Luuk’s hands stretched around the gift-wrapped flower pot, the orange flower heads bouncing as he strode along the sterile corridor behind his father.  He raised the pot to show his dad how his fingertips almost touched on the other side. ‘Look,’ he said, as the dancing orange heads caught his attention again. ‘Merry Gods!’

‘Marigolds.’

Luuk held the pot close his chest.  ‘… and in Vlaams?’

‘Goudsbloem,’ Nick replied, and stopped to face his son. He brushed at Luuk’s sandy hair with his fingers, tidying it as best he could. It still amazed him how scruffy a six-year-old could get after a few hours, even on the last day of school. He pointed to Luuk’s sneaker. ‘Your shoe’s undone.’

Luuk glanced at his shoes, then held out the flowerpot and poked his tongue through the little gap where his tooth had been the week before. ‘Mom says you can’t run a good race with your shoelace untied.’

‘That you can’t,’ Nick agreed, and dutifully dropped a knee to tie his son’s shoe.

Luuk jiggled the pot near Nick’s head.  ‘Goudsbloem,’ he repeated. ‘What do you think mom wants me to call them?’

‘I think she’d want you to call them whatever you like.’

‘I like Merry Gods best.’

‘I like Merry Gods best too.’

Nick tried to wipe some dust from Luuk’s knees, but his son stepped back from his reach.

‘Daa-aad,’ he groaned and offered him a cheeky grin.

Nick pursed his lips into a smile. All he wanted was for everything to be perfect.

But nothing was ever going to be perfect, was it?
Luuk bounced the pot again, reveling in his power over the orange dancers. 

Was this fair, what they were doing to him?
Was anything, about anything, in this whole damn world fair?

Luuk burst into Hannie’s hospital room as he did every afternoon.

‘Moeder,’ he called, and planted a kiss on her cheek before he ran to the window. His energy bounced around the walls, ricocheted off the monitors and wove itself into the lemon curtains.  Hannie rested against a billowing cloud of pillows, and the corners of her mouth lifted in contentment. Her pale body, the one that once sprang around the track like a gazelle, conserved its energy for Luuk’s return to her side. Nick kissed her forehead and stroked her bandana. It was her favourite, the one Luuk had bought for her, but Luuk had stopped noticing which ones she wore months ago.

Nick sat quietly in the recliner while Hannie waited for her little imp to settle into his routine. First, he would smell the flowers on the table beside her and then watch the buses leave the terminal below. She waited until he had counted the people sitting on the park benches feeding the pigeons before she asked about the pot in his hand.

‘They’re Merry Gods, do you like them?’ he replied, plonking the pot onto her bed.

‘They’re very orange.’

‘They’re goudsbloem.’ He swung around to Nick ‘… aren’t they Dad?’

Hannie reached for Luuk’s hand. ‘That’s right, schoon goudsbloem. They’re perfect. Thank you my darling.’

Hannie listened to Luuk talk about school, the funny looking man they’d seen on the way in, and how big noisy machines were digging up the road in the center of their town. Nick watched as his wife concentrated on every moment, smiled at each toothless grin, and valiantly fought the tears that rose and fell like a rolling tide behind her eyes. ‘Photo time,’ he called. Luuk wiggled and fussed just like he always did. ‘Luuk,’ Nick whispered as he gently squeezed his arm and placed him on the bed, ‘Just this once, can you not wiggle? For your moeder?’

Luuk nodded, and let Hannie cradle him like a baby. He didn’t complain, even when Hannie drew his head to her shoulder and nuzzled his hair. Then she stroked his face with the back of her finger, and they gazed at each other for the longest time. Nick felt sure a silent rumble passed between them and he shifted in his seat. Did Luuk know? How could he? Naturally, they’d been distracted… but they’d been so careful.

Luuk rolled himself from her arms and onto the bed. ‘Guess what Mom?’

‘What?’

‘Opa and Oma are picking me up tonight. I’m going to the farm for the holidays.’

Somehow, Hannie found energy for a grin. ‘You are? Perhaps you could plant the goudsbloem there? I heard Oma has just bought a lovely big planter.’

She caught her breath and Nick had to drop his gaze. He bit at the inside of his mouth.

She wanted their last memories of mother and son together to be happy ones.

Nick concentrated on the sting of flesh between his teeth. Was it selfish?
Was it cruel to deny grief in the moments it needed expression?
She was allowed to be selfish.
She was the one who was leaving.

Luuk waved madly at the driveway from his bedroom window. ‘Oma! Opa!’ He bounded down the stairs, his small suitcase and his Minecraft pillow following jauntily behind. He met his grandparents just inside the front door. ‘Can we go now?’

‘Look at you,’ Opa said, picking him up. ‘You’re packed already!’ Opa nudged his wife ‘See Oma, I told you he’s a clever boy. You’ll have to make him his favourite pancakes now.’

Luuk nodded furiously and Opa tickled him, but it was only Nick and Oma that saw the sadness in the old man’s eyes.

They’d been to the hospital and said their goodbyes a week earlier. If Hannie was anything she was a planner. After their initial shock and denial, her parents had agreed to honour Hannie’s plan. She’d convinced them this was best for Luuk, and implored them to see it as no different from when they’d planned his birth by caesarean. His arrival had been timed around work and family commitments. On a particular date that she chose, her new life as a moeder began.

Only this time, on a particular date that she chose, their new lives would begin. School was finished, Luuk was on holidays and Nick could take time off work.

‘Daddy’s coming for a holiday too… in a few days,’ Oma said as she nodded gently to Nick.

Luuk left Opa’s arms and squeezed his dad goodbye. ‘I’ll save you some pancakes.’

The adults hugged each other in farewell, but no one spoke. Oma wasn’t much of a planner, but she was perceptive. She didn’t offer her usual warm and lingering hug that could heal a thousand hurts. Nothing deep when everyone was so fragile.

There were no words to be said, just a duty to be performed.

Wishes to be granted.

Was this just Hannie’s desperate attempt to snatch back control of her life?
She deserved every piece of control she could lay her hands on.
Every sense of peace they could muster for her.

Nick poured a double over the ice in his glass and wandered his quiet house, only stopping to contemplate the family pictures on the wall.  Hannie was right, he mused. It was simply another threshold.

This same feeling had cloaked him the day before Luuk’s birth, the sensation that nothing in his life would ever be the same again. It was there the day before their wedding, the day of their graduation. He took down the frame of them posing proudly in their gowns and mortarboards and traced her long blond hair with his fingertips.

Hannie was Groningen University’s rising track star, and he was the American goofball who would have done any degree to stay by her side.  He smiled when he realized he’d felt the same sensation when they’d first met. That even on that day, he’d somehow known his life would never be the same. Everyone loved to hear their ‘how-we-met’ story. Probably because it made him look like an idiot and made everyone laugh. He always pulled the right faces when Hannie told it, but he never tired of it either. It was theirs.

He was the dorky son of a diplomat, filling in the third leg on a high school relay team in suburban Amsterdam.  She was the track star, waiting to take it home in front of the entire school. But at the sight of her he’d become instantly besotted and forgot to let go of the baton. They began a bizarre tug of war with the school laughing and yelling at them.

‘Let it go!’ she screamed at him.

He knew he should let go, but his brain wasn’t connected to his body and, instead, he ran alongside her in a ridiculous public display of teenage angst, which only slowed her down. When his body recovered and let go of the baton, he stood in awe as she flew down the track gaining ground on the others and secured second place. The incident became the talk of the school. There were lots of jokes about batons, chasing, and catching, and eventually Hannie laughed too.

Nick replaced the picture frame and walked to the mahogany display cabinet. He reached behind her trophies and pulled out the dented blue aluminium baton the coach had presented to them at their high school graduation.

‘I know you’re only young,’ he’d said. ‘But run a good race, won’t you?’

Hannie accepted the baton with a laugh. ‘He’s going to have to learn to run faster,’ she said, ‘Because we all know he’s no good at letting go.’

Nick fell into the lounge chair and squeezed the baton. His knuckles showed white against its metallic blue, and the aluminium burr of some distant track incident dug into his palm. He released his grip and traced the engraving that ran along the length of the baton.

The date they met.

The day of their engagement.

Wedding.

Luuk’s birthdate.

All the significant dates in their lives.

Did tomorrow’s date deserve to be on there?
Surely it was just as significant.

The glint of the trophies caught Nick’s eye again as he made his way back to the bottle of scotch.
She always said how thrilling it was to be alive after a run, and her competitive nature made sure she was always moving. Nick knew she wanted to keep running but her body wouldn’t let her. She’d always won… one way or another.

Mum says you can’t run a race with a shoelace untied.

Hannie always used running analogies any time she could. It was one they all understood. Nick slammed down another double. Their conversation from weeks ago played in his mind whether he wanted it to or not, the effects of the scotch making sure there was little resistance. She’d asked him to lie beside her on her hospital bed. Hannie liked to pretend they were still at home discussing things like any other normal couple, making trivial decisions about paint colors, or whose turn it was to collect the dry cleaning. Nick hated the topics they were forced to discuss as much as he hated the pillows—they were always starched and unfamiliar.

‘It’s like relay,’ Hannie said. ‘Each drug passing one to the other. But it’s not a race, more like a slow jog. I’ve named the first runner Barbie.’

‘Barbie?’

‘Pentobarbital.’ She smiled at Nick to ease his pain, but he wasn’t sure whether he wanted to kiss her, or slap her for being so flippant.

‘We can let her run half the track,’ she continued, ‘She’s pretty cruisey.’ Hannie slid her hand down Nick’s face, her fingers settling on his unshaven chin. ‘Then she’ll pass the baton to Pav,’ she raised her eyebrows ‘Pavulon… who’ll slow me down and then… I’ll cross the line.’

I’ll cross the line. Her words punched into his stomach with such force he expected his whole body to explode. The pain escaped in a wail. She held him until the worst had passed and he regained his composure.

Nick wiped his face with the edge of the rough bed sheet. ‘Oh God, I’m sorry Hannie, I thought I had this sorted.’

She understood. She always understood. ‘I don’t mean to be heartless Nick, it’s only I’ve had more time alone with my thoughts than you. It’s almost a … privilege. I know what it’s like to think you’ve done enough grieving and railing, and then still have these emotions smash you to pieces when you least expect it. It’s perfectly normal.’ She took his hand and studied the way they melded together effortlessly, then kissed it. ‘Know that I would’ve run a good race my love. I’ll cross that line knowing I ran my race.’

Nick realized that even after all these years, he was still in a tug of war with the baton, holding her up, making her run his race, not hers. He nodded, his mind understood, but the ache that charged through his body wasn’t going to give up. He still couldn’t let go of the baton.

She was drowsy already.

Nick fussed and tidied the bedsheets. The insistent beeping of the heart rate monitor keeping time with his life. There was no need for sensors of course, but a medical student needed it for research, and Hannie had never said no to anyone in need.

She was unconscious now. Nick sat and rested his head on the bedcovers next to their hands and listened to the murmur of life outside her room, and… each… solid… beep… of the monitor.

They said they’d do it together. But it wasn’t anything like they’d planned.

She was going, and he was alone.

He was dealing with it, not her; he had to step across the threshold himself.

Alone.

When his eyes closed, he could see it approaching. Sensed it in fact. The finish line was drawing closer and he couldn’t stop it no matter how much he pleaded. He imagined himself running on to the track and waving his arms at the runner No, no, no. No!

It closed in on him; the runner rounded the last bend and headed toward the finish line. It would be upon them soon. He held their hands together and images of Luuk and thresholds and races and trophies flashed before him as panic ran its own race through his body.  The runner kept running, the memories kept flashing and the threshold kept coming. His lungs burnt from lack of oxygen, but there was no way to stop the runner.

And then it was there.

A shrill tone in B flat.  As sharp as a knife blade that separated them forever and sliced her from him. One flat line. So still, aqua against the black monitor. No hills and valleys, no more tests and results, no more roller coaster rides, no more good days and bad days.

The tone pierced his ears, her last moment recorded in sound that filled each corner of the room. He let its intensity consume him as the nurse slipped in to silence the machine. The tone was muffled now, still booming around inside his head, settling into his veins and flooding his body, becoming part of him.

Nick stroked the length of Hannie’s arm. Her hand was limp. She had been forced to let go, but his knuckles were still white against the baton’s blue aluminium, the burr of some distant track incident digging into his palm.