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Kitty had gone through the entire funeral service without making a sound. She’d cried fat silent tears and had hugged people and nodded in reply to their condolences, but she hadn’t spoken a word.
She had looked at Joe when he’d offered to drive her to the cemetery and he’d almost expected her to refuse him, but she’d wordlessly followed him to his car and sat silently beside him for the short trip. Cam and Lizzie were being driven by Cam’s parents, who had come down to Sydney from northern New South Wales and Joe was grateful to have Kitty to himself. But what he hadn’t expected was the hollow, fragile shell of a woman who sat beside him. She’d lost weight in the past few weeks, and it was more than just the pregnancy weight. Her face had lost some of its usual roundness, her eyes were dark with grief, and her cheeks were hollow and pale. She was a shadow of her normal self.
He had the impression that Kitty was only just holding it together. He kept his arm around her, anchoring her to the ground, anchoring her to him as Cam handed his six-week-old daughter to his mother and stepped forward. He bent down to scoop a handful of dirt from the mound at his feet and Joe watched his lips move as he bade his wife goodbye quietly before he opened his fingers and let the earth fall into the grave.
Cam turned back to his parents and his daughter. He had his family, but Kitty had no one, and Joe’s heart ached for her.
Kitty sobbed and turned her face in against Joe’s shoulder as the sound of the dirt hitting the coffin echoed in the hole. He didn’t know if she was aware she was leaning on him but he wasn’t going to abandon her. She had shut him out for the past six weeks, refusing to step out of the house unless it was to accompany Jess somewhere, but, as pathetic as it made him seem, he would still take any opportunity he could get to have her in his arms. He knew she felt alone, and seeing Jess being buried beside her parents and younger sister would only reinforce that. But Kitty had him. She’d always have him and he would be there for her. He knew she would need him again.
The mourners had all begun to make their way, in silence, back to their cars, but Kitty hadn’t moved. She was standing still, staring at the ground.
Joe didn’t know if she had seen everyone starting to leave. They were all going back to Cam’s house for the wake. He didn’t know if Kitty intended on going back there but, then again, where else would she go? That was where she was living.
‘Kitty?’
‘Can you give me a minute?’ she said as she pulled away from him.
He let her go. She might have been standing a few inches away from him but emotionally he felt as though there was a chasm separating them. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen her smile, heard her laugh. He missed her, desperately. The light inside her had dimmed and his heart ached for her and everything, everyone, she’d lost.
He needed her back. He needed to reach out, build a bridge over that chasm and get her back. For her sake and his.
He watched and waited as she went to each of the other graves—her mother’s, her father’s, her baby sister’s. Joe could see fresh flowers at the base of their gravestones and he realised Kitty had already visited the cemetery today. She must have placed the flowers there.
He watched from a distance as she bent and took a flower from each grave. She hadn’t asked for his support, but he still waited and watched, feeling as if his heart might break. Kitty had always seemed fragile and he was worried that Jess’s death might be the final straw. The thing that would finally break her. He would do anything to protect her but he had never felt so useless. All he could do was to stay close by, to be there if she needed him.
She sank onto the ground, kneeling beside the freshly dug grave and, one by one, she dropped each flower into the hole to land on Jess’s coffin.
She sat quietly for a few minutes before eventually standing and coming back to Joe. Her eyes were red-rimmed.
‘Shall we go?’ he asked as he took a freshly laundered handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to her.
He didn’t ask if she was ready to leave. He didn’t ask if she was OK. He knew she was neither of those things but she couldn’t stay here for ever. Everyone would be expecting her back at Cam’s house. She may not want to speak to anyone, and if that was the case Joe would protect her, shield her, make excuses for her, but he knew she would want to be close to Lizzie. It would make her feel connected to Jess.
She nodded and let him take her hand.
He drove her to Cam’s house and did all the things that no one else had the energy to manage. He provided endless cups of tea and coffee, spoke to the caterers, topped up people’s drinks and tidied away dirty dishes.
