Tyler’s words filled my mind with such vivid detail that it was like I could hear him then and there. I turned around, expecting to see him. But there was just a group of teenagers, looking at something on their phones.
“Come on, Mummy. We’ll miss the train.” Ty slipped his hand inside mine, soft and warm. I smiled down at him, picking up my step again to catch up to Jude who was smiling with eyes touched with concern. He placed his hand on the small of my back.
“He makes you smile, sweetheart. Go for it.”
“Are you OK?” Jude asked, standing next to me on the platform. “You look a little pale.”
“I’m fine. Just a little tired.” I couldn’t really tell him that the world had suddenly gotten brighter and my late husband was talking to me. He’d think I was crazy.
It felt crazy. Living without someone. Feeling them around. Seeing them and sometimes hearing them. It certainly was a cruel trick of the mind.
“Would you like me to get you a coffee? I think we have enough time before the train arrives.”
Reaching out, I stopped him from moving away by taking his hand. “No. Just stay here. I’ll be fine.” The grip of his hand tightened around mine. I took comfort in it, felt the warmth as it made its way up my arm and settled softly against my heart. It was OK to want this. It was OK to try and be happy again.
“He’s exhausted,” Jude whispered, carrying Ty who was passed out on his shoulder. Going to the zoo was exciting enough for a small boy, but add to that two trains and a ferry ride, and you had the perfect sleep cocktail—absolutely no energy left at the end of it.
“His room is down here.” I led Jude down the hall to the third door on the right, a nameplate saying ‘Tyler Jnr’ adorning it at eye level.
Quickly kicking toys out of the way, I pulled the blankets down and flicked on his world globe night light. Jude leaned forward and placed Ty in amongst his sheets, pulling them up to cover his small body. “Night, buddy,” he whispered, gently patting his head.
I leaned down and kissed Ty on the forehead. “Good night, my little golden boy,” I told him.
When we made it back to the living area, Jude stopped and leaned against the kitchen bench. “Today was pretty great. Thanks for inviting me along.”
“I’m glad you could come. But, you don’t have to go just yet. I do have that bottle of wine you brought around on Friday. We never drank it.”
I turned around to get some glasses, feeling light on my feet after a fantastic day that felt so much brighter than any day had been in such a long time. I didn’t want it to end. I didn’t want to be alone. I didn’t want him to leave. I wanted him to stay. Please stay.
“I want to tell you something first. And if, when I’m finished, you feel like you want to tell me something, I’d like to listen. Does that sound fair?”
I nodded then gulped, placing the glasses on the bench before placing my hands flat against the granite. My heart thumped against my chest. What was he going to say? Was he going to tell me that he didn’t want to be anything more than friends? Was he going to say that being with a single mother was too much for him? He’d seemed fine all day, happy even. Why was he suddenly so serious?
“I’ve told you that my stepmother brought us to Australia because of my father’s problems. But what I haven’t told you is why he had those problems. You see, he had been a wonderful father. He doted on my mother and he adored my brother and me. I couldn’t have asked for a more textbook experience of growing up in a loving house. But, when I was nine, my mother was diagnosed with intrauterine cancer. It was untreatable, and she died a short time later. My father fell apart. He just wasn’t himself without her. Drinking was the only thing that seemed to interest him, and my brother and I, although we had also lost her, were forced to grow up very quickly and look after ourselves.
“Within a year, he remarried—not for love. I think he choose Cherie because she looked a little like my mum and he wanted someone to look after his sons. Then she fell pregnant and everything spiralled out of control. You see, he’d moved on too quickly, didn’t deal with his grief. He just locked it all up inside until it turned him into the disgruntled person he became.”
“That must have been hard,” I said, my voice quiet as the pit in my stomach tightened.
“It was. We weren’t even allowed to talk about her. And we needed to talk about her, needed to remember everything that was good about her.” He wiped his hand over his face, frowning. “I might be making a mess of this. I’m trying to make a point.”
“No. I get it,” I responded before he could continue.
“You do?”
Pressing my fingers against the base of one wine glass, I slid it away from me. Then I did the same with the other. We wouldn’t need them tonight after all.
“I do. So why don’t you just ask the question you want the answer to?”
I met his eyes. The light happiness of the day left me as the word ‘widower’ felt like it was being stamped across my forehead.
“It isn’t just one question. There’s something happening here, between you and me. And I want that very much. But there is a little boy involved.”
“Are you saying that I’m not taking him into consideration?” I snapped. I was getting defensive. He was confronting me about Tyler and also acting as though he knew what was best for my son. My teeth pressed together, causing my jaw to ache.
“No. I’m not saying that at all. I just…” He paused and looked at the ceiling. “I’m doing a terrible job here,” he muttered, shaking his head a little.
“Then just spit it out, Jude. Exactly what is it? Do you have a problem with the fact I have a son? Or do you have a problem with the fact that my husband died? Because that’s where all this is coming from, right? You figured out that I’m a widow. Now I’m damaged goods and anything with me would be a big deal.”
“No. That’s not what I’m saying at all. I was simply telling you that story so you could understand my perspective.”
“Your perspective sounds a lot like someone who doesn’t want to get involved with a widow.”
“That comment couldn’t be any further from the truth. I do want something with you, Sarah. I simply want you to be sure that you want something with me. Before this goes any further. And I want you to tell me about him.”
I took a step back, heat rising to my cheeks, my chest growing tighter. “Why?”
“Because I don’t want to be a Band-Aid to help you forget.”
“Can’t we just…wait? See how things go before…” I choked up, needing to force myself to swallow the lump in my throat before I could even think about continuing.
“That’s what I thought,” Jude said, standing up straighter. “You’re not ready.”
“Jude.”
“Listen, Sarah. I like you. A lot. A ridiculous amount, actually. So when you’re ready, you know where I am.” He was backing away, his eyes struggling to keep level with mine, his shoulders slouching a little even though his spine was stiff.
“Jude.”
“And I’m not a big dater, so odds are, I’ll be single for a very long time, so there’s no pressure from me. But when you come to me, well, if you come to me, I want you to come to me because you’re ready to have a…er…a relationship. Because that’s what I want with you, Sarah. I don’t want to be your friend. I don’t want to be the salve to your wounds. I want to be me, to you. But I only want that when you’re ready. Does that make sense?”
No. It didn’t make sense.
It felt like he was running away. It felt like he’d realised I had lost my husband and didn’t want to deal with it until I was completely ‘over it’. But I would never be ‘over it’. He either accepted that, or he didn’t.
I let out my breath. “It doesn’t make sense to me at all, actually. If I wasn’t ready, you wouldn’t be standing here and I wouldn’t be offering you wine to entice you to stay longer.”
“That’s not what I mean. I want you to be ready t
o talk about him. Like, what happened to him? How long were you together? Did Ty know his father?”
“You want me to relive my pain? I hate to break this to you, Jude, but I relive it every day. Talking to you about it isn’t going to change the fact that he’s dead and it’s not going to make you feel better about losing your mother, or your father becoming an alcoholic or whatever the hell you think dragging out my emotions is going to do for you. We’re supposed to ask each other about things that aren’t common: ‘What happened to your kid’s father’ is the most common question of them all.”
“I’m choosing not to take offense to that because you’re getting upset and I’m obviously not explaining myself properly.”
“No. You aren’t.” I folded my arms across my chest, watching him go through his confused movements—the shrugging, the head nodding, the muttering. He was a man with quirks, and I liked his quirks. I didn’t want him to walk away. But he was pushing and I didn’t want to share Tyler with him either, not yet, anyway. My love for Tyler was something I wanted to keep all to myself, held close to my heart in clenched fists. Perhaps that was the problem.
“I should go. Thank you for a lovely day, Sarah. I really do hope we can do it again sometime…when you’re ready.”
I turned my head as if slapped then closed my eyes, staying in the kitchen as I waited for him to turn to walk away. He got about three steps before I opened my eyes and called out, “How long did you know?”
He stopped then faced me. “Since that first day at the park when Ty told me his full name. I could see it written all over your face.”
My arms tightened around my body as I looked away, nodding slightly. Of course he’d worked it out. I carried my grief on my sleeve, flinched openly to any sort of reference toward Ty’s father. It would have been obvious, but he’d wanted to spend time with me anyway—what did that say about him?
I was too conflicted in that moment to focus on anything besides the fact that he was leaving. He was leaving because I didn’t want to talk about Tyler, didn’t want to open my heart and cry over all the broken pieces. He obviously wanted more than I could give. Which, I suppose, meant that he was right; I wasn’t ready at all.
Jude waited, standing in front of me with his hands in his pockets and his eyes studying my expression. I suppose he was hoping I’d start talking, start pouring out my sorrows so he could listen and feel more sorry for me. Perhaps he’d even nod his head and liken my loss to his, telling me he understood. But I didn’t want his understanding. I wanted him here because that’s when I could forget. Around him, I felt better.
Perhaps I was using him as a Band-Aid.
“Well, you know where to find me,” he said finally, his voice soft but edged with disappointment.
I nodded, my lips pulled tight as I watched him leave the apartment. Each step he took pulled a little at the pit that had formed in my stomach. His name sat on the tip of my tongue. I wanted to call him back, rewind time a little and end things on a happy note when I actually saw some kind of hope in my future. But when the door clicked shut and he was gone, I clutched my hand to my chest, struggling to breathe as the loneliness crept back in.
Everywhere I looked, Tyler was there. Now Jude was too. I pressed the heel of my palms against my eyes, breathing so I didn’t burst into tears. Damn you, Jude. Damn you, Tyler. I was tired of being alone. I was tired of feeling hurt. I was just so bloody tired.
And I was lonely. Alone.
So alone.
I don’t want to keep feeling this way.
I never should have let things with Sarah get this far.
My vision has been blurry and my scans are showing more lesions in my brain. I can feel another relapse creeping in and pressing at my ribs. It’s barely been a month since the last one.
Things are getting worse even faster than I expected, and it’s only a matter of time before I start losing my ability to function independently.
I can’t do it to her anymore. I can’t keep her in my life knowing where this is going. I can’t keep falling deeper, knowing that she is too. I can’t keep fooling myself. I can’t keep lying to her. But I can’t seem to stop either.
I love her. I love her so much that I don’t want to walk away. Not yet.
Loving me will break her. Loving her will damn my soul.
I’m going to go to hell for this.
*
Excerpt from Tyler’s Journal
11
Friday, 9th December 2016
GROCERIES BE DAMNED. I was going out for a change. Ever since Jude left that night, I’d been thinking about what he’d said, especially the part about being my Band-Aid. And maybe it was true. I liked Jude because, when he was around, I didn’t feel sad anymore. If that made him a Band-Aid, then I suppose he was. Although, I didn’t see it that way. Spending time with him wasn’t hiding my sadness; it was alleviating it. It wasn’t until I met him that I realised I didn’t want it anymore. I didn’t want the weight of it on my body. I’d been wrapped in a thick blanket of it for long enough.
I loved Tyler. Loved him with every single fibre of my being. Our love made a beautiful boy who I enjoyed every day. Our love taught me compassion. It taught me how to fight. And it taught me how to be selfless. But it didn’t teach me how to live without him. Even though I knew his illness would take his life, I wasn’t prepared for what would happen when it was all over.
In January, he’ll have been gone for five years. For five years, I’d held on to him so hard that I hadn’t wanted to move on. I was happy that way, swimming in my grief. The idea of moving on felt like a dirty word. In all honesty, I’d convinced myself that Tyler was it for me. Then fate stepped in.
How could it be anything but fate? I sat in the exact spot where fate intervened in my life the first time, throwing Tyler and me together for the emotional roller coaster our life together was. Then, exactly six years later, it did the same again. Another piece of gum. Another man. But the same result—two people forced into each other’s orbit.
The events were too similar and too perfectly timed to be pure coincidence. Call me crazy, but what else could it be? I didn’t believe in ghosts and I didn’t believe in God. It had to be fate. It had stepped in and forced me to pay attention to two different men at two different times in my life. How cruel to then take both men away from me. I didn’t feel ready to be outside of Jude’s orbit, but I also didn’t see how I could be in it. I had never been able to speak about Tyler without breaking down. It’s why I avoided talking about him unless it was with someone who knew him like Susan or Janesa. How could he expect me to share that with him? How could I sit there and tell a man I was interested in about the heartache I felt after losing the man I’d loved so deeply. It would destroy anything between us before we even started; especially when he realised there was no way I could love another man with that same intensity. He’d feel like a consolation prize. Talking about it wasn’t fair to either of us.
While I didn’t understand Jude’s father turning away from his children and allowing his grief to consume him, I did understand him not wanting to speak about the loss of his wife. Sometimes, it felt impossible to even think their name, let alone say it out loud.
As I pressed my lips together after applying lipstick, I decided that fate needed to stop messing around in my life and go take a flying leap off a very high bridge. I was angry at it. So angry with it for taking Tyler, plunging me into the depths of grief. So angry with it for showing me Jude, who’d grown up with a father destroyed by his grief. What was the lesson there? That I had no hope of being happy and should therefore give up and drink myself into oblivion? Why did fate have to make everything so damn hard?
I had started to have feelings again. I had started to smile again. I was working through things. I actually wanted to be with someone again. I wanted to be Sarah the woman for a change instead of Sarah the widow. Was that so wrong?
I sighed, fluffing my hair in the mirror, checking over my appearance
. On my lunch break, I’d gone shopping and bought a dress from a store that was far too young for me. It hugged my body, accentuating every curve. I looked good, but inside, my heart and soul was a mess.
So, I was going out. I had a plan to go out and drink and dance and have all that mess spill from my mind and slide right off my body. I didn’t want it anymore. I didn’t want any of it.
I didn’t want to sit around the apartment feeling sad.
I didn’t want to be forced to talk about my dead husband.
I didn’t want to have my chest ache so much that I thought it might cave in.
I didn’t want to feel like shit anymore.
I’d. Had. Enough.
I just wanted to be me. Me. I wanted to be Sarah. I wanted to have fun. I wanted to remember who I used to be.
Before.
That girl who had an opinion on everything. That girl who had her whole life ahead of her. That girl who had hope. I wanted to be her again.
I called a cab and went to a nightclub that had been a favourite back in my uni days. I went alone. There wasn’t anyone I could do this with anymore; they were all grown up and married, having kids. They were at the beginning of it, and at twenty-seven, I was on the other side. Talk about having your life fly by too fast. I blinked and all the best parts were over.
As I stood in the line, I began to feel self-conscious. I was surrounded by eighteen-year-olds. They looked so much younger than I remembered and much surlier than even I remembered being. I felt like I was standing in line with a bunch of girls waiting to get a HPV vaccination. It didn’t seem like anyone was planning to have any fun at all. What was wrong with kids these days?
My hand flew up to cover my mouth, even though I didn’t speak. Did I seriously just think that?
Looking up and down the line, I shook my head at myself, laughing at the absurdity of this plan. Who was I kidding? A night club wasn’t the place I’d find myself in.
Stepping out of the line, I walked in the direction of the train station, planning to catch a cab there and just go back home. Some young guys told me to get my ‘fine arse back in line’, but I ignored them and continued on. I wasn’t in the mood to humiliate myself, which was exactly what I was doing. So stupid.
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