Teach Me Dirty(104)

“Not just from the walk,” I said, and trudged along.

He tried harder with conversation, spouting off a load of questions about my day and my presents and how good my turkey was, but my heart wasn’t in any of them. My mind fluttered and whizzed, panic dashing through all the things I may have done, or may not have done, or may not have been. Shit.

“Did I do something?”

The question made him stop dead. “God, no. Helen, of course not. I just… I didn’t expect to see you…”

“I can go,” I said. “I didn’t mean to… I thought you’d be…”

“Happy?” he said, and he pulled me into him. “I am happy. I’m very happy.”

“Then why are you so sad?”

“You’ll see,” he sighed.

***

Mark’s house had boxes everywhere. Some were full and taped up tight, some were half-empty and surrounded by things – all kinds of things, trinkets and photos and old films, and books, and an old sewing machine.

I looked up at the mantelpiece and realisation dawned. Anna’s picture had gone.

“Why?” I said. “You didn’t have to…”

He picked up the sculpture of us and placed it in the empty spot, and it choked me up to see it there. Me and him, in her place. So beautiful and so sad, all at the same time.

I felt tears, in my throat, just waiting. “Mark, you don’t have to do this… not for me…”

“It’s for me,” he said. “I just… I didn’t expect company. I didn’t want you to have to see this, Helen.”

“See what?”

“Me,” he sighed. “Like this.”

“But I want to,” I said. “I want to see you like everything, no matter what that everything is.”

“You shouldn’t have to.” He dropped to his knees, packed more photos into the box beside him. “This isn’t something you need to deal with.”

“Mark, please,” I said. I joined him on the floor, shuffled over until my hands were on his. “Don’t shut me out. I’m right here. I want to be right here.”

I looked around, picked up an old snow globe. It had hearts in it, hearts and snow and scrawly font on the bottom. My Darling Wife.

He took it from me and shook it, holding it up to the light as the hearts swirled. “I gave her this at the beach, one rainy Christmas when we were first together. She liked silly novelty toys, and desk ornaments, silly random things that I never saw the pleasure in. But I did see the glint in her eye when she spotted this amongst the tat in one of those cruddy souvenir stores.” His eyes were wistful, and he laughed and the sadness in it hurt my heart. “ She wasn’t even my wife then. You’d think I’d bought her the earth the way she reacted.”

“That’s really nice,” I said.

“And gone, Helen. It’s over.” He put the globe in the box with everything else. “Nine years and it’s still like she never left. She’s everywhere. Her stuff and mine, still mixed up together so I wouldn’t have to face she was never coming back. I couldn’t bear the thought of her not coming back, Helen. It was easier to be weaker, easier to let her stay.”

“That’s not true…” I said. “You’re just… you miss her.”

“I’ve been living in a tomb.”

“No…”

“At best it’s a museum. The Anna and Mark museum.” He sighed again and picked up a handful of old postcards. “Her friend, Dawn, used to send her one of these every holiday. Anna would do the same in return. Always stupid ones, nothing to do with the location.”

He flicked through them and his hands were shaking. “I didn’t think this would be so hard.”

“It’s ok,” I said. I reached out a hand for them, hoping, just hoping he’d let me in. “I can help. I want to help.”

“I wasn’t going to pack up everything, but everywhere I looked there was more. Always more.”

“It’s ok,” I said again. “Really. I can help.” He looked at me and I risked a smile, just a little one. And he let go of the postcards, gave them up to me. I put them in the box, neatly and safely, tucking them in beside some other letters.

“She was my whole life,” he whispered, and it was a horrible hollow sound. “Everything. When she died, I died, too. I just didn’t realise it.”

“But not now,” I said, and my voice sounded strange and hollow, too. “Not anymore.”

He choked back his grief and blew out a breath. “I want to make a new life. With you. I want to live again. I want to fill this house with new trinkets, new stupid memories, new clutter and tat and life.”

“I’d like that, too.”

“Help me.” He pressed his forehead to mine. “I want this done, but every memory hurts. It feels like she’s dying all over again. In my memories, in this house, in the things she loved.”

“She loved you,” I said. “She really loved you, and she’d want you to be happy. I know she would.” I brushed a stupid tear from my eye. “I know she would, because I love you, too. And it’s what I’d want.”

“There’s so much here. So many memories… It’ll take all night…”