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Authors: Stephanie Butland
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either.â
I didnât say anything else to her, but Iâm not accepting anything, here. Some days I canât bear not knowing. And then some days I couldnât care less, because itâs not as though her remembering anything else is going to bring you back.
But I donât accept that youâre not here, Mike. And I thinkâI knowâyou should come back. I canât believe you wonât. This was never in the plan.
Come back. Come back to me. I donât care how. Iâll wait. Because I canât, wonât, donât want to be living my lifeâour lifeâwithout you. I absolutely refuse.
Iâve pressed the snowdrops in our wedding album. And Iâm waiting.
E xxx
Itâs hard to know what to do on Michaelâs birthday. Mel tells Elizabeth that next year she will be able to remember her husband and find happiness in those memories. Elizabeth agrees but doesnât really believe her, in the same way that she doesnât really believe that sheâs in the air when sheâs on a plane: it seems too impossible, too ridiculous, and looking down and seeing clouds only makes it all the more unlikely, somehow.
Patricia brings her photograph albums around.
Elizabeth hesitates before looking, but can see nothing in the chubby boy with the curly hair that she can relate to her husband. Until Patricia turns a page and there he is, only nine, eyes looking straight into the camera, mouth a solemn line. âI remember that year,â Patricia says. âIt rained and we had to have his party indoors, and so we couldnât have races. He wasnât very pleased.â And everything the man will be sings out from the boy, and suddenly Elizabeth is gasping, gasping at how vivid he has become.
âI thought it might be too much,â Mel says to Patricia as she holds Elizabethâs hand, Melâs other hand rubbing a rhythm up and down her sisterâs spine. Elizabethâs eyes are closed, her body shaking. Her head has dropped and itâs impossible to see whether she is crying or not. Thereâs no sound, but Patricia and Mel know that this means nothing.
âSheâs going to have to start making an effort, Mel,â Patricia says in a half whisper that would carry through a stone wall. âLook at me. Iâve lost my son and Iâm still going to the WI tomorrow. I donât much care about spring jams at the moment, but I have to keep going.â
Like so much she tries to say to or about Elizabeth, it doesnât come out quite the way she means it to. If Patricia had more parts of her heart that werenât aching, if the constant battling back of the desire to give up and lie down would just stop for a minute or two, she thinks she could work it out. Somewhere in the air around her drifts the understanding that the generations grieve differently, in the same ways that they love differently, dress differently, raise their children differently. Close by is the feeling that if she could cry for help the way that Elizabeth does, by letting all of the desperate wordlessness out of her, then she would. But Patricia will do what she has always done: manage. She can tolerate enough sympathy to make her feel as though she isnât alone, but not so much that she canât take care of other people. When friends touch her arm, she smiles and nods. If she thinks anyone might try an embrace, she takes a step back. When people ask her how she is, she shakes her head but says sheâs bearing up.
Patricia would never tell you about her baby sister who died, because she never speaks about it. Itâs no secret: Patricia was five, little Sheila only two. She would never tell you, because she never thinks of the way that her mother gave herself over to her grief, becoming a shadow mother, ineffectual, incapable, insubstantial. She never thinks of it, but the memory is everywhere within her. And even though Elizabeth has no
I didnât say anything else to her, but Iâm not accepting anything, here. Some days I canât bear not knowing. And then some days I couldnât care less, because itâs not as though her remembering anything else is going to bring you back.
But I donât accept that youâre not here, Mike. And I thinkâI knowâyou should come back. I canât believe you wonât. This was never in the plan.
Come back. Come back to me. I donât care how. Iâll wait. Because I canât, wonât, donât want to be living my lifeâour lifeâwithout you. I absolutely refuse.
Iâve pressed the snowdrops in our wedding album. And Iâm waiting.
E xxx
Itâs hard to know what to do on Michaelâs birthday. Mel tells Elizabeth that next year she will be able to remember her husband and find happiness in those memories. Elizabeth agrees but doesnât really believe her, in the same way that she doesnât really believe that sheâs in the air when sheâs on a plane: it seems too impossible, too ridiculous, and looking down and seeing clouds only makes it all the more unlikely, somehow.
Patricia brings her photograph albums around.
Elizabeth hesitates before looking, but can see nothing in the chubby boy with the curly hair that she can relate to her husband. Until Patricia turns a page and there he is, only nine, eyes looking straight into the camera, mouth a solemn line. âI remember that year,â Patricia says. âIt rained and we had to have his party indoors, and so we couldnât have races. He wasnât very pleased.â And everything the man will be sings out from the boy, and suddenly Elizabeth is gasping, gasping at how vivid he has become.
âI thought it might be too much,â Mel says to Patricia as she holds Elizabethâs hand, Melâs other hand rubbing a rhythm up and down her sisterâs spine. Elizabethâs eyes are closed, her body shaking. Her head has dropped and itâs impossible to see whether she is crying or not. Thereâs no sound, but Patricia and Mel know that this means nothing.
âSheâs going to have to start making an effort, Mel,â Patricia says in a half whisper that would carry through a stone wall. âLook at me. Iâve lost my son and Iâm still going to the WI tomorrow. I donât much care about spring jams at the moment, but I have to keep going.â
Like so much she tries to say to or about Elizabeth, it doesnât come out quite the way she means it to. If Patricia had more parts of her heart that werenât aching, if the constant battling back of the desire to give up and lie down would just stop for a minute or two, she thinks she could work it out. Somewhere in the air around her drifts the understanding that the generations grieve differently, in the same ways that they love differently, dress differently, raise their children differently. Close by is the feeling that if she could cry for help the way that Elizabeth does, by letting all of the desperate wordlessness out of her, then she would. But Patricia will do what she has always done: manage. She can tolerate enough sympathy to make her feel as though she isnât alone, but not so much that she canât take care of other people. When friends touch her arm, she smiles and nods. If she thinks anyone might try an embrace, she takes a step back. When people ask her how she is, she shakes her head but says sheâs bearing up.
Patricia would never tell you about her baby sister who died, because she never speaks about it. Itâs no secret: Patricia was five, little Sheila only two. She would never tell you, because she never thinks of the way that her mother gave herself over to her grief, becoming a shadow mother, ineffectual, incapable, insubstantial. She never thinks of it, but the memory is everywhere within her. And even though Elizabeth has no
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