The Diagnosis

‘Why do you stay by the window, Jill,

Why do you stand and stare?

There’s nothing to see but the sentinels,

The names of the dead out there.

There’s more to life than the cemetery

That ranges over the hill,

I’ll close the shutters and pull the blinds

If the sight disturbs you, Jill!’

 

She sighed and turned then, back to the room

But she wouldn’t meet my eye,

She’d been morose since the last full Moon

But wouldn’t be telling me why,

I thought it might be our child that bloomed

And blossomed under her gown,

But every time that I questioned her

She’d put me off with a frown.

 

She’d been along to the doctor’s, and

Since then, she hadn’t smiled,

I asked her, ‘What has he told you, then,

Is something wrong with the child?’

She shook her head and she told me, ‘No!’

But she wouldn’t meet my gaze,

She was always a terrible liar,

Women lie in a number of ways.

 

I caught her scribbling out her Will

On a parchment page, or two,

I said, ‘Why now?’ And she looked at me,

‘I needed something to do!

I thought it time that we wrote them out,

It wouldn’t hurt you as well,

We have to think of the baby now

As my belly begins to swell.’

 

I sat beside her and wrote it out

If only to calm her down,

She seemed so close to the edge of tears

That I wrote of the love we’d found,

And all I had would belong to her

Who’d saved me from the abyss,

She’d turned this drunken head around

And given a life of bliss.

 

She squeezed my hand as I signed my name

And the tears rolled down her cheeks,

Her hormones must have been pulling her down,

She’d be like this for weeks,

‘You’ll feel all right when the baby’s born,

We’ll sit in the sun, outside,

And get some colour into your cheeks,’

But Jill broke down, and cried.

 

A week went by, I was far from well

So she made me stay in bed,

‘I’m going down with a flu of sorts,

I feel so thick in the head.’

She brought me soup and she tended me

Like a mother hen with a chick,

She cried a lot and she lied a lot

While I lay there, feeling sick.

 

I staggered out of my bed one day

And stood, looked over the hill,

The snow had feathered the headstones white

I shivered there in the chill,

She came, was standing beside me, then

Reached down, and felt for my hand,

‘You know I’ll love you forever, Ben,

There won’t be another man.’

 

I looked at her in alarm, I thought

She might be going away,

‘What did the doctor diagnose

On that distant day, in May?’

‘I knew it would have to come to this,

He gave me results, it’s true,

Though not of the tests he did on me,

But the ones that he did on you!’

 

I write this on the side of the bed

For I find it hard to stand,

My heart is feeble, my body weak

With its cargo of contraband,

But still Jill stands by the window there

And she weeps, and bows her head,

I say, ‘Why stare at the sentinels,

Engraved with the names of the dead?’

 

David Lewis Paget

Reviews

[BlackRose]

What sad one you penned er typed here. I thought something real bad was going on her as if she was going die at some point and couldn't find the heart to tell him but instead fooled, it was him who was going to. As always a fantastic piece of work. Pulling me in once again.

[Ellen Hammond]

Such a sad tale, beautifully penned with your flair for a twist. Loved it!

[Claire in VA]

You had me fooled, yet again!
I thought from beginning to nearly end
that poor Jill or her baby would be next
in that dreary, old cemetery. Even worse,
I thought perhaps BOTH Jill and the baby
would reside there . I loved the surprise
ending. Not that I want him to die. You
know what I mean.
C in VA

[A Soapy Mess Stories]

Here I thought there was something wrong with Jill or the baby, only to find out it was the husband. Good tale.

[Baby Ricochet]

So long as it's not contagious we're good

[Marie]

Oh this is quite a twise. Something seemed to be wrong with Jill, and all the time it was her husband. No wonder she was so sad.

[A. Amos]

Love your style of writing brilliant and elegant. Thanks for sharing