OK. Here it is:

GUILT.

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"DEAD?" Susannah's voice shook horribly; she was barely in control of herself. "How can he be DEAD? Its – its - just not possible!"

"I'm Sorry Mrs de Silva. We did everything we could."

For sure, they did. Whereas I - the Childs father, maybe the only one who could have prevented this - Didn't.

Didn't

Couldn't.

Wouldn't.

All the same.

It didn't change the fact that my only son was dead.

"Dr de Silva?" the nurse who had broken the news to us spoke gravely. "Im sorry – I'm sorry about James, he was a lovely boy."

I didn't miss the past tense. Neither did Susannah, if the way she sank down to the ground was any indication.

Nether the less, the nurse truly did mean what she said, she knew James, and she truly did feel some sorrow at his death.

Sorrow.

Such a Pretty, Romantic word; Such a Hideous, Hollow meaning.

"Thank you Marianne. If you would excuse us?" I said, motioning to the door. I meant to thank her, but it was too much.

I should be consoling Susannah, but I couldn't do that either. Guilt swallowed me, enveloped me.

It was my fault James was lying dead in the stark operating room just across the hall.

His body still lay there.

I knew.

It was my fault James died of cancer at just eight years of age.

You would be so bold as to assume, that a doctor would be the first to recognise cancer symptoms in his own son.

The odds lessen when it occurs to you that the aforementioned doctor had, of late, been spending more time at his hospital workplace than at his own home.

Where he should have been, with his beautiful wife and loving son.

It was something like irony, that during my time at the hospital I had spent my time battling against other patients' various forms of cancer, while my son lay at home fighting his alone.

Susannah thought it was a mere cold. I advised her to put him to bed, and not to let him go near the play station.

She did.

And he didn't.

And the result is a funeral arrangement.

"Susannah? Come on, you need to get up." I said, my voice sounding empty and scratchy. She did, with a wail, and threw herself against me.

I know how much she hates to cry, she would rather bleed, or break bones, crying, she feels, makes her seem weak, vulnerable.

She's wrong.

I wish I could let a part of this grief in me ease by shedding tears but I cant.

I just feel this raw, hollow pain in me, in my throat and chest.

I stroke Susannah's hair and wonder what she's thinking.

I wonder if she blames me.

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It's not possible. I thought as Jesse stroked my hair, doing his best to comfort me, when he was so far from comfort himself.

It can't be happening.

I knew when they told us they'd have to operate that it was bad, but I never thought he might die.

Die.

Dead.

Deceased.

Pass on.

Move on.

He wasn't still here as a ghost.

I would know. Jesse would know.

And he wasn't. Why? Weren't we even allowed to see him one last time?

Jesse was blaming himself for James's death. I could tell. He felt guilt that he hadn't recognised the signs in his own son.

But he was so busy with the hospital; they were short staffed, and Jesse, as a result, suffered.

It wasn't his fault. He was still a brilliant father. The best James could have asked for.

It wasn't his fault James lay lifeless in the room across the hall.

God, why hadn't they MOVED HIM ALREADY!

Is this hospital so freaking UNDERSTAFFED that it has to leave him there?

This is FRIGGING INSANE!

I was crying, I knew. F, I hate crying. It is the WORST. I couldn't seem to stop.

Gee, wonder why? Hmm, perhaps because my SON was DEAD.

And there was no one to blame except for myself.

It was my fault I didn't realise how sick James was.

I thought it was just a cold. I kept him from school, let him have ice cream and – although Jesse doesn't know it – play on the play station.

When after a while, he wasn't showing any improvement I thought maybe it was the flu.

Jesse said it couldn't hurt to check him up. We went to one of Jesse's colleagues. Matt Werner, I think he was called. He examined James and took some blood tests. When Dr Werner came back with the results, he told me to sit down.

I did.

James sat in the corner, playing with the abacus the doctor had in the playpen.

Dr Werner told me James had leukaemia. Cancer.

James looked up from the abacus to ask me if that meant he would lose his hair like the girl in the add.

The Cancer Foundation add.

He didn't know what having leukaemia meant. It was hell explaining it to him.

After that, it made explaining things to Jesse seem like a walk in the park. But it wasn't.

Since he knew the odds and statistics, the look on his – Jesse's – face as I gave him the sheet from Dr Werner, would have killed me. If I hadn't seen a mirror of that look on James's face earlier.

Have you ever had to tell an eight year old he's dying?

Maybe if I had realised it wasn't a cold just a bit sooner, maybe James would have had more of a chance. Maybe the Chemo would have worked. Maybe the Operation might have worked if he had been stronger.

But no, he died on the operating table.

I cried a little harder, clinging to Jesse helplessly. He shushes me and tightens his grip

I burry my head thankfully against him and wonder what he's thinking.

I wonder if he blames me.

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By Mariah.