Dial Divine

Wake up. Brush hair, brush teeth. Make tea, eat breakfast, wash dishes. Feed cat. Watch the news. Work. Lunch. Dishes. Watch the news. Work. Dinner. Dishes. Feed the cat. Brush teeth. Brush hair. Go to sleep before the pain comes.

Wake up. Repeat.

Wake up. Repeat.

Never look at the other side of the bed. Never look at the second toothbrush in the stand. Never look at the second tea mug on the counter. Never look at the other side of the sofa. Never look at the pictures on the walls. Never open the closet. Never watch the programs we used to watch.

Wake up. Repeat.

Wake up. Repeat.

I’m watching the news, making notes of the stories I missed, the stories I knew, as I always do, when the first call rings.

I answer, thinking it’s my mother, checking I’m still alive. I prepare my voice, prepare a story for the past few days, ‘just keeping busy with work’, I’ll say.

“Hello.”

“Hi! Is that Mrs Jason?” It is not my mother.

“Speaking.”

“Mrs Jason, it’s on our records that you have had a marital loss; first may I offer my condolences on behalf of the company.”

“Your condolences?”

“I’m very sorry for you loss, Mrs Jason. According to our records you are entitled to compensation.”

“Loss.”

“Mrs Jason?”

I hang up. It comes then, the hollow inside me tears open and drags me down. I dump the phone in the cradle, make it to the bedroom. Look at his side of the bed. I can’t help the tears, the gulping, painful tears that ravage through my body and destroy all semblance of strength that I have been working so hard to maintain.

I collapse onto his side, pull the covers about me and cling to his pillow. It doesn’t smell of him here anymore, just my own night terror. It still feels of him though, the view from this side, where he would lay and grin at me while I got dressed for work in the early hours. The mattress remembers him, curving to his shape that will never rest here again, too large a hollow for me. I curl into a ball within the dip, letting myself remember how he’d hold me and hug me and love me.

The phone rings a few times. I don’t know how long I lie here. Night comes and goes and comes again. I can’t leave. I don’t want to get up. I don’t want to move and do. I don’t want to exist.

I don’t know how or when it happens but one day I wake up. I get up, brush my hair, brush my teeth. Make tea, eat breakfast, wash dishes. Feed cat. Watch the news. Work. Lunch. Dishes. Watch the news. Work. Dinner. Dishes. Feed the cat. Brush teeth. Brush hair. Go to sleep.

The next day I repeat.

Wake up. Repeat.

Wake up. Repeat.

I work every day, Monday through Sunday. It keeps me busy, the only truth I actually tell people. It allows them to see me, they can see my work going out, read it, think that I’m doing well. It takes off a lot of their burdens. They are not going through what I am going through. Their lives have moved on. My life has ended.

Wake up. Repeat.

Wake up. Repeat.

My brother's coming today. He wants to come and just hang out. He thinks he can distract me. Today I have to follow a different routine. I wake up. I shower for the first time in weeks, my hair so matted it takes three bouts of shampoo to get it clean. I shave my legs and wash my face for the first time since the funeral. I get dressed for the first time since then too.

I clean, make up the spare bed. I’m low on food, have been drinking my tea black for the past few weeks. Have been rationing out toilet roll, bread and cheese. I know it’s a move full of cowardice but text Rory, ask him to get me a load of shopping on his drive over.

Transfer money to his account through the online banking. He says yes, of course, and I am relieved to not have to go outside. Somehow it's worse outside. In the first few weeks I did try. Tried to do what everyone was telling me to do, to continue on as normal.

At the local shop I found myself buying his favourite drink, even though I do not like it. The man behind the counter said, “You spoil him, always getting his juice.”

I smiled at him, paid and left. I cried the whole way home and didn’t get out of bed for days.

I tried to get a train into town, not trusting myself to drive. The man at the ticket desk said, “Where’s your fella at these days? Haven’t seen him in a while.”

I paid for my ticket but didn’t board the train. I don’t remember walking home. Consumed in memories of him.

No. I can’t go outside. In here, at home, my pain and my loss are contained into things I recognise, things I can ignore and hold onto. Out there explanations are required, explanations I cannot give. I can’t go outside.

Feeling drained I leave a note on the door for Rory, and crawl into bed.

I face his side, though don’t touch it. The hollow inside me tugs, but does not bring me down. I caress the pain, stroke the ache. I breath it in and let it consume me.

I recall every trace of his face, the planes of his body, the dazzle of his smile and light of his eyes. The smell of his breath in the morning. The way he’d reach out and pull me across the mattress and against his chest on a weekend morning, locking me into the cage of his arms so I wouldn’t get up and leave.

The sound of his voice is harder, already distant, I fight to recall it. I can remember everything he said to me though. I hold onto three main words, “I love you,” spoken sleepily into my hair. I fall asleep with his arms around me.

I wake up, and feel cold. Half asleep I reach out to him, but the beds cold on his side. I turn around to look and confirm that he is not there. I stretch, wondering if he’s making tea for us, if he’ll bring back breakfast in bed. I smile to myself, feeling warm and loved and happy. I strain my ears and can hear the television in the other room.

Snap, he’s not here. It’s evening, not morning. That’s Rory. He’s never going to come back to bed.

Any warmth that was in me goes stale, heavy and cold. It joins the hollow that consumes my life, aches within me. I breathe in the pain.

I get up, brush my hair and plaster a neutral look on my face. Then walk out to greet my brother.

“Rory I’m so sorry, why didn’t you wake me?”

“I figured you needed the rest” he says while standing to embrace me. Wrapped in his arms I feel, momentarily, safe.

I’m quick to shake off the feeling and retreat from the hug. “Have you been here long?” I ask, failing to look at him.

“No... Not really. I’m sorry if I disturbed you.”

He sits back down and I sit beside him, fighting, and failing, not to think about how I am now sitting where he used to sit.

“How long do you plan to stay here?”

“About a week if that’s alright with you?” he asks, smiling in a way that tells me he will leave if I ask him to. I nod, trying and failing to look him in the eye. “I’m going to see some of the old uni crowd, so I won’t be in your way too much.” I smile, nod again.

The next week passes in comfortable companionship. It’s nice, having someone here with me. Rory joins me for breakfast each morning and dinner each evening, ever careful not to break my routine. The company helps me sleep, helps me wake up, encourages me to stay up past my now usual bed-time. We watch TV together, programmes I haven’t watched in what feels like a lifetime.

While comforting, it’s also painfully hard. Every laugh Rory teases from my lips feels hollow, distant, like some other person in another dimension living a life where happiness is still achievable.

Watching programmes I used to watch with him hollows me out further. Every gasp coaxed out of me, every smile teased to my lips makes me want to turn to him, share in the joke, the surprise, the joy. But he’s not there.

Rory leaves, after a week as promised. He goes home to his happy life and reports that I am well, working hard, too hard to get out and socialise, sleeping, eating, healthy and happy considering all the circumstances and I am gifted a few weeks of reprieve.

Weeks turn to months and I begin to relax. People aren’t looking out for my work, aren’t phoning me every day, are happy to believe me happy. My routine adapts.

Wake up. Brush hair, brush teeth. Make tea, eat breakfast, wash dishes. Feed cat. Sit. Lunch. Dishes. Sit. Dinner. Dishes. Feed the cat. Brush teeth. Brush hair. Wallow till the sun rises.

Wake up. Repeat.

Wake up. Repeat.

Always look at the other side of the bed. Always look at the second toothbrush in the stand. Always look at the second tea mug on the counter. Always look at the other side of the sofa. Always look at the pictures on the walls. Always open the closet. Always watch the programs we used to watch.

Wake up. Repeat.

Wake up. Repeat.

Today’s been hard. I opened my laptop and spent the day watching videos of holidays, birthdays, Christmases. Outings and parties. Listening to his voice makes me feel whole, seeing his lips shape into his smile, watching his eyes follow me around a room.

I watch them all. Once. Twice. Three times.

The sound of the bin men outside breaks the moment. I shut my laptop down, make my way to the bedroom and crawl into bed.

I stare at his side of the bed. Reach out a hand and feel the space he should be occupying.

At some point I fall asleep, turn over, and wake up. My breath is held tight in my chest and I’m unwilling to release it, to break this moment. My body is frozen in place even as my nerves come to intense life, I close my eyes, and savour the feeling, the warmth and slight pressure against my back, the gentle rise and fall of his chest.

My breath escapes me, and the spell breaks. Tears are already flowing down my cheeks when I turn around and look out at the empty expanse that makes up the other side of the bed.

My body curls in on itself. My mind goes quiet. I do not get up that day.

Today I wake up, but don’t get up. I roll to his side of the bed, pull his pillows into my chest and hold them. Today is for remembering.

“Get off me,” I laugh, slapping his arms, but my attempts are futile, he wraps me up and lifts me against his chest, spinning around. I can’t stop laughing, my head thrown back looking at our ugly ceiling.

After a minute he stops spinning but doesn’t let me go, I turn my face down to him. He’s smiling, his eyes doing that half glazed thing they do when he looks at me, like he’s seeing me now, when he first met me and in the future.

“I love you,” he tells me. I can’t stop the grin that spreads across my face. I lean down and kiss him, a smile still tugging my lips upwards. He lowers me in his arms, gently, till my toes touch the ground. We never break our kiss.

-

It’s a beautiful day, the kind that has bright blue skies, the grass a vibrant green, the heat shimmering off the ground in rolling waves.

I can feel the damp of the ground seeping into my jeans, while the sun threatens to burn my face, but I don’t care.

I can see him now, crossing across the park green towards me, a Tesco bag swinging in his left hand, a can of juice in his right. Blatantly I stare, tracking his movements, tracing the line of his broad shoulders, the cut of his coat, the even step of his stride.

He notices me staring and waves with his can of juice hand. I smile then, big and toothy and most likely unattractive, but he smiles back and that means I am beautiful and I am loved. I soar on the smile he gives me, fly above the world on his gaze. Nothing could ruin this moment.

-

He kisses my cheek, then rests his head against mine. One arm wrapped tight around my chest, the other propping him up behind me. I shimmy into him, enjoying the warmth of his embrace, the safety of his arms around me, the touch of his breath against my hair.

The TV drones in the background, a forgettable programme that we’re both addicted too but that we don’t really care about.

My stomach groans loudly, and he chuckles behind me, the vibration of his laugh shaking my body.

“Someone’s hungry,” he teases, kissing the top of my head and pulling me in tighter, “But I’m too cosy to let you go.”

I wake up the next day. The cats half starved. I can’t feel anything, my body, soul and mind our in the pit, unreachable.

I get up, and go about my day. I even do some work, unthinking.

Wake up. Repeat.

Wake up. Repeat.

I’m back to my old routine, starting to feel a sense of normalcy, have grown used to the pit, when the flyer is dumped through my letter box.

‘Dial Divine. The Gateway To Speak To Those You Love. Phone Your Loved Ones Today’

It’s a simple flyer, stark white words against a purple backdrop. A telephone number follows the words. No area code so it must be local.

I go to throw it in the bin but can’t, it seems to be stuck to my hand. I take it to the sofa instead and stare at it. The other side is blank, the front simple. Nothing about charges, nothing that feels necessarily like a scam. In fact, reading it for the upmost time I’m not entirely sure what kind of service it’s advertising.

I put it on the table and go about my day, the hollow and the pit my only companions.

Wake up. Repeat.

Wake up. Repeat.

Today’s our anniversary. It’s the first year I haven’t planned all month, the first year I haven’t spent more money than I actually have on elaborate gifts, decorations, and dinner.

It’s the first year that I do not have an anniversary to share with him. Today we would have been together for a decade, the biggest milestone year and he’s not here to share it with me.

I write him a card, I don’t know why I bought it, don’t know why I write it. I tell him how much I love him, how much he means to me and how he’s changed my life. I don’t tell him how much I miss him. I don’t tell him how lonely I am. I don’t tell him about the pain that fills me day and night and will never leave me for the rest of my life.

I only tell him the things that really matter, I only tell him the good things. I seal the card up and put it in his bedside drawer, where he puts all of his letters and notes from me. Where he can reach them easily and remember how much I love him when I’m away.

I sit there for a while, I’m not sure how long. I sit and stare at that drawer and think about all the letters I’ve written him, all the notes and scribbles he kept. All the love and life that fills that little drawer and marks all the most important things about our too short life together.

Without thinking, without feeling I find myself in the living room, the Dial Divine flyer in my hand.

Darkness has fallen by the time I build up enough sense of self to reach for the phone. I call the number.

“Who do you want?” The voice on the other end asks, the line crackling and spitting, making it impossible to discern whether they’re male or female.

I clear my throat, shake my head, go to lower the phone. “Girl, you’ve called the right place. I just need his name.”

I don’t know why, but I say, “I, I want to speak to Damien Jason, please.” My voice splinters and cracks like the phone line. Tears roll down my cheeks, I haven’t said his name since the funeral, haven’t let the words pass my lips and not get an answer, not be connected to a living breathing loving person. His name tastes like honey and joy and love.

“Right. One minute please.”

I wait. I don’t know why I wait. There’s no sound from the other end, just the crackle and pop of the phone line as it tries to maintain the connection.

Suddenly there’s a click, and the line goes painfully clear. Then; “Scarlet? I’ve been waiting forever for you to call baby. I’ve missed you so much,” Damien says.