The Letters (Carnage #4)(11)
I’m sitting on the floor of my office with a cup of tea in one hand and this letter from Sean in my other. I spent all of Saturday afternoon trying to organise everything into piles. I’ve worked out which are songs and poems, and I’ve messaged my brother to come over and look through them with me. There’s a pile of VCR tapes, but I’ve no clue what’s on them; some have labels and some don’t. It doesn’t matter because I don’t have anything to play them on anyway. There are some notebooks and diaries, a few photos, and then there are the letters.
When I had this crate shipped to me in Australia, I put what I could in sequential order according to the post office date stamps. Somehow, they got messed up, so I had to just go through them as I got to them. Because most were never posted, there weren’t any date stamps, and if Sean hadn’t written the date, then I tried to work it out by the things he wrote about.
I’ve read five letters today, but this is the first to make me cry—the first to break me. I think the thing that did it was the similarities in our thought process. I would often look at the moon and think along the same lines. Were we ever looking into the sky at the same time and thinking of each other?
Cam puts his head around my office door, which I’ve kept closed as I don’t want the kids seeing me upset, especially over a man that’s not their dad. His warm smile is gone the instant he sees the tears on my face. He comes in and closes the door behind him.
“What happened?” he asks, while squatting down in front of where I’m sitting, legs crossed, Indian style.
“Words,” I reply.
He smooths some stray hair that’s escaped from my messy bun and tucks it behind my ear.
“Well, words were his thing, babe. He wrote songs for a living, bloody good ones.”
I sniff and nod my head. “I know. I know that …” I trail off and blow my nose on the tissue that Cam passes to me.
It’s all suddenly too overwhelming. Why the f*ck am I doing this to myself? To us?
“I’m so sorry, Cam. I can’t imagine how this is making you feel.” He leans his back against the my pop art wall, stretches his long legs out in front of him, and then pulls me into his lap. He remains silent as he does this.
“Does it bother you? Be honest with me, does it bother you that I still cry for him after all these years?”
I turn and sit myself so I can see his face, his eyes dart all over mine and he lets out a long breath.
“Georgia, I’m only human, of course it bothers me to a certain extent, but at the same time, I’m one hundred percent certain of your love for me—”
“Good,” I interrupt him.
“What we have ... Shit, I don’t know how to explain this. Our relationship is unique. It probably wouldn’t work for a lot of people, but it works for us, and it’s worked for us for a lot of years now, baby. You were married to someone you loved deeply, that you’ll always love. He died, and well, here I am. I’ve every confidence that you love me just as much as you loved or love him. That’s just the way it is. I knew this when we got back together, and I’ve been fully aware of it throughout our marriage. It is what it is, Kitten. He’s dead, I’m here. What’s the point in me getting pissed off over your tears?”
I don’t really know how to respond to his answer. He actually sounds a little bit angry.
“So is that a yes or a no?”
“For f*ck’s sake, Georgia, you’re my wife and I love you. Of course it f*cking bothers me. He’s been dead for sixteen years, build a bridge and get the f*ck over it. Is that what you wanna hear from me?”
I’m stunned into silence for a few seconds. Then I try to scramble to get out of his lap and away from him, but he holds me in place by my waist.
“You asked me a question; now listen to the answer.” I stare at him, wide eyed and still too shocked to speak or attempt to move again.
“Part of what makes you the person you are, the woman I’ve loved for so long, is your passion. If you didn’t still feel the way you do, or if you didn’t react to his words the way you are now, then it wouldn’t be you, not the version of you I love. I love you, and part of loving you is accepting that you still hurt deeply over the death of your first husband and the loss of your babies. I try not to feel jealous. I try really f*cking hard, but I’m only human. So yeah, to some degree, it does bother me, but do you know what bothers me more?”
I shake my head, terrified of attempting speech in case I choke on the tears silently running down my cheeks.
“What bothers me more is seeing you so conflicted, watching you being eaten alive by the guilt you feel because you cry, because of how you feel. He was your husband, Kitten, and this is the first time you’ve seen these letters. Just like I’m human and feel jealous of a dead bloke, you’re human and can’t help but still being in love with that dead bloke. I accepted it and came to terms with it a very long time ago. You really do need to do the same, babe.”
Wow.
I have no words. Everything he said is true. I’ve been in love with two men for around thirty years. I was in love with Sean while I was with Cam and then I got back with Sean, but either unknowingly or unwillingly, I remained in love with Cam. Sean died and just a year later, I was back with Cam, and now, here we are, over sixteen years after Sean’s death and I’m still in love with both of them.