Fifteen years ago, I walked up the same church aisle.
Back then, the first person I saw was the gloriously indomitable Annie, in dramatic purple and a hat that resembled a frisbee, disguising her tears because she was born of a stoic generation that was disdainful about crying in public. Now she was no longer here. A hole in my heart that I knew would never heal.
I saw my parents. The woman who gave birth to me was preening, loving the attention being mother-of-the-bride brought her, while breezily overlooking the fact that she’d shown no interest whatsoever in her daughter’s wedding.
Today, that thoughtless insouciance was gone, replaced by a woman whose soul was a void of loss and stony solitude. I wasn’t sure she would ever feel anything again. My whole life she’d refused to share her love with me. That hadn’t changed now that I was all she had left.
At my back the last time, were my best friends, Lulu and Rose in matching pastel elegance. Now I saw Lulu, sitting next to Dan, their hands entwined. On the other side of Lulu was Rosie, her face swollen and distraught, a beautiful woman who had been broken. We’d survive this. I wasn’t sure how, but somehow we’d find a way to live with it.
I stepped back to the past again.
Back then, I’d walked towards Colm. My gorgeous Colm. Now, he walked beside me, his hand on my back, guiding, supporting me.
Back then, I saw flowers, and light and love. I saw promise. Commitment. Belonging. Delight. Contentment. Lust. Excitement. The realization of dreams. An incredible future.
I saw happy ever after.
Now I knew there was no such thing.
Fifteen years ago, I walked up the aisle in white.
This time, I was wearing black.
The service passed in a blur of platitudes, of empty words that proclaimed what an honourable man Jeff Williams was, a wonderful husband, a beloved father. He was none of those things.
Only when the coffin was slowly lifted and removed by the church pallbearers did a sob escape me. Not for his loss, but for the waste of a life and the pain he left behind. My mother, no matter how unfathomable their relationship, had been cast adrift without her soulmate. My friend, inconsolable, her best years wasted on a man who didn’t deserve a minute of her time.
I cried for the father I never had, for the memories I’d never cherish.
I said goodbye to a man who had never loved me. Now all that mattered was keeping a man who did.
As the last of the mourners left, I placed my hand on Colm’s arm.
‘Can we wait a moment?’ I asked.
‘Of course.’
The rain was drizzling, but I didn’t care. I needed to walk. I took his hand and he offered no resistance, staying by my side in silence as I wandered across the grounds, eventually settling on a bench, protected from the rain by the huge oak tree that stood over it.
We sat in silence, the first time in days that we hadn’t been surrounded by people.
‘Shauna, I’m sorry.’
‘For what?’
‘Everything.’
I turned to him, his tired eyes the windows to a heavy heart.
For a second, I wondered if he was going to tell me about Jess, but no. I’d seen it in his eyes that night. He had the courage to live with his illness and he had the courage to protect us from what happened with Jess.
Neither of us was blameless in how our lives had come to that point or this one. It was time to let go of the fighting and the resentments and the pain.
‘Colm, don’t.’ I paused, so much to say, but no clear idea how to say it. ‘I’m so sorry too. I don’t know what happened to us. I think we got lost. But I don’t care any more about what you’ve done, or what I’ve done, or where we went wrong or who should have done what. Nothing matters. All that matters is now. Today.’
After the longest time, he spoke, his voice low and thick with unfamiliar emotion. ‘You know, since they told me I was dying, I’ve thought so many times that I want to be given the chance to live my life again.’
My heart stopped, terrified that this was going to be an admission of regret.
‘But every time I imagine how that would be, no matter how many times I could press rewind, I realized that every time, I’d want to do it with you.’
It was all we needed. For however long was left, we had this and we had our family.
Nothing else mattered.
I stroked his hair, traced a line across his brow, down the bridge of his nose, ending with my fingertips on his lips. ‘I love you, Colm O’Flynn,’ I whispered. ‘You’re everything.’
He kissed me, his touch leaving a memory that would last until there was no more breath in either of us.
‘You’re more,’ he said.