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Because of me.
???
My head still reels as I walk downstairs. Chase’s words echo, and I barely feel the kettle in my hand as I refill it, or think about what I’m doing as I plunk a teabag into my favourite black matte mug. I don’t jerk out of my stunned stupor until I enter the living room, hand my dad his mug, and note Jan sitting across from him on the armchair.
I would have said hi, would have asked how she’s doing, if not for her grave expression stopping me in my tracks.
She watches my dad, her mouth a flat line, and my eyes follow her hand as it wraps firmly around Kevin’s.
My dad’s face is ashen. He stares at nothing.
I can’t say why my legs tremble. Why my stomach falls into my ass. Why my throat closes and dries. I’m not sure if I sit on the sofa or fall onto it, but my legs shake so hard they can’t hold me up.
Mum.
The cry lodges in my throat.
I want to run from the room, shove my head beneath water, clamp my hands over my ears and scream—anything to drown out what happens next.
It’s Jan who speaks, her voice gentle, as if her tone will somehow lessen the blow.
I watch her mouth move, but her words distort. The world slows around me. Silence—utter, complete silence wraps around me, and I feel my breathing shallow. The mug in my lap is the only thing keeping me grounded, the only thing stopping my hands from shaking; let go, and I’ll fall apart.
I clutch the sides, the lance of heat against my palms enough to drive a blade through the haze. Enough to let her words settle deep within me, like a coin sinking to the dark, murky bed of an ocean.
Test results.
PSA.
Urologist.
Symptoms it’s spread.
Swollen legs—
I stop listening. Shut her out. If I let the silence take me, if I can’t hear what she’s saying, then it can’t be real—can it?
But she’s still here, her hand squeezing my dad’s, and for a wild, detached moment, I wonder why she’s holding on to him. Why she’s here. Her words filter out of me, a tide retreating out to sea, before a wave crashes into me again. Dragging me further into cold, perishing waters.
My teeth chatter. My entire body shakes. My tea splashes my jeans, burning my skin, but I welcome the sting. Because that wave roils for me again.
It’s going to take me out to sea. Drag me beneath the current. Choke me, my throat and my lungs and my veins.
Against my own volition, my body leaps into motion. No one stops me as I bolt from the room. Plunk the tea on the side. Run up the stairs. I’m not sure how I make it to my room.
Nothing.
I feel nothing.
Only the cold wood of the door against my back as I slide down it. I let my mind float away, leaving me just this vessel.
I still feel my heart cleave, twisting as if someone has taken a knife to it, leaving me gasping—for air? For breath? I don’t know if I’m drowning anymore or if I’m cast away on a soft, gentle breeze.
Because there’s this numbness that washes over me. Every thought eddies from my head, and I see the world in startling clarity, the hues of light as the sun rises further into the sky, gilding the necklaces on my chest of drawers.
How can the sun still rise? How can the day go on? How are there people out there living the happiest moment of their lives?
And it’s then that I realise time doesn’t stop at all, even when we think there are moments when it does. Because as I sit here, grieving someone who hasn’t gone, everything moves too fast. And as I try and clutch at this moment, willing it to stop, still the sun rises higher, casting shadows across my room.
