Better late.

The envelope had been lying on the floor, along with the usual junk and bills. Waiting for her when she got in from work.

A glance was enough to see that it didn’t add anything to the doctor’s words from earlier in the week.

She finished scanning the letter, then hid it inside the big cookery book at the end of the grey marble counter in the kitchen.

The junk was junked, and the bills were put to one side. She found it hard to care about the power and phone companies at the best of times, and now they were less than nothing to her. Let them wait.

She went back to the computer and continued looking at hotels, destinations, and fares. Down to the Channel Tunnel for sure, but then what? She looked through the options and suddenly her eyes stopped scanning the screen.

Of course, she thought. This was the one. It had to be. The finger of fate was prodding her firmly in the ribcage. This was the universe daring her to take the plunge. To dive in while there was still time. It was eye-wateringly expensive, obviously, but what else was she going to spend the money on at this stage?

She banished caution and clicked on the booking link. She had been cautious her entire life and much good it had done her. To hell with caution. Opportunity was knocking and this time she was booting the door wide open and inviting opportunity in for tea and biscuits.

She went through timetables and eventually settled on leaving Saint Pancras station the following Tuesday. That would give her two days in London and almost three in the French capital before she departed on the Orient Express from Paris to Venice. 

The decisions were followed by bookings for hotels in the three cities then she printed out all the various confirmations.

Hopefully no murder on this trip, she mused but, given the circumstances it was hardly out of the question that there could be a death on board anyway.

She glanced at the big, plastic clock on the kitchen wall. Jim would be sat waffling with his mates in the pub for hours yet. She wasn’t sharing her plans with her husband anyway and had no intention of being his punchbag if he got upset about being left behind.

Escape, like so many other things, was just easier to organise when he was out of the way.

Given that the weekend was coming up, he probably wouldn’t even notice her absence until she was on the Champs Elysees.

A final booking for the bus that would take her south to London in the morning and the travel was sorted. 

She briefly thought about what to do after Venice but realised that she had no idea where else she might want to go and that there was no guarantee of being able to go anywhere, so decided to leave that possibility hanging, at least for the moment.

Finally, a short email to work explaining that she wouldn’t be back and why. They would be surprised and pretend to care but, in a week, they’d struggle to remember her name. Then she closed the laptop and went upstairs.

From the back of a bedroom cupboard, she drew out an old, black wheelie bag, into which an assortment of lightweight, summer clothing, some underwear and a forgotten pair of sandals was thrown. Into the front pocket went the passport and booking confirmations. Toiletries could wait until the morning once Jim had stumbled, hungover and grumpy, to work.

The bag was taken downstairs and placed well to the back of the cupboard under the stairs. 

And then, a cup of tea and a deep breath. In fifty-seven years, this was the maddest, most rebellious thing she had ever done. She felt sad though when she had no answer for the little voice inside that asked.

            ‘So why didn’t you do it before now? Why did you wait until it was almost too late?’

She drank her tea and thought about doing what her parents wanted, doing what her boyfriend, who became her husband wanted, and doing what her bosses at work wanted. This was the first time in her meek, passive life that she would be doing what she alone wanted. 

What a waste of fifty-seven years. What a waste of a life.

Thinking and sipping, thoughts turned back to the letter, and she realised that she was more upset by how she had let her life, her promise, slip away, than she was by the terminal news it delivered.

In a way, it was the certainty and finality of the diagnosis that had set her free.

Inoperable, inexorable, the tumour that had grown inside her body had been the thing that had finally given her the courage to step out of a violent marriage and a toxic job. 

The malignancy that would be the death of her had brought with it a chance, albeit belated, to live her life as she wished, and to head for the exit, doing the things she wanted.

How precious the time had become when it was so suddenly rationed.

She finished her drink and started to get ready for bed. 

Tomorrow was genuinely, the first day of the rest of her life and she planned to make every bit of it count.