Your Perfect Year(47)

Dead. Vanished. No longer there, gone, away, forever. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

The prospect was monstrous. It was . . . unimaginable.

Hannah had never had any experience of death before, aside from Simon’s mother, and she had only been involved there at the end of her long illness, had only lived through the last few months of Hilde’s suffering. Of course, Hannah had been sad at the time, but mainly for Simon, the fact that he had lost someone so important at such a relatively early age. Hannah had firmly believed that for Hilde Klamm death had been a release; the way she died had proved the cliché.

But this was completely different. For the first time ever, she was directly affected herself; for the first time, it was a person she loved. And for the first time—she was ashamed to admit it, but it was true—she had been made aware of her own mortality. Painfully aware.

Along with the fear of losing Simon, a thought had appeared as if from nowhere, a concept that until then had seemed alien to her: One day you, too, will be dead; one day you, too, will have to depart this world.

Of course, she’d known that day would come. Everyone knew it.

But it was a vague, abstract certainty. Something that—absurd though it may sound—had nothing to do with Hannah. Not yet, at least. She wasn’t even thirty, and Simon was only six years older! Dying—something that happened in the unspecified future, somewhere on the dim and distant horizon. Dying—something that only affected others.

Everyone dies in the end. As Hannah lay in her bed, that sentence, which her grandmother Marianne liked to repeat whenever the subject turned to life’s end, played over and over in her head. Until then she had laughed at it, amused by her grandmother’s sense of humor, and agreed with her. In the end, yes. An end that’s a long, long way off.

Simon’s revelation had brought death tangibly close, sneaking into her own reality, catapulting her into a fog of fear. Panic had shot through her veins like an evil poison, latching on to her like a destructive parasite.

Then came the shame, the disgust with herself that, on discovering that Simon was gravely ill—maybe even terminally ill!—she could do no better than worry about the transience of her own life. It wasn’t about her; she was unimportant in this. It was Simon who was threatened by cancer. She had no right to feel so bad. On the contrary, it was her duty to be strong for him.

Ultimately, Hannah had seen nothing to do but call Lisa, whatever the time. She wanted to talk to her, she had to talk to her, to stop herself from turning in circles and doing something stupid. Like running out into the street shouting for help, or driving to Simon’s place and begging him through tears to let her take him straight to the hospital to have all the necessary further tests done on the spot.

She knew that would be wrong and would have the opposite effect, causing Simon to close off from her completely. He had told her clearly enough that he needed time and space to allow what the doctors had said to seep in and to process it. Hannah wanted to allow him these things, even if being condemned to inactivity drove her crazy.

So she had dialed Lisa’s number. But now, with her friend on the other end of the line, as she tried to follow her instructions and do nothing but breathe slowly, the panic refused to ebb. In fact, it seemed to be getting worse. Hannah was now struggling with light-headedness and dazed confusion.

“Any better?” Lisa asked.

“Yyyyyyy . . . Nnnnnn . . .”

“Listen. I’m getting straight in the car and coming over, okay? It’ll take a few minutes, I’m afraid, but I’ll be there as soon as I can!”

“Nnnnnn . . .”

“I’m on my way!” Lisa hung up.

Hannah crawled on all fours back to her bedroom, climbed into bed, and drew the duvet up over her head. Then she waited, her heart thumping, for this damned terror to go. And for Lisa to arrive.





23

Jonathan

Wednesday, January 3, 5:04 p.m.

“Is someone there?” Jonathan asked in consternation as he flailed his arms around, trying to lever himself upright.

“Yes, you idiot!” a male voice hissed out of the darkness. “I’m here. And you just landed on my head!”

“Sorry!” Jonathan replied. “So who are you?” He squinted but couldn’t make out a thing in the darkness.

“A rather more interesting question would be, What are you doing in my container?”

“Um, your container?”

“Oh, forget it!”

Jonathan heard paper rustling, then a movement right next to him. He sprang back so hard that he hit his head with a metallic boing against the outer wall of the dumpster.

“Shit!” the man swore.

“I’m sorry,” Jonathan repeated, although he was the one who’d just hit his head. “I didn’t know there was anyone in here.” He coughed nervously. “It’s kind of peculiar, isn’t it? Besides, I only fell in here by accident. I—”

“Shut it!”

Out of the corner of his eye, Jonathan could now make out a shadowy figure rising up close by him.

“So, if you’ll pardon my intrusion . . .”

“No, I won’t pardon anything!” A head shot past him, outlined against the open hatch. Jonathan heard a groan of effort, closely followed by a flapping and the muffled sound of shoes landing on asphalt. Whoever had been here with him among the paper recycling was outside now.