Waiting for her to move in was the worst part.
No one else was home and Anna was left to sit on the couch after work and wait for her to appear.
She'd seen her only a week prior and she'd been the same as she'd been for the last couple of months.
"No, I can't eat anything," Rosemary had replied as she'd helped Anna search for a beading needle in her sewing room. Anna was glad to be there but felt guilty that she'd only made the drop-in after work for a few minutes because of a beading needle.
"Every day is the same."
*****
The 21st of December had felt slightly ominous. Anna had been trying to remind herself to pray, to meditate, to find some time to be alone. Always reminding herself.
It didn't happen until the 21st itself.
The world didn't end as the Western world had somehow thought- Anna knew it was the restart of the Mayan calendar, a celebration, not doomsday.
But then perhaps the Western idea had some truth to it after all.
*****
It was the 22nd when she moved in. Less than twenty four hours after the months of pain, sickness, inability to eat and sleepless nights (among other things) had been given a name, Rosemary had moved in.
Anna heard the car pull up after wasting two hours on the internet when she should have been running. She hadn't wanted to move in case she missed her. When she heard the car pull up, she didn't want to move in case she saw her.
When her Uncle and cousins walked through the door with surgical masks over their faces, her heart stopped briefly. But then, Rosemary walked in. Looking the same, seeming the same.
"They were just worried in case they might have caught something," Rosemary explained as she sat down on the sofa.
She quickly signalled that it was fine for her escort to leave, and so the masks filed out the French doors.
Anna sat her laptop to the side and turned her body towards Rosemary.
It was funny, this diagnosis. Anna had been ignoring her mother the past month.
"She's really sick, Anna." her mother would tell her over the phone. "I
know, Mum," she'd reply, frustrated and convinced that her mother was exaggerating as usual.
But here Rosemary was now- labelled.
And this diagnosis had suddenly terrified Anna. Would she seem different when she walked in the front door?
But she didn't. She still felt nauseous and tired, but that was all.
"I feel fine," Rosemary told her, "I think I still haven't accepted it quite yet."
*****
Anna arrived home late on the 23rd and tried to keep her dogs quiet. Rosemary was asleep in her bed, and she was glad. She knew the whole family felt bad.
"We don't want you to feel like we're kicking you out, Anna," her mother had tried to explain over and over.
"I
know, Mum," she'd replied, frustrated that anyone would think she really cared where she slept at the moment.
"I just want her to be with us."
A voice came from upstairs as Anna tried to mute the hyperactive animals.
"You okay, Anna?"
"I'm fine, Dad."
"Where's-"
Anna cut him off before he could continue, "He's at his house, Dad."
She'd text her other half that day and let him know what was happening. He conveniently chose that night to have some time to himself.
She just lay on top of the mattress they'd put out for her in the lounge, jeans and all, and slept with the two dogs to keep her company.
*****
"Do you want a prognosis?" Dr. Strothers had asked. The room they met him in had a giant TV screen on the wall. Anna couldn't imagine discussing these sorts of things through Skype. She was glad she was home for Summer break.
Rosemary looked at Anna, then at her own children.
"I wouldn't want to know." Anna's mother piped up. All heads clicked in her direction.
"Neither would I." Anna added in. All heads clicked towards Anna.
Rosemary breathed in for a moment before she spoke. All heads moved slowly to look at her.
"I don't think... I want to know," she began slowly, choosing her words.
"I haven't accepted... I'm a Christian. And I haven't accepted that I'm going to die yet. I'm hoping for a miracle."
She wasn't the only one.
*****
Anna's on a beach in another city with three of her friends when she realises she's missed a phone call from her mother.
They've just come out of the surprisingly warm water after a suspicious shape swam past their ankles. The water's too cold to be scared of stingrays where they're from.
The boys were drying themselves off when Anna's mother called again.
"Hi!" her cheery voice comes down the line.
Anna doesn't trust her mother's cheery voice any more.
Her voice was cheery on the 21st, when Anna had been looking at salt and pepper shakers for her father in the mall with her friend Joe at her side.
"So, we've heard from the doctor," Anna's mother had began nonchalantly, whilst Anna held out a pair of pig shakers towards Joe and had mouthed at him to tell her what he thought.
"Oh, yeah?" Anna had asked, balancing her cellphone between her ear and shoulder.
"Yeah, well, she has pancreatic cancer, but she's going to be okay!"
Anna's mother had sounded so sure of this that Anna wasn't sure whether to be worried or not.
"Is everything okay?" Anna asked on the beach then.
"Well, Nan just had to go into hospital in an ambulance this morning, but she's all fine now!"
And so this was how every phone call carried out whenever something happened.
*****
The day came for Anna to move back to her flat and study again.
Boxes lined the porch, and were beginning to be packed into the boot of her small car.
It was a gorgeous morning, and Anna had planned to go in to the hospital where Rosemary was now and say goodbye on her way out.
But instead, she was crying angry tears in the middle of the lounge.
She held her mother while she cried. She'd just had to ring Rosemary.
"Nan, I've got a cold. I don't want to make you sick, so I don't know if I should come and say goodbye."
"No, it's probably best you don't." Anna could hear in Rosemary's voice that this wasn't what she wanted to be saying.
"I don't want to go, Nan."
"I know. But you have to, Anna."
******
It's been four months now.
Anna knocks on the door of the homestead Rosemary worked at just over a year ago, and a nurse greets her and takes her in.
Rosemary doesn't know Anna's visiting- she'd wanted to surprise her, and she didn't want to get her hopes up in case she couldn't make it. In some ways, Rosemary is a bit like a child now.
There's a sign on Rosemary's door as Anna walks up the hallway.
If I am sleeping please wake me. I like TALKING to my visitors when they are around!
She enters the room and sees Rosemary in a wheelchair by the window. She's skeletal now. She was plump four months ago. She's hunched over and quiet.
"Hello!" Anna calls cheerfully as she walks into the room.
"Hello." Comes the quiet reply.
This takes Anna aback a little. She's used to seeing Rosemary at her best- she seems to have some lucky charm about her. Whenever she makes it up for visits, Rosemary is full of life, seeming healthy, excited to see her.
Anna knows she's sick today.
Anna walks around to the front of the wheelchair and touches Rosemary's arm. She still doesn't look up, so Anna crouches down to below her eye level.
"Hello," she repeats, smiling.
"Oh... Hello." Rosemary replies.
Two nurses come in and help Rosemary into her bed.
She's visibly depressed. Anna can't fathom what it must be like to suddenly be imprisoned in what used to be your place of work.
"That's the problem," Rosemary had said early on, "I know too much. I've seen too many people die."
Anna sits next to Rosemary when she's finally as comfortable as she could be, and holds her hand and talks to her about what she's been doing. A nurse enters and Rosemary gestures towards Anna and tells her proudly, "She's a belly dancer."
"Oh, wow! You should come and dance here for us!" The nurse is visibly excited.
"Ohh, yes." Rosemary adds quietly. "I've never been able to see her dance."
"I'll write my number down right now!" Anna smiles, "And I'll wear my orange outfit for you, Nan. Gotta wear your favourite colour."
"Oh, yes. You'll have to." Rosemary replies weakly.
