‘It’s not the same for me as it is for you, but I miss him so much.’
‘I know.’
Five minutes later, the physical and emotional casualties of Kane’s vengeance limped into Grace Chapel. We sat at the back, acknowledging the smiles and waves and expressions of sympathy with gracious nods. We kept our mouths closed, but our ears open and found some semblance of peace in the beauty of the songs, taking our first steps on the long road to healing as we listened to those awesome women sing them.
We did all anyone could do in the face of unbearable loss: we kept on breathing, our hearts kept beating, our brains kept thinking and we carried on living for one more day.
Three days later, the news finally arrived as I sat drawing rainbows with Nancy and Pete on my living room floor. I wasn’t shocked. I didn’t wail, or weep or try to explain it away. To me, this was old news, announced as I was kneeling upon Dylan’s floor a lifetime ago.
So when I stood over my brother’s body, kissed his once-beautiful brow and whispered my goodbye to him; as I chose his coffin, waited for the results of the post-mortem, collected his death certificate, did the hundred and one things that need to be done in these situations – to my mild surprise, my aching lungs kept breathing, my broken heart continued to beat, my mashed-up brain kept on going. I carried on living for one more day. Two days. A week. A month.
The only other thing I will say about that time is, when the choir sang my darling brother goodbye with the words of ‘Amazing Grace’, it sounded like the angels were welcoming him into heaven.
I started walking again, with April as her strength returned, or with Marilyn. Sometimes heading out on sweet adventures with Nancy or Pete, joining them in examining every ladybird, or fallen leaf or dull grey stone that looked to adult eyes like every other stone on the path, because we had lost the magic of a toddler’s world view.
I found comfort in the small things, the vulnerability of grief creating the necessity for narrow, simple, safe. I felt as though several layers of skin had been stripped away – leaving me so raw that a word, a waft of scent, a time of day, a memory would overwhelm me with the pain.
I put Sam’s flat on the market. April had decided it would be too painful to move back in, instead finding a little place to share in Brooksby with Rowan and Callie.
I revelled in choir practice, those afternoons a precious solace when I stepped out of grief for a time. I joined with my friends, my sisters, in embracing something bigger than me, than my life or my problems or my sorrow. I became a vessel, an instrument, a part in a machine that created beauty and light and hope as it freed our spirits to soar.
I returned to work, finding respite in the familiar rhythms of chinking glasses, scraping plates, the hiss of steam and impatient chefs.
I allowed my fiancé to love me, as best he could. He moved back home once I felt stronger, gradually slipping back to his workaholic hours. He showered me with gifts, compliments and tender-hearted gestures. Listened to the hidden story of the past few months with dismay and frustration at my secrets. Heard a little, just enough, about my time as Anna.
I started to cook again, experiencing sparse pleasure of my own from what I produced in Perry’s kitchen, but finding satisfaction in his. His parents kept their distance. Wedding plans rumbled on.
But, at every step along my journey back to life, I carried the awareness that the black hole inside me was a tiny bit bigger than Sam. There was an extra space. An additional aching gap.
I missed my friend.
However angry I felt about it. However fearsome my rage towards him. However much I tried to slap the missing him feelings down, bury them under the blame. I liked walking with April – together, we talked about Sam, and it helped us both. I loved that my friends were there to listen, to give me lifts, to provide distractions. It meant so much to realise Perry knew nearly all of my secrets, and still wanted me to be his wife.
But I missed my friend. I missed his eyes, his smile, his gentle teasing. I missed his stories, the smell of his truck, knowing he would catch me when I fell off a cliff. I wondered if his hair had grown back, or if he had decided to keep it short. If the reason he hadn’t come back to choir rehearsals was to avoid me, or enable me to avoid him. I wondered why he’d gone on holiday when I needed him most. If he’d believed me when I said I would never forgive him for what happened.
Two weeks before the wedding, while I was sorting through some of my meagre possessions, wondering what to pack up and what to leave behind for Polly, my phone rang. The minister who called explained he would now be conducting the wedding ceremony, if I didn’t mind, as Dylan had taken a sabbatical. I thanked him, and sat holding my phone for longer than I care to admit.
I then took out a piece of paper from my desk drawer, and wrote one more wedding invitation. Sealing it inside an old, brown envelope, I tucked it back inside the drawer. I had a little bit longer to decide whether to send it.
Crunch time. After a week of tying bows around two hundred party favours, carefully inscribing names on place cards, and enduring my bridesmaids’ tour of beauty salons, Rosa arrived for a final dress fitting.
The bridesmaids went first, of course. Marilyn’s poofy dress now took up about half as much space, the butterflies fewer in number but still fluttering as she twirled the flowing skirts. Rosa did one final pinning, and ordered Marilyn to do no running, and eat plenty of her delicious cakes all week so the dress wouldn’t fall down and steal my thunder.
‘I’m joking, of course.’ She winked at me in the mirror. ‘Nothing is going to steal the thunder of you in your dress.’
‘Depending on which dress she picks, that could be either in a really good way, or a reeeaaaally bad way,’ Natasha said, alreadyslipping out of her tiny skirt in her haste to get on the dusty aqua shell dress.
I smiled back at them all, waiting for Natasha and Catherine to check their dresses were still fantastic before giving anything away.
‘Now, then.’ Rosa peered at me over the top of her glasses. ‘What is it to be?’
I wagged a finger at her. ‘You know full well what it’s going to be. Give it here and stop smirking.’
I spent the night before my wedding day alone with my tears. People understood my desire to set aside this time to mourn for my lost family, my brother and my mother and grandmother. That afternoon, Perry and I had gone over our vows with the stand-in minister. He whizzed through the content of the service, chuckling as he asked if we knew of any lawful impediment why we should not be joined together in holy matrimony.
I had continued riding along the conveyor belt towards marriage throughout my grief, too tired, too weak, too lost to think about getting off. Also, too numb to think about the practicalities beyond packing up my things, agreeing with whatever decisions Larissa came up with, and nodding along with Perry’s plans for our future. I had no idea what was waiting for me at the end of the ride, but when the panic of my aloneness pressed in, I longed to belong to someone again. To be part of a family, with history and structure and a place for me, however lowly.
Sam had been instrumental in my decision to marry Perry. The reason I would take my fondness and determine to coax itinto something I could call love. However, the loss of Sam had only strengthened my need to be Perry’s wife.
