him a small smile before turning to take care of a ringing phone.

  Tyler glanced toward the open doorway of his father’s room. Then he realized he was hovering like an uncertain schoolboy and made himself move.

  The moment he stepped over the threshold, he knew there had been some kind of a mistake. The small, white-haired figure sleeping in the hospital bed was not his father. Robert Adamson was broad shouldered and robust, with a full head of salt-and-pepper hair, not pallid and frail-looking, his features sunken, the pink of his skull showing through a thin covering of white hair.

  Tyler took a step backward. Then the man in the bed stirred, his hands flexing briefly before relaxing again on the blanket. Tyler stilled. He knew those hands. Big, broad. Powerful.

  Bloody hell.

  He moved closer to the bed. How could this shrunken, diminished figure be his father, the man who loomed large and angry in all of Tyler’s memories of his childhood? How could so much overbearing energy be reduced to this…?

  Tyler eyed the tube snaking into the crook of his father’s elbow and the oxygen prongs taped to his upper lip. There were more tubes disappearing beneath the blankets and a heart monitor kept up a steady beep-beep at the head of the bed.

  How long had his father been so thin, the muscles of his arms so wasted? How long had his collarbone poked so obviously through his skin? What had happened to the square certainty of his jaw? The determined line of his brow?

  Tyler swallowed against a wash of emotion. Amazing that after so many years and so much ill feeling he could feel anything, any tug of affection or sentiment at all. But this man was a part of him, a part of his marrow and blood and flesh and bone. He’d taught Tyler how to kick a football and hammer a nail. He’d sat at the head of the table every Sunday and carved the lamb roast. Even in his absence, he’d been the most influential person in Tyler’s life.

  His father.

  “Tyler.”

  Tyler’s gaze snapped to his father’s face and he saw that he was awake, his pale blue eyes defiant and proud as he stared at his son.

  “That’s right.”

  “Thought you were too busy down there in the city with your little furniture business to have time for your old man.”

  Typical of his father to come out fighting. It was a painless jab, but it was enough to give Tyler some much-needed perspective. This man—this old, frail man—was not his mentor or his friend. Never had been, never would be.

  “We’re flat out, actually. So I can’t stay long.”

  “Nobody asked you to.” His parent smoothed a hand over his hair. “Did you talk to Jon?”

  “I did.” He didn’t say anything more and his father was the first to look away.

  “Well, it’s a long way to come from Canada. I assume he’s still over there, freezing his nuts off every winter?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Wife and kids?” his father asked hopefully.

  “No.”

  “How about you?”

  “No.”

  His father looked disappointed. Tyler glanced around the room, trying to think of something else to say. There were no cards or flowers on the bed stand, but someone had brought his father some crossword-puzzle books. His father shifted in the bed, then winced and subsided back on his pillows.

  “You okay?”

  “Does it look like I’m okay?” In the old days, his father’s words would have been delivered with scathing contempt, just in case Tyler hadn’t got the message over the past thirty-seven years that his father found him lacking on almost every front. There was no weight or vehemence behind today’s utterance, however—it was simply a reflex, the last remnant of a lifelong habit.

  “What are your plans?” Tyler asked.

  His father glared at him. “What do you mean, what are my plans? I’ve got a handful of weeks left. I wasn’t planning on a fishing expedition.”

  Tyler regarded him for a long, silent moment. It was hard to get angry or even irritated when he could see how much effort it was taking his father to maintain his usual brusque demeanor. Robert Adamson was a toothless tiger, a declawed lion, a gelded stallion. Whatever power he once wielded in the world was long gone.

  “What have the doctors said?”

  “Why? Wondering how soon you can get your hands on the house?”

  “I don’t need your money, Dad,” Tyler said, then cursed himself for rising to the bait.

  He took a deep breath. He hadn’t come here to fight. He’d come to say his piece, and the sooner he did that, the sooner he could get back to his life.

  He opened his mouth to deliver the speech
he’d pre pared in the small hours of the morning—sharp, brutal words designed to severe the ties between them at last. Then he looked into his father’s watery blue eyes and saw past the surface pride to the well of fear and uncertainty beneath.

  The words he’d waited years to say died in his throat.

  The man lying before him had only weeks, maybe a handful of months left. No matter how much he deserved it, no matter how many times Tyler had imagined himself looking his father in the eye and listing his father’s failures as a parent and a man, he could not make himself say the words sitting like lead in his belly.

  He simply couldn’t.

  Some of the tension eased out of his shoulders.

  So. That was that, then. He’d say his goodbyes and walk away and leave the big issues between them unexplored, as they always had been. Let the old man slip away without nailing him with the questions he’d always wanted answers to.

  What did we do wrong?

  Did you ever love us?

  Why even have children if you resented them so deeply?

  “I need to go,” Tyler said. He dug his car keys from his pocket. “Is there anything you need before I head off? Anything from home? Something from the shop?”

  “I’m all covered. Ally brought me my things.”

  Right. Ally, the next-door neighbor. It sounded like the kind of thing a self-righteous elf would do.

  “Then I’d best be getting back to it,” Tyler said.

  His father nodded as though he’d expected nothing less. “Appreciate you dropping by.”

  Tyler headed for the door, an odd, sick feeling in his gut.

  He’d just said goodbye to his father for the last time. Once he returned to Melbourne, that would be it. It would all be over.

  Impossible to untangle all the thoughts and feelings racing through his mind. Regret, anger, grief, frustration. And, yes, pity.

  He strode through the corridors, dodging patients and medical staff. Then he exited the hospital—and almost walked straight into a small, dark-haired woman.