‘I can’t help it.’
I gave him the silence he needed to steer the conversation where he wanted.
‘This might seem like a strange thing to say,’ he said after several minutes passed, ‘but I’m glad it was June who went first. I’d rather it was me shouldering the pain of life without her than the other way round and, this way, she did get her wish to stay here until the end. If I’d gone first, she couldn’t have stayed unless she had a live-in carer. She couldn’t bear the thought of a stranger moving in with her so that wasn’t an option. She’d therefore have had double the heartbreak of losing me and our home.’
‘Flynn and I had a few conversations about what to do if something happened to one of us. He used to say he hoped he went first because…’ I tailed off, not sure why I was sharing this with Dad.
‘Go on,’ he said, his voice and expression encouraging.
‘He hoped he’d go first because he didn’t think he’d be able to live without me.’ He’d also said I was the strong one but, when it came to us being tested by death, albeit not our own, I’d been the weak one and he’d been the one who’d held it all together.
We sat in silence for a while again, sipping on our coffees.
‘Do you believe Mum’s looking down on us?’ I asked. ‘You’re not a Christian.’
‘I don’t think you need to follow any sort of religion to believe in – or want to believe in – there being something after death. Is there such a thing as heaven? No idea. Is it more about that person’s love being so strong that they leave an energy behind? Or is it simply that we don’t want to let go so we like to think there’s something which allows them to be with us even if they physically can’t be?’
He tilted his head and his brow furrowed. ‘You’re not a Christian either. What did you believe after Noah passed?’
‘I don’t know. Something. I couldn’t accept that that was it for him, especially when he died so young.’ I tried to swallow that dratted ever-present lump in my throat. ‘D’you know what I really wanted? I wanted him to haunt me – to come back as a ghost and tell me what happened or, if he couldn’t speak, to somehow convey to me that he was okay.’ My eyes were burning once more as I added in a small voice, ‘But he never did.’
‘I wish he had been able to bring you that peace.’
Several more minutes passed before Dad said, ‘I’m sure your mum visited me the night we lost her.’
I sat forward, eyes wide. ‘You saw her?’
‘Not quite. You know that feeling when you’re in bed and someone sits down at the other side and you feel the mattress dip? I woke up feeling that and I could smell her perfume really strongly. It wasn’t on the bedding because Georgia and Mark had changed it for me. I strained my eyes, hoping to catch a glimpse of her but I couldn’t see anything so I spoke to her, asked if she was okay, told her I missed her and was sorry I hadn’t said goodbye. This sudden feeling of warmth flowed through me and I heard her voice saying,But you told me you loved me and that’s all I needed to hear.Next I knew, it was morning and time to get up. I’ve no idea whether she really did speak or whether that was her voice in my head, but I slept so soundly those few hours and I’m convinced that was thanks to June.’
I pressed my hand to my throat, feeling quite overcome with emotion. How much peace might I have felt if something similar had happened to me?
‘I’m so happy for you that you had that experience,’ I said. ‘Will you tell Georgia?’
‘I don’t know. What do you think?’
I’d always been vocal about my belief in ghosts. You don’t work in as many historical buildings as I had without hearing stories and seeing a few unexplained things yourself. Georgia, on the other hand, was stoic in her belief that there was no such thing.
‘It’s a tricky one. It might comfort her but it could just as easily upset her a lot. Maybe play that one by ear but just say if you want me to sound her out about the idea.’
‘Thanks. I’ll have a think about it.’
‘Did I tell you I’ve seen a ghost?’
I told him about a conversion project I’d worked on a couple of years ago in an abandoned former cotton mill in Northumberland. It was reputed to be haunted by a young boy and girl who’d tragically died in an industrial accident as well as the mother of the boy who roamed the building looking for her child.
‘I felt something as soon as I entered the building. I didn’t feel any danger – more of an overwhelming sense of sadness. I never saw the children but I saw the mum twice. She was wearing a black dress and wringing her hands as she looked left and right. The first time, it was brief and she was in the distance, but the second time she was closer and I swear she looked straight at me. We both stood there for ages and then she just disappeared.’
‘Did your colleagues see anything?’
‘Just me.’
‘I wonder if you saw her because you’d lost your son too.’
I stared at Dad wide-eyed. ‘I can’t believe I never thought of that but it would make a lot of sense.’
That thought was still with me when I returned to Willowdale Hall a little later. Had our shared experience – our shared pain – of losing our sons somehow connected us? I loved that I’d seen a ghost and it felt even more special now because of that connection, although I’d rather Noah had visited me than some stranger from the past. He could have given me some answers.
I shook my head. Answers. Why did it keep coming back to that? Why did I keep torturing myself when there were no answers? I couldn’t go down that road again. I’d made great progress since coming back to Willowdale and that was the route I needed to take. Let go, heal, move on.
