Chapter thirty-eight
Antonia
The late winter sunshine is hanging around. It’s nice. It’s a joy to just walk out of the front door and not think about taking an umbrella.
I pack the storybook into my bag, along with a flask of hot chocolate, and pick up my deck chair before trundling down the stairs.
My car sits waiting. Ben didn’t stay last night. He didn’t say why, and I didn’t ask. He doesn’t stay every night, and I don’t ask him to. We’re at that point in the relationship where things are new but turning quite serious. He needs time at his place, and I need time alone at mine.
Work was quiet this morning, quieter than it normally is anyway, so I took the afternoon off. When I called Clara, she fell silent for a moment but didn’t ask. I’m taking more time for myself these days. More emails go unanswered. More calls get ignored. If the message isn’t important, I don’t go back to it.
I suppose you could say I’m taking time for myself.
This scare—this potential diagnosis, whatever it is—has made me realize that even though I knew time was precious before, it’s even more precious now.
So I’m going to spend my afternoon with my son.
Is it the way I hoped to? Of course not.
When I lost him all those years ago, I just wanted to run. At one point, I even wished he hadn’t existed, so I didn’t experience the pain of loss.
But my son is frozen in time. He’s still three years old.
And I treat him as such.
So today I’ll go to his graveside. I’ll sit in my deck chair and sip my hot chocolate. Then read a story the way I wish we’d been able to in his bedroom.
The roads are quiet for a Monday afternoon. I weave through the streets, get to the cemetery, park, grab my belongings, and wander to Mikey’s grave. It’s still clean and tidy from the last time I visited.
I’ve been visiting more in recent weeks. Maybe once a week, when I used to go a few months without coming. It was always hard walking up knowing he was lying there, but I’ve even come to enjoy it now.
It’s strange.
I sit in my deck chair, pour my hot chocolate, and open the storybook, the pages read more times than I can count. He absolutely loved it in life. And I’ve exhausted it in death.
As I’m reading the last page, I look up and notice someone standing, flowers in hand, wiping dirt off a stone. It’s not until he moves into profile that I recognize him.
Ben.
I didn’t expect to see him here today.
There are already multiple bouquets sitting at the base of the headstone he’s in front of. He rearranges the bouquets slightlyand slides his own lilies in among them before taking a seat in a chair, not unlike mine.
I freeze, unsure what to do.
He hasn’t seen me. Or if he has, he chooses not to react.
Bex. He’s visiting Bex.
My heart aches. Not with jealousy, with something sharper. Recognition. He’s lived what’s happening with us before.
His lips move, as if chatting to someone who’s there and not a ghost. I can’t hear what he’s saying, but I can imagine. I have my own conversations with the dead all the time. It’s healing in a way.
Perhaps I should just slip away quietly.
But things are different now.
We’re living our own challenges together. Perhaps he needs me.