The Ice Marathon by Rosen Trevithick

I counted his little fingers and stroked the cute wrinkle by his left
ear. He did look well. He gazed up at me. I wondered if he knew who I was and
the significance of me leaving.
    “He needs some sleep now,” said Judy, softly.
    What? No. Judy didn’t get to say ‘He needs some sleep now’.
That was my call to make! I felt my insides begin to curdle as she took him
from my arms. Then she turned away, and I couldn’t even see him anymore.
    “No!” I cried. The tears moistened my lower eyelids. “Not
yet.”
    I heard Joseph whimper and I wanted to go to him.
    “Shush, shush, shush,” Judy sang to my son, ignoring me.
    I turned to Gerald, “He doesn’t need to go to bed yet !”
    Judy walked out of the door, her figure shrinking into the
distance, ripping hope away from me.
    I sprang up. “Not yet!” I shouted. I felt all the progress
I’d been making dissolve. I was back to ground zero once again. I felt
desperate and helpless. My breathing started to accelerate. I felt dizzy. I
started stuttering reasons why he shouldn’t be in bed yet. I cried out his
name …
    When I felt Gerald’s arms on my waist, I realised that I was
hysterical.
    “No!” I sobbed. “He can’t go to bed yet !”
    “Calm yourself!” shouted Gerald, firmly.
    “We agreed that you would look after him at night ,” I
pleaded. “It’s only six fifteen!”
    “This isn’t doing anybody any good,” he barked, forcing me
down onto the sofa. “It’s not helping you and it’s not helping my grandson.”
    * * *
    I was in bits. Spending the day with Joseph only to say
goodbye to him again had been torture. Watching Judy carry him away up the
stairs had been as painful as watching their car drive away the previous day.
Now I had to, somehow, manage a second night apart.
    The little pill in my hand looked so insignificant; could it
help to lift this dreadful, dark curtain and reunite me with my son? Well, it
couldn’t make things any worse . I read the instructions on the packet:
‘Take with a meal’.
    How could I possibly eat? No part of me was hungry. In fact,
if truth be told, I felt a little sick. Not only that, but even emptying a tin
of soup into a pan felt like it would take more effort than I could muster.
    I wished that Simon were here. He wouldn’t be able to fix
whatever chemical imbalance was assaulting my brain, but he might be able to
make things a little better, and right now, any improvement would be welcome. I
pictured Joseph reaching for Simon’s hand in the hospital; it was the most
uplifting memory I’d ever kept.
    Today Simon would be training in the Andes. I wondered how
it was going. I would give anything just to receive a text moaning about his
cold toes.
    I looked at my phone. I knew where to find a website full of
photos from the previous year. I found comfort in enjoying pictures of the
locations where I knew Simon would soon be running, imagining the icy
landscapes painting in front of his eyes.
    Would he be thinking of me as he trod that frozen ground?
Would he picture me in my house the way my mind’s palette brushed him onto
these blue and white scenes? What would he think if he knew I’d handed Joseph
over to his parents? Would he be furious?
    Never mind what Simon would think, I’d done the right thing
– the hardest option, but the right one. Then I had a moment of clarity – if
I’d already done the hardest part, then I could definitely get through the
rest. What was heating up some soup compared with saying goodbye to my son, twice ?
    I made my way into the kitchen and found a saucepan. I felt
dizzy, I felt tired, I felt like going back to bed and never getting up again,
but I was going to make that soup. And then, the next morning, I would get up
and make myself some porridge. Because that was what I had to do. I had to go
through the motions, no matter how exhausting they felt, until I was ready to
be reunited with my son.
    * * *
    The doorbell rang. I sprang out of my seat before it