Page 2 of Life After Me

Jennifer

Maybe this is hell. Being trapped in nothingness, where all you can do is watch the people you love suffering.

It feels like hell.

It’s horrible being stuck here, helpless and unable to ease their anguish. I hate myself for what I’m doing to them, and the pain that they are feeling because of me. I’d take their pain a thousand times over if it would stop them hurting, even for a few minutes.

Matty arrived home with my sister, Sarah.

It’s sweet of her to have detoured her flight to Edinburgh so he didn’t have to drive the hundreds of miles back by himself.

She’s always been like that, my big sister.

Thoughtful and caring. I missed her when she moved to Germany with her husband, even though we talked every week.

But I guess I’m going to miss her even more now. I’m going to miss them all.

Matty looks worse than the others, if that’s even possible.

His brown eyes — the same colour as his dad’s — are red and swollen, bloodshot from the salt of too many tears.

His hair, which is as dark as mine, is sticking up all over the place and getting greasy from where he’s been worrying at it too much, and his clothes are crumpled.

It’s so far away from the smart, slick solicitor he’s become that I find myself welling up.

It’s so unfair.

This whole thing is so bloody unfair. What did I do to deserve this?

I’m a good person. Or at least I was, wasn’t I?

I treated people well and did my bit for charity when I could.

I was always the one organising the charity events at school and encouraging the children to think of others.

And with teenagers that wasn’t always easy, but my students still liked me!

I was a good mother, and wife, and a good sister and daughter.

Oh God, why is this happening to me? There are plenty of bastard people worse than me.

Plenty of terrorists killing innocent people.

Plenty of murderers, and rapists and paedophiles.

Plenty of people who beat and abuse their children.

I’ve had enough of the victims crying in my office to know.

So why not one of them? Why put my family through this? What did any of us do to deserve this?

What did I do?

Why not just kill me and have done with it? Why bring me here to this place where all I can do is watch helplessly? Is this what happens to everyone? If so, where are they all? Or is it just me?

And don’t give me any of that “mysterious ways” rubbish. What did I do to make you hate me and want to hurt me and my family so badly? It can’t just be because I didn’t go to church.

This isn’t what I believed in. This isn’t what I wanted. This isn’t fair!

Send me back. Please, send me back. Please let this be a nightmare.

Let me open my eyes in my own room and see the sunlight streaming through the crack in the curtains.

Let me hear David snoring next to me. I’ll be a better person.

I’ll quit my job and work for charities.

I’ll go to church every weekend. I’ll go every day. Just please send me back.

* * *

David

I haven’t been sleeping. In truth I don’t really want to. I know if I go to sleep, I’ll eventually have to wake up and face reality. And once I wake up, everything will stop being a bad dream, and I’ll have to accept that Jenn’s really gone. I’m not ready to do that. I don’t think I ever will be.

So, tonight, instead of trying to sleep, I wandered around the house and made coffee that went cold before I could drink it.

I’d needed something to do with my hands, but then I was left in the ridiculous position of having cold coffee.

I’ve always hated cold coffee. I’ve never been one of those people who order an iced chocha, mocha thingy and drink it with a straw.

Proper coffee should be scalding hot and black.

Like an idiot, I sat there staring at the coffee while I tried to work out what to do with it.

I didn’t want to drink it cold, but pouring it away seemed so wasteful and wrong that I just couldn’t do it.

I know it’s only coffee, but it feels wrong.

Too much has been pointlessly wasted recently.

I should have gulped it down while it was hot rather than putting myself in the awful position of having cold coffee.

Oh God, why did I have to drive that day?

Jenn had offered to. She’d known I was tired and that I had had a couple of drinks with lunch.

Was I drunk six hours later? They’d breathalysed me at the scene, and I was well under the limit — but I’ve heard that even one glass could make a difference.

Were my reactions slower than they should have been?

Was I so tired that I had drifted into another lane? Was it my fault?

The thought filled me with ice.

It’s my fault she’s gone. I killed Jenn. I should have been in the passenger seat. I wish I had been. I wish we hadn’t been on that bloody road. I wish that truck hadn’t been there. I wish we’d stayed for that second cup of tea. I wish it had been me instead.

Jenn was such a wonderful, beautiful, special person. She could make other people smile just by being near them, and she made the world a better place simply by being in it. What good do I bring it?

I wish it had been me instead.

Maybe if I just curled up here and died, Jenn would be allowed to come back. Maybe if I gave up moving and breathing, she could somehow come back to life.

Maybe if I never moved again, none of this will have ever happened. Or maybe I could stay in this strange, cold, suspended reality for ever. Not moving, not living, but not hurting either.

It’s not that I want to die, exactly, but I’m pretty sure I don’t want to live without her either.

I don’t know how to, and it’s not something I want to learn.

I’ve heard people talk about depression as a black dog that chases them down.

I can’t help thinking that they’re right, and that maybe it would be easier to let it catch me and tear me apart.

Letting this mythical black dog devour me couldn’t hurt more than this does.

It should have been me instead.

* * *

Jenn

Oh no you don’t, David Hughes. Don’t you dare! I’m still here and I’m trying to reach you. Can’t you feel me?

I can’t watch you curl up and disappear. It’s bad enough that one of us is gone, don’t you dare try to follow me here into this nothingness.

It’s all right to be sad — I’d be hurt if you weren’t — but not this David, please not this. And not in my name either.

The man I married isn’t a quitter, so pull yourself together and get on with it. I know it hurts, God knows I know it hurts, but there are the children to think about. They might be adults with their own lives, but they are still our babies. And they need their dad, just as much as you need them.

Please love, don’t give up now. You’re an amazing, strong person. Please don’t lose who you are just because you’ve lost me.

I love you David, but giving up is not an option. So what are you going to do next?

* * *

David

For some reason I found myself wanting to smile. It seemed so wrong, wanting to smile just days after my wife died, but it suddenly occurred to me what Jenn would have said if she could have seen me.

She’d have booted me up the behind. She’d have told me it’s all right to be sad, and to miss her. And then she’d ask, “So what now?” as she demanded to know what I was going to do next. And sitting around moping would not have been an acceptable answer.

She would remind me about the children too, telling me how much they need me, and that they’re still our children, even though they’re off living their own lives. She’d be right too. She always is. Was? That sounds wrong. I’m still not ready to think of Jenn as a “was”.

I remember when we first met, back in college.

We were friends then, almost from the moment that we were introduced.

There was always an attraction between us, but the timing was never quite right.

She had a boyfriend, or I was dating someone, or we were taking exams that seemed so important back then that they eclipsed everything else.

And then one warm day in that long, heady summer before we headed off to university, everything fell into place.

We’ve been together ever since. I’ve literally spent my whole adult life with Jenn.

How am I ever going to function without her?

‘Dad, are you all right?’

The light flicked on, half-blinding me as it threw the living room into painfully bright relief and, for the few blinks that it took for my eyes to adjust, I was convinced that Jenn was sitting next to me on the sofa, but she disappeared as my vision cleared and Matty sat down.

‘You can’t just sit here in the dark, Dad. It’s not healthy.’

‘I know.’ I scrubbed my hands across my face. ‘I was just thinking.’

‘About Mum?’

‘What else?’

‘Want to tell me?’

‘I was just thinking about how she’d react if she could see me sitting here.’

My son snorted with dark humour. ‘She’d kick you up the arse.’

‘I know.’ I laughed with him, the tears barely held back. ‘Seems a bit wrong, laughing.’ Guilt still assaulted me, digging under my skin and tearing into me.

‘I dunno.’ Lottie stood at the door, her mum’s purple dressing gown wrapped tightly around her, swamping her small frame. ‘I think she’d be all right with it. She never had much patience for pity parties.’ She joined me and Matty on the sofa.

‘True enough.’ Matty shrugged and sighed. ‘There’s so much to do. Idon’t know how we’re supposed to start planning everything. It doesn’t seem right. I still feel like she’s going to walk in the door any minute.’

Lottie nodded in agreement. ‘I know what you mean. I feel like I’m walking around in a bubble, or watching a bad film. It all feels so unreal.’

I sighed, already feeling the tears well up again. ‘I wish it were. I don’t know how to sleep without her. I never realised how big that bed is.’

‘Oh, Dad.’ Lottie’s eyes filled with tears and she wrapped her arms around me. ‘You can have my bed if you want. I’ll curl up down here on the couch.’

I couldn’t help myself. The tears just ran down my face unchecked. I’m not sure that I’ve ever cried so much in my life. I keep thinking I must run out of tears soon , but they still keep falling.

A few seconds later, Matty’s hand patted my shoulder awkwardly, before he wrapped us both in a big hug.