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I looked across at my boy. The wolf tried to give me a smile but failed for once in his life. A telling point; I always thought he would laugh at the devil. Yet here, in my hour of need, he could not.

"Are you sure you are ok Ryan?"

"Yes." He knew I was bullshitting, he also knew this horse was not for turning.

"Are you sure you don't want me to come?"

"Yes." On that I had been firm. I didn't want him polluted by this any more than I was already.

He seemed about to argue but subsided. I had conditioned him well over the years; he knew futile when he saw it.

The car door slammed with metallic finality and I trotted across the wasteland of the hospital carpark ignoring the way my breath seemed to crystallize into a beautiful fog like fairy floss. Somehow these places were always cold and depressing whatever the time of year. Passing nurses and doctors, patients and their carers, I saw every expression under the stars. Mine was blank as the concrete.

I found the lift next to reception and headed for my goal. Ward 2 south. Innocuous enough unless you knew what it meant. The small sign in the corridor gave the game away.

Ward 2 South Oncology/Palliative Care

The nurse on the desk looked forbidding. I had always found them confronting for some reason, and I knew it was probably unwarranted but some biases are hard to remove. It took something not to bolt there and then, a perfect excuse for craven retreat. She saw me though, and smiled. A nice looking lioness, perhaps her roar was worse than her teeth.

"Can I help you horse?"

"I'm looking for...for Samantha O'Donnell."

"Are you family?"

"Y...yes." She had no idea how hard that one word had been.

Ushered down the corridor past a cavalcade of the damned I came to a room, and found I could not go in. Like a horse refusing the jump I stalled, my tail swishing and eyes wide.

"It can be confronting..."

Please nurse, no more compassion.

"If you like, I can take you to join her husband? He is taking some time out in a lounge area right now."

I nodded, wondering if this really was the lesser evil, or the greater mercy.

The lounge looked as depressing as the carpark, grey chairs, grey carpet, grey walls. It was as if someone took all that was good about Whistler's Mother and removed it leaving only an indistinct smear of semi darkness. There was only one inhabitant, a bear, and he was smoking like a chimney and rocking back and forward on his heels looking out a window.

He turned at the sound and his muzzle opened a little, the fag hanging half out as he sought for words. Eventually they came.

"You came. You finally came."

The nurse coughed, seeming to realise this was not a scene she belonged in. She exited stage left, not pursued by a bear but fleeing one anyway, and leaving me to his mercies, and him to mine. I often wondered what he looked like.

"Why now?"

"Because..." I realised I had no more words to complete that sentence.

"Because. Because you are a selfish shit? Because you wanted to punish her?"

"Mate, I'm sorry, but you have no fucking idea..." I knew the signs. My ears were back, my heartrate up, and I was sucking in oxygen like an Olympic sprinter at the tape. I also had my fists balled, almost tasting the first crunch into flesh. My mantra was needed now.

"Because you are an ungrateful good for nothing cunt?"

"Mate, again, I'm sorry, but you really don't know..."

Make that a marathon runner now. There was not enough oxygen in the world to make my lungs cease to ache.

The stupid shit didn't seem to realise. Instead of backing off, he stepped forward and began to poke my chest with one clawed finger.

"She begged you. I begged you. One word, one fucking word, one call, anything. You cunt. Cunt. Cunt..."

I was in a place of calm, riding through a forest. Each tree was a haven and I stopped at each in turn, seeing its bark and foliage and reciting its name. Eucalyptus globulus. Blue Gum. Corymbia maculata, spotted gum with it's beautiful scalloped bark...

He had stopped at least. My eyes were closed I knew, breathing under control, body a temple. I was in command.

"What the fuck are you doing?"

"Saving your life."

He stepped back now. Deep breaths in. Deep breaths out.

"You are a fucking psycho."

I opened my eyes now. He looked frightened, as well as angry, so we were making progress.

"You spent time in Juvie didn't you pony?"

Now he had me on the defensive. I nodded, suddenly ashamed, my head down and ears flat.

"Yes...Malmsbury. I know I am a loser Dean, you don't need to remind me. But I won't take that shit from you, ok?"

We appeared to have a sort of détente for now. He took one of the disgusting grey chairs and offered me a cigarette. I declined with a shudder and took a seat across from him.

"So why then Danny?" He seemed genuinely perplexed. A bear of little imagination.

"Call me Ryan mate."

"I will call you Danny. It's the name she gave you, the one she called out to while she still could."

"I don't have to explain myself to you."

"Your mother is diagnosed with terminal cancer and you don't call, you don't come see her, even when she leaves a message with your foster family. She begged you, I know because I heard her do it. You don't see her for ten whole years, even when she cleaned herself up. And only now, when it's too late, right at the end, you finally show up. Why couldn't you do it when it would have mattered?"

He was angry again, standing and pacing. His words were weapons, and I was the target of opportunity. He seemed to have lost his sense of self preservation, because he planted his greying muzzle in my face and almost spat on me as he yelled.

"You fucking killed her!"

I grabbed him by the shoulder and squeezed. He felt it then, the fear, and so did I. I knew I was hanging on by a thread. I met his roar with my own barrage of rage.

"And she nearly killed me! Do you have any fucking idea what it was like? Her fucking druggy trash boyfriend butting his cigarettes on my back and fucking me? Do you know what was the worst part? Waking up in a hospital like this, and all I wanted was my mum. She never came. All through those years in care, she never came..."

He had his paws up now in defence, muttering. I so wanted to snot him one.

"Ok, ok. I know some of it but...you know she cleaned up her act. You knew she got off the booze. She was a different mare."

"Not that different."

I subsided in a chair, spent for now. He followed suit. We were out of words, and out of anger for each other. There were bigger fish to fry.

"Are you going to go see her?" He was about to cry now, I could tell. I didn't want to see that, and I knew I wasn't ready yet. I shook my head and looked at my hooves.

"Not yet."

"Don't leave it much longer Dann...Ryan."

He let out the deepest sigh I had heard, and that was something because I had heard some that would bring mountains down. It came from his hindpaws and out like a spirit leaving the body, and from his eyes I could see it had. He was hanging by a thread. I was too, if he could only see it, but as always my eyes showed nothing. I had learned in a hard school, one she had put me in, never show emotion. Perhaps I really was the psycho they all thought underneath.

To while away the time I resorted to an old hobby. I took out a swiss army knife and my little piece of wood. The form had begun to take shape, feature by feature, from the timber. I knew what it was to be, even if it did not yet.

Hours later he returned, and looked even more defeated. He seemed to collapse into the chair like a sack of potatoes, and put his head in his paws.

"When I met her she was just out of rehab. She was so bright, like a sun, and so enthusiastic. I knew she had come from some bad shit, and done some things. She talked about you all the time. You had just turned eighteen, and she thought maybe she could see you finally, after everything, and show you she wasn't the mare who failed you..."

I whittled, and splinters flew as substitutes for my needs. Forests would not have been enough for that.

"You have no idea how much it hurt her when she realised you weren't going to reply."

"She had no right to expect it mate."

"I know. But she was your mother..."

"Not any more. Not any more."

"She was so proud of you. Getting into university."

My head went up, along with my ears.

"How did she..."

"She had her sources. She kept an eye on you, from a distance."

Unsettled, I stood and stretched. My back felt like hot needles had been forced into it, and my mane tingled. Somehow the thought of what I faced in the room next door seemed not so bad compared with this conversational journey into nightmares. It was time.

"I'm going in..."

He seemed content at least. He gave me a smile and waved me on. I would face this part alone.

Not entirely though. A nurse fussed around the bed, keeping her as comfortable as possible. I recognised the signs, the tell-tale marks of these places. I had lost one I loved to cancer, and his last days reminded me of this, the long slow descent into an end all know is coming.

The room was quiet, and plain. The usual machines that accompany the seriously ill in these technology addicted days were absent; there was no need to chart the vitals of one here to die, to warn of impending collapse. All that remained was to wait for it to come, with the aid of the infusion pump by her bed slowly pumping it's cargo of opiate relief into her failing system.

She was unconscious now, mumbling occasionally, her breathing very slow and very shallow. The bedclothes barely moved at all.

I looked most like my father, now a distant memory after his own death when I was eight. I remembered his big body, a Clyde like me, and his feathering and his laugh. But I remembered mum's eyes, green and troubled like mine, and her habit of flicking her forelock like I did and a hundred things that haunted my nights. We were not so different in many ways, and it was easier dealing with them with her like this. What made her her, and made her like me, had mostly fled the scene leaving the wreckage to decay. I was glad I could not see the eyes.

Her breathing changed a bit, and the nurse gave me a little frown.

"Don't worry. Its normal."

"I know. Cheyne-Stokes. Not long I guess."

She seemed startled at my matter-of-fact way. It was my defence. When in doubt, retreat to the technical.

"Yes...how..."

"Seen it before."

Sitting by her head I watched her give up the fight by inches. Without realising it I reached for her mane. The mists of memory parted, and I remembered the feel, in the days it felt like security.

"Uhhhh..."

She sort of groaned a bit, and her arm twitched. I kissed her mane.

"It's ok mum. It's alright, nothing's wrong."

The ghastly sound came again.

"I'm here mum. Sorry I was late."

She seemed to calm then, and I held her hand. There was a noise from the doorway, and I saw the bear there crying. I turned away, angry and ashamed, and finally stood and passed him on my way out.

"Where..."

"Need some air mate."

I went to the bathroom and threw up whatever remained in my stomach. It felt better at least when I made it back to the lounge, and I was able to take the attentions of a really persistent catholic nun, a nice mouse, in my stride. The wood was my rock, as I calmly told her we were Presbyterian, and I let the soothing words wash over me while I worked on my carving. It was coming together nicely.

The bear was back, and he was not happy.

"You really need to be back in there..."

"No I don't mate. You were right. She was right. I'm no good, I'm no good, I'm no good. Can't you tell? I thought it was well understood."

"Seriously colt, she needs you..."

I finally stared at him and let it out in a hiss.

"I'm telling you dickhead, just leave me alone!"

"Gentlemen! Please...it's time..."

The nurse was looking sombre, and the bear almost lost it then. I followed him in, mostly in a daze. The breathing was a struggle now, against a foe beyond her skill. She had survived, like me, but now she was losing, and somehow I was still here.

The final moments were sudden. A breath, then nothing, then a gasp, then nothing. Her eyes were open; oh why the fuck did they have to be open, the green fading into night?

I kissed her hand, and whispered in her ear.

"I'm sorry mum. I don't know if I can forgive you."

I trotted into the night shaking like a leaf. And I could not cry. If it was revenge, the tune was the same. You're no good.

****

The package was unexpected, without a return address and simple cardboard. I pondered it for a while, sitting on the kitchen table of my foster parents home. I was back there, like some helicopter kid, like the ones I tended to despise in uni. Though I was over twenty now and they had no reason to keep me, I had a home, and if I knew it was partly due to my boyfriend, their son, I ignored that technicality.

I opened it reluctantly, as if knowing what may be inside. A small box, bearing the name Danny. The poison lurked, and I drank it with a whinny of abnegation.

Inside I found a hundred little wounds. Pictures of me; school photos, my Year 12 formal picture, one of me in a Kayak and one riding my horse. An invitation to a wedding, the joyous union of Samantha O'Donnell and Dean Rickards, addressed to me. And one flash drive, bog standard in blue.

My laptop sprang into life, and I plugged it in with shaking hands. The file was easy to find, it was the only one. A long video.

When the image came into focus, I realised what it was; her wedding to the bear, three years ago now. She looked beautiful, in a way that made me gasp. Beautiful but cold, with eyes that stared into space like a dead china doll.

Through the ceremony, through the reception, I watched. The bear singing bad karaoke, a mic and half cigarette hanging from his lips, singing Cathy's Clown off key, and the laughter and the smiles. To the speeches and the formalities, and to her. She appeared composed, so she was, I suppose.

"This is for one who couldn't be here, who I love, and who I miss deeply. I'm sorry, and one day I will make it up to you."

Maybe not. The clattering sound echoed around my room, as the poor electronic device smashed against the wall and landed in a heap on the floor. My boy poked his nose around the door, looking worried.

"IT problems?"

"You never told me you sent her photos of me."

He sighed, like the bear, and sat on the floor.

"My parents thought...well, they thought it might help..."

"Yeah, it did. Get the car, we have a job to do."

To his credit, he knew when to obey.

The cemetery was dark, and quiet. I left him at the car and trotted over to her grave. It looked shiny, and tacky, but I knew I had no real say in the matter.

My breath came out my snout in gusts and formed little puffballs, like in the hospital carpark. I watched them go for long minutes before I could speak. The loss and the waste and the pain almost overwhelmed me. That and the grief; the loss of a possible future, and a mother I didn't realise might have changed. Had I thrown it all away, or was I right to hold her at bay?

"I forgive you mum. Not for you, but for me. I can't carry this hate any longer, or the grief. I need it out, and I need it out now. So I forgive you. I'm never gonna know you now, but I'm gonna love you, anyhow."

I placed the box on her grave, and one more talisman. A little wooden horse, finished that day, started back in a hospital. He looked at me a bit accusingly I thought, and I gave him a whinny.

"You couldn't look after me mum, and I couldn't look after you. I'll leave you with someone better. He can do a better job, and maybe you can too."

My wolf had eyes like saucers when I got back to the car. I guess he knew a horse about to break.

"Just drive."

And then, at last, the tears came.

Link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WL1ly1GMwwc

Lyrics

First the mic, then a half cigarette Singing Kathy's clown That's the man she's married to now That's the girl that he takes around town She appears composed So she is, I suppose Who can really tell? She shows no emotion at all Stares into space like a dead china doll

I'm never gonna know you now but I'm gonna love you anyhow

Now she's done, and they're calling someone Such a familiar name I'm so glad that my memory's remote 'Cause I'm doing just fine hour to hour, note to note Here it is, the revenge to the tune You're no good, you're no good, you're no good, you're no good Can't you tell that it's well understood?

I'm never gonna know you now but I'm gonna love you anyhow

I'm here today, expect it to stay on, and on, and on I'm tired, I'm tired Looking out on the substitute scene Still going strong XO Mom It's OK, it's alright, nothing's wrong Tell Mr. Man with impossible plans To just leave me alone In the place where I make no mistakes In the place where I have what it takes

I'm never gonna know you now but I'm gonna love you anyhow I'm never gonna know you now but I'm gonna love you anyhow I'm never gonna know you now but I'm gonna love you anyhow