Page 17 of Life After Me

The intensity of her presence makes my mind spin, and I’m glad of it.

All around me people are talking about Valentine’s Day, even though it’s over a week away.

The world has exploded with paper hearts and tacky gifts.

As if there were roses beautiful enough, or a card honest enough, to express the monumental truth of love.

Even the biggest, most overstuffed fluffy teddy in the world is just a sad attempt at expressing something beyond words.

There’s nothing that captures the intense joy and pain of love.

Nothing that really explains the feeling when two hands, or bodies, fit together so perfectly that the sweetness is unbearable and makes you shiver.

Or the sheer joy of just being with the person who understands, accepts and celebrates every part of you.

Realistically, what chance does a shiny, mass-produced card have against that?

And nothing that describes the agony of having it ripped away.

* * *

Matty called to check up on me. We spoke for maybe an hour, but I can’t remember much about the conversation. He said his work is going well, and Lucy is fine... and that’s about all that managed to stick between my ears.

But I may have been distracted, because something really important did happen during that hazy phone call, although I didn’t realise it until I looked down at the phone pad: while I had been trying to concentrate on talking to Matty, my fingers had found a pen and wandered across the block of paper, leaving it filled with doodles and tiny little sketches that I hadn’t realised I was drawing.

In one corner a daffodil flowered. Its leaves twisted and wandered across the page to morph into a speeding car whose skid marks skipped into a black and white dog.

In the centre of the page, eyes stared out at me from under brows that arched in a quizzical expression so like Jenn’s that my breath caught in my throat.

I could feel her beside me and tension filled the air, like she was waiting for something. I stared at the doodles, knowing they were important to Jenn, but not fully understanding why. That’s about when I realised that my fingers had stopped itching.

How long had it been since I’d spent any real time painting or drawing?

Everything I did at work now was on a computer.

By the time I’d finished for the day, all I wanted to do was go home and spend time with Jenn.

I’d spent the last couple of decades too busy creating a family and a home for them, to worry about works of art.

But now I found myself staring at those absent-minded doodles and my fingers itched to pick up a brush again.

After Matty had rung off, I eventually found my stuff packed away in a box at the back of a cupboard.

The brushes were fine, but the paints crackled in their tubes.

I could have split them open, remixed them and found pots for them, but I couldn’t be bothered.

I needed paper and canvases anyway. The only sketch book I could find was already filled with my drawings.

They were actually pretty good. I wondered if I could ever be that good again.

It should have worried me, the thought of trying something without Jenn, but if I’m honest, it excited me.

Painting and drawing was one of the few things in my life that I truly loved before meeting Jenn.

The idea of picking up a brush and smoothing colour across a blank canvas to create something was enticing.

I could feel my fingers tingling with anticipation at the thought of doing something so inspiring and creative again.

.. one of the few things in my life I’ve loved even longer than Jenn.

The only problem was the supplies I still had were woeful, and the only way to get new ones was to order them and wait for days until they turned up, or risk going out to the shops again.

* * *

I actually enjoyed visiting the art shop.

I had tried to avoid it at first, but as soon as I’d found an art supplies website, I realised I didn’t want to look at photos of what I was buying.

I wanted to feel the paper between my fingers and smell the paints.

I wanted the inspiration and experience of the store, and to see all the possibilities and promises of success lined up in rows of tiny tabs and tubes of brightly coloured paints.

I paused when I first reached the shop, overcome by nerves. I didn’t want it to be another moment like the supermarket. But then I spotted the brushes and palettes in the window and they lured me in.

It was actually nice. The shop assistant gave me a friendly smile as I edged in, and then the smell of the store hit me.

The woody, pulpy dryness of blank paper mixed with the metallic, oily weight of paint and the heady acrid scent of chalk to create an air of exciting promise.

How many masterpieces were sitting on these shelves and racks, just waiting to be put together?

I breathed in the old familiar scents and felt my shoulders relax. This was a part of my life that didn’t revolve around Jenn, so maybe it was somewhere I could find a little happiness, instead of just more things that reminded me that I’d lost her.

I felt instantly guilty for trying to find some joy so soon after Jenn’s death, but she washed love and reassurance over me. She wanted me to have this, and was pushing me towards it.

* * *

Jenn

I never thought I’d find anything good about being dead, but I love being with David like this. The painting is making him happier, which is helping to push away the darkness and clouds surrounding him, which makes it easier for me to reach him.

As sad as it is that we’re not together in the usual sense, this new relationship is exciting in its own way.

We’re getting to know each other again, but in a completely different way.

It’s like falling in love all over again, but on an incredibly intimate level.

I thought I’d known David as deeply as you can know anyone, but I had no idea.

Our time together now is so vivid that it almost replaces the memories of our last life. My physical life with David was full of touch and sensation, but this new existence replaces touch with colour, and passion is shared through emotion so intense that it might as well be tangible.

It’s so intensely intimate that I struggle to put it into words.

I feel his emotions wash through me, and I can feel the beat of his heart and the rush of warmth through his veins.

It’s exciting to feel his body react to me.

I remember the nights we shared together.

Moments of intense desire and desperation where I just couldn’t pull him close enough to me, where the passion was so overwhelming that we wanted to be part of each other. Now we can.

I can make him shiver and moan with a single thought, and when I do, he opens his mind to me further, drawing me in even more.

The closeness is delicious.

I can feel his every sensation, and give him mine in return while tasting his pleasure and joy with every part of me. I can feel the memory of our kisses, and taste myself on his lips and tongue in a heady mix of sweetness and need. It’s intoxicating and wonderful to touch him like this.

I feel like I’m starting to blur around the edges and blend into David’s consciousness. I can’t see where I end or he begins, and I’ve never been more content.

I stay with him afterwards, while his body still shivers. I stroke goose pimples up his arms and over his chest which still heaves with a mixture of laughter and tears. He begs me to stay with him and I nuzzle against him, soothing him and teasing with a wash of emotions.

In moments like this I don’t feel dead and gone anymore, in fact I’ve never felt more alive or connected.

* * *

David’s making great progress. I had started to worry a little about whether I was doing the right thing by spending so much time with him.

When I tried to pull away, even just for a little while to visit Lottie, Matty or my sister — who I still want to check on, even if I can’t communicate with them — I could feel David withdrawing and collapsing back into himself.

He needs me with him. We’ve been a team for so many years, that he’s almost having to re-learn how to be, and who he is as David who isn’t part of the David-and-Jenn couple.

In a lot of ways, we were quite traditional in our roles.

Yes, I knew which end of a drill was which, and he could work the oven, but he enjoyed DIY and caring for our home, just like I enjoyed cooking.

And now he’s struggling and suffering. When I am with him, he does so much better. Which makes leaving him so much harder.

I’ve been using his art to coax him back out into the world. I make sure that he looks out of the window and sees all the beautiful things that are out there.

I managed to get him to go back to the supermarket, although it wasn’t easy.

It took me days of convincing and support.

In the end I had to slip into his dreams. I played on his weaknesses and filled his waking thoughts with the tantalising smell of fresh garlic bread and spicy tomato pasta.

After a couple of days he gave in and ventured back into that nightmare place, me by his side and reassuring him all of the way.

When he finally sat down to the garlic and tomato mess he had created, he looked so proud of himself.

It was the same look he’d get when he finally finished wrestling together a swing for the children, bikes on Christmas Eve, or flat-pack furniture.

It was such a small victory, but an important one nonetheless.

A few days later he went back to work..

. it was that or a trip to the doctors, which he’s still been avoiding.

It’s only for a few hours a week, but he’s back, which is the important thing.

He needs to be working to get back to something resembling normality.

The truth is, as much as he makes jokes about his job just being drawing boxes, he enjoys his work. Or at least he used to. Before.

The first couple of days were really hard for him.

Friends and colleagues offered their sympathies again and asked him how he was holding up.

At first they treated him too softly, like they thought he might break, but the people who didn’t know him that well were worse.

They talked about him in the corridors, hushing their voices as they pointed him out and shared the gossip.

But it didn’t matter. They all quickly came to see that David could do his job as well as ever, and everyone relaxed back into their normal behaviours and stopped hovering so much.

I’ve come to the conclusion this is the key to helping David rebuild himself.

If I can help him get into a routine, then he can sink back into the ebb and flow of normal life and let it wash away his pain and grief.

It’s not very exciting, going to work, cooking and eating, but it’s normal, and that’s important.

While he’s carrying on with routine, he can start to heal and realise there is still a point to his life.

Once he’s settled into that healing, quiet normality, I can encourage him to try more things, until he discovers other things that fill him with joy, like painting does. Then maybe I can quiet the nagging feeling that he’s relying on me a little too much.