Page 48 of Life After Me

David

I can’t wait until this winter is over. I’m so tired of all the enforced jolliness.

First there was Halloween, and it seemed like every kid in the neighbourhood was dressed up and knocking on my door.

Jenn always used to love it, but I didn’t remember to buy any sweets.

I didn’t put up decorations either. It just seems so stupidly pointless.

Half the children don’t even try anymore, they just wear a plastic mask they probably bought from the pound shop, then come hammering on my door demanding some sort of prize.

I bet most of them don’t even understand the point of it. It’s supposed to be a celebration of the dead, a day when the veil between the two worlds lifts or becomes so thin that spirits can pass through. I know because I researched it.

I sat waiting for Jenn, hoping that somehow the old pagan magic would still work, that she’d be able to come back to me, if only for one night.

But it didn’t work, if anything Jenn was quieter than usual.

I’ve barely felt her around me lately. I don’t really blame her for not wanting to be anywhere near me, I can barely even look at myself right now.

It must be the guilt of what I nearly did pushing her away.

But I didn’t actually do anything, so I know Jenn will forgive me. It’s better to feel like this and still have Jenn nearby than to have a few moments of empty pleasure with someone else and lose Jenn for ever. It’s just a matter of waiting for her forgiveness.

In the meantime I’ve got plenty of things to distract me.

Bonfire night and Diwali fell close together this year, which basically means the sky has been filled with exploding crashes and screaming rockets for days.

As if I wasn’t sleeping badly enough already.

I’m so tired I think I need to start inventing new words for it.

I was tired a few weeks ago, when I had the non-argument with Ruth.

Since then, and with Jenn’s disappearance, I’ve gone from tired through exhausted, and come out the other side.

I feel like one of those mindless destructive zombie creatures that seem to be on every other channel lately.

I’m just an automaton in a mask that other people seem to vaguely know.

I don’t know how they do. When I looked in the mirror yesterday, I barely recognised myself.

I look haggard and drawn, and about a decade older than I did a few months ago.

I can’t sleep without Jenn here. The lack of her presence around me is as choking as the thick gunpowder and bonfire smoke that hangs in the air.

I don’t want to do anything except wait and beg for her forgiveness.

Anything else seems pointless. There’s no point trying to eat when everything turns to ash in your mouth, and it’s useless trying to paint when all the colour has drained out of your world.

There’s no point trying to talk to anyone either.

What have my family done that they deserve to be dragged down into misery with me?

It’s a pain of my own creating, and there’s no one I can ask to share it.

Besides, it wouldn’t relieve the burden anyway, only stretch and spread it out so it could hurt more people.

I’m being pulled back down into that pit of despair, but I don’t have the energy or inclination to fight it.

I’m too tired. I’m fed up of fighting and always trying to swim against the tide and never really getting anywhere.

I feel old and tired and heavy. Every part of my body is weighed down under my own guilt.

It’s best that I’m just left alone until Jenn’s able to forgive me. Until then, there’s nothing anyone can do to help me anyway.

* * *

Jenn

If there was an award for doing the most stupid thing possible, but with the right intentions, David would definitely be on the shortlist for winning it.

He’s cut off all contact with Ruth. Completely.

I wish I had hands so I could give him a really good shake.

I love my husband dearly, but sometimes he’s a complete idiot.

I struggle to understand it. He’s so talented when it comes to seeing the beauty and the angle that everyone else misses.

How can he be so blind to this? I’m practically jumping up and down in his face and yelling in his ear, but he remains completely oblivious.

The more I try to make him understand, the more he seems not to hear.

He’s right that I’ve not been around him as much as I would like, but it’s not because I’m angry or upset with him.

It’s because he is pushing me away. His worry and pain over something that never even happened is building a huge, impenetrable wall between us.

Even my mirror trick isn’t working — he’s filled with so much misplaced guilt.

I don’t know what to do about it. He’s utterly wretched and I can’t reach him to help.

I tried going through Lottie and Matty, but he just lied to them and pretended everything was fine.

I started leaving him things, little messages to try and break through the barrier of guilt he’s built up.

But he misunderstood them. He took the white feather as a reminder that I was still there.

It filled me with hope at first, until he started apologising again.

All I’d meant to do was let him know he wasn’t as alone as he felt, and that I still loved him.

But he took it to mean I was angry that he had feelings towards another woman, that I was reminding him that he still belonged to me.

I left his sketchbook and a brush on the worktop.

I hoped he’d start painting again. But he didn’t.

He threw it, and all the nearby paints and brushes, into the bin, claiming that he was a terrible person who didn’t deserve anything good or beautiful in his life. I wished I was able to cry that day.

It’s like he wants to hurt himself, and believes if he suffers enough, I’ll forgive him. I wish I could tell him that it isn’t true, and that there’s nothing to forgive. I’m already with him, and I always will be. There’s nothing he could do that would ever make me stop loving him.

* * *

I think there’s something wrong with that tiny speck of green I found.

It had been growing recently, until it was as big as the tip of my little finger.

Other tiny specks appeared around it, glittering with colour and life.

But they’ve all gone now. And the first, tiny, delicate speck seems to have shrunk again.

I still don’t know what they are, or what they mean, but it must be important.

I feel sad to see them go. I liked those strange little green things. They’re so familiar that I feel like I should recognise them. But I’m still struggling to understand what they are. Or were.

What they mean is even harder to work out.

But it doesn’t really matter. If they are important, then I’m sure I’ll find out why soon enough. They would be fascinating to me, except that I have better things to concentrate on right now.

My world isn’t the only one that’s changing.

In the living one, the shops have brought out their shimmering lights, glittering globes and shining stars to turn the town into a glistening beacon of hope, joy and Christmas cheer.

I always loved this time of year. The sense of excitement that it fills you with, and the way people seem to be a little bit more cheerful and nice.

I’d usually be half-done with my Christmas shopping by now.

Not because I’d plan to start early, but because I’d just see things that I’d want to buy.

A top Lottie would love, the book Matty wouldn’t be able to put down, and the CD that I knew David would play every time he got into the car until about February.

But there’s not so much joy and happiness this year.

Especially not for David. While everyone else is excited and counting down the nights until the big day, David’s not looking forward to Christmas, and he isn’t counting down to it either.

His internal countdown is locked on a point in time a few days later, in that odd period between the end of Christmas celebrations and the start of new year ones.

He’s counting down to the anniversary of my death.

While everyone else in the world is excited, David is dreading the coming weeks.

I’m hoping it won’t be quite as bad as he fears, because even though I won’t be doing any shopping this year, I still have a gift to give. The gift of hope. I don’t think there could be anything more appropriate to give at this time of year.

David isn’t listening to me. He’s too busy feeling bad and worrying himself to distraction over something that hasn’t even happened yet.

But that’s all right, because I’ll just find someone who is willing to listen.

I already know the perfect woman for the job.

I just have to get her attention in a way that she can’t possibly mistake.

* * *

Winter

Ruth

It has been a very strange few weeks. Christmas decorations seem to have sprouted up almost everywhere, and we’re still weeks away from the main event.

To be honest, I’m hating it. Usually Lisa and I go shopping together, clumping around in scarves and boots until our feet hurt, but she’s too busy with her new university life and friends.

It’s exactly how it should be, and I’m glad she’s settling in so well, but it does make for quite a lonely run-up to Christmas.

But I expected all that. That’s why I’ve been doing my shopping online this year, because it lets me avoid the crowds. It’s shocking how lonely you can be in a crowd of people. But that isn’t what’s made the last few weeks so... peculiar. Strange things keep happening.