Chapter one
Ben
May 2022
Last week’s lilies have browned at the edges. Petals scattered over the chilled stone. It doesn't matter how often I replenish them, there’s always damage on my return. Everything wilts. Nothing lasts forever. That fact has never felt truer.
I place the fresh bouquet beside the aged one. It rejuvenates the gravestone, if only for a second. A flash of life that fades far too quickly.
When I first lost her, right at the beginning, I changed the flowers daily. I spent more time in this cemetery than I did with my kids. The BMW could probably have driven the road itself. I’d finish work and come here. Return to her side, where I’d always meant to be but spent far too little time.
Time doesn’t heal the way people promise it will. The pain softens, but the ache never recedes. There’s always a void—at home, at play. The silence is deafening. The moment afterwaking is when it hurts most. When I reach for her, but no warm body meets my fingertips.
“Over four years, Bex.” The words catch in my throat. “You’d be so proud of the children.”
The shiny brochure slips between my fingers, falling to the ground and opening on the centerfold. Teenage boys kick a soccer ball across a fresh pitch, the net a distant target.
“One hundred slots available,” I whisper. “And both our boys were accepted. I can’t believe it yet. What am I going to do without them this summer?”
The guilt burns deep in my chest again, like it has every time the sadness arrives. A father should be celebrating his kids’ achievements. He should be waving them off with his head high and heart full. I hate the part of me that doesn’t want them to go—not that I would ever tell them that.
Both my teen sons, Liam and Ollie, have been accepted into a twelve-week summer soccer camp in America. This year, they’ll be jetting off for new beginnings, leaving me behind. I’m terrified of what life will look like without them as a distraction.
“I’m so damn proud, Bex.”
She doesn’t respond. She can’t. My wife lost her battle with cancer over four years ago. But here, where she lies, is the only place I feel truly seen. It’s the only place in my world where I can say whatever the hell I want and no one judges. Bex listens like she always does. No doubt, thinking what an idiot I’m being the whole time. But here, I feel closer to her than anywhere else.
I’d pitch a tent if I could.
“The kids are growing up,” I say to fresh air. “Savannah’s nearly there. University exams almost here, placement for residency…not long to go. But you know that.” The fact makes me pause, reality setting in. Life moves on. “And Rose was last heard of somewhere in Spain, working on a yacht. She’ll get in touch…”
I laugh. My younger daughter has always been a free spirit, and as she grows older, it only becomes truer. Her older sister, Savannah, did things the right way. Medical school, a partner, a house deposit…
Rose only sees where life takes her. Nothing is over-managed, over-prepared. Her plans are fluid, a bit like her mind. She faces each day as it comes. And every opportunity as something to consider. Her life isn’t a straight line with achievements to be ticked off.
Part of me wonders which young woman is more centered, or perhaps, more importantly, having fun. Which one is filling their world with experience and enrichment? I’m proud of them both, but they couldn’t be more different.
The picnic blanket beneath me flaps in the afternoon wind, the breeze stinging my ankles.
“Time to go,” I mutter, annoyed that it’s time to leave Bex again. My only solace: the petals left behind. My message to her that I still consider her mine. That I’m with her even when I leave.
Pushing myself to my feet, I gather up the worn, checked blanket, folding it precisely before walking toward my car. My wedding ring snags on a stray thread; a familiar weight I no longer notice until it catches.
I notice a woman I’ve seen here a few times before, standing beside a small white gravestone with a figure of a teddy bear carved on top.
Her head’s bowed, but her lips move, speaking to the ghost only she can see.
She doesn’t notice me; I don’t interrupt. I know how precious the time spent here is. The walls between life and death drop away, if only for a while. I’d never take that away from someone, not for a second.
With a final glance over my shoulder, I smile to Bex as if she’s standing by the marble. If I believe enough, sometimes it feels like she is. Then I climb into my car and head home to my family.