Lara had her hand to her mouth. ‘Oh, Shelley. Why didn’t you tell me all this? You said he left you.’
A wave of tiredness swept over Shelley. She pressed her fingers into her temples. ‘It was just easier. And in a way, he did. That’s how it felt.’
Since Greg’s death, everyone had treated her as if she were an invalid. Talking to her in hushed tones. Offering platitudes about life. Either that or they crossed the road to avoid speaking to her altogether. Lara hadn’t known anything about Greg that first time and she had wanted to just be Shelley. Not Shelley the Widow.
Of course, she felt guilty. Lara had been so good to her these last few weeks. Especially recently, when she’d been so open about her own pain and grief. All this time Shelley had been hiding this huge secret. She owed Lara an explanation.
‘Greg’s death was a shock. The murmur he’d had as a child turned out not to be as insignificant as they’d believed. He was here one day and then he wasn’t.’
She paused for a moment. Even basic details were painful to remember. It was impossible to say these words aloud without feeling each one of them. Lara didn’t interrupt her; her face showed she knew how difficult this must be. Just keep going.
‘Anyway. For a little while after he died there were people around all the time. All. The. Time. My mum stayed for a week. His work colleagues all came to see me. Even people we barely knew came to pay their respects. It was kind but also too much at once. Overwhelming. I couldn’t understand what I was supposed to do. How I was supposed to act. People were in my house but I wasn’t the host, I was… well, in the beginning I was somewhere else entirely most of the time. I’d been given sedatives by the hospital and then my doctor prescribed antidepressants and everything was blurry at the edges for a while. Still, there was so much emotion around me and it was stifling; I just wanted everyone to go away. To leave me alone.’
Lara nodded slowly. ‘People don’t know what to do for the best, do they? Or even what they should say.’
Shelley interlaced her fingers on her lap to stop them trembling. ‘What can they say? When an old person dies, you can at least talk about the long and happy life they had. But a thirty-eight-year-old man? What can you say about his death?’
Lara put a hand to her own chest. ‘Oh, Shelley. I’m so sorry.’
Shelley needed to keep talking, get the whole thing out before the tears overwhelmed her and she couldn’t speak. ‘I overheard someone at the funeral say, “At least they don’t have children.” Can you believe that? Why would you say that? I mean, I’m sure they meant it would be difficult for children to lose their father. But what about me? How am I supposed to get through this on my own?’
She paused again, her chest felt so tight, but she wanted to get it all out. ‘I read some forums online. For widows, I mean. Lots of them said the same thing: “It’s the kids who are getting me through.” I get it. When you have children, they are your reason to keep going. You have to keep going. You have to be there for them and that gets you through. But when you don’t… What’s going to pull me through, Lara? From the age of eighteen, whenever something bad has happened, whenever I am upset, whenever I have a decision to make, it’s Greg that I turn to. But he’s not here. He’s not here.’
Shelley’s voice got louder and louder, the rage lying dormant in the pit of her belly caught fire and words she hadn’t even said to herself came tumbling out of her mouth. ‘I did everything his way – the food he liked, the clothes he liked, the holidays, the jewellery – everything. Dee told me I was doing it and I said she was crazy, but it was absolutely true. I never minded, I didn’t even notice it, but I let him have his way on everything. And then the one thing I wanted, the one thing, was a baby and he wouldn’t even think about it. It wasn’t up for discussion and I was so angry, so very angry.’ Her whole body was trembling but she hadn’t finished. ‘I know I said I’d accepted it but I hadn’t, not properly. And I don’t think I’d realised that until he’d gone and I didn’t have the chance to ever ask him about it again. It was too late. Too late.’
The force of her final words made her bend over and her shoulders shook as her whole body gave in to the sobs as they came. This was why she didn’t let them out; once she started, she couldn’t stop. She felt Lara’s arm across her shoulders, Lara’s face resting on the top of her head.
Once she could breathe freely again, Shelley sat up and brushed the tears from her cheeks with the palms of her hands. She attempted a smile. ‘This is why I don’t like telling people.’
Lara had tears running down her own cheeks. ‘I understand that one. I really do. And I feel terrible that I didn’t work it out. When did it happen?’
Shelley sat back with a sigh. ‘A year ago. I was telling the truth about that. After the first couple of months or so, my doctor started encouraging me to come off the antidepressants. It wasn’t a long-term solution, he said. I went back to work towards the end of the third month. Everyone told me not to. Said it was too soon. I needed time to heal. But I knew that I wasn’t going to heal. How could I? Everything about me was so entwined in everything that was him. If I was going to have to learn to live without him, I might as well get on with it and start this new life on my own.’ She wiped at her eyes. ‘Actually, work was my respite. Flora, especially. When I was at work, I was busy and useful and I could pretend that nothing had changed.’
Lara turned her face upwards. ‘Which is why this company takeover has been so difficult.’
Shelley nodded. ‘Exactly. And why I haven’t been able to make a decision about applying for a new job in the new company. That office has been my safe place. It was here in my own home that I found it difficult to be. A few months before you moved in, I took everything from the house that reminded me of Greg and I put it into this room. I couldn’t look at any of it anymore. It hurt too much. I knew I needed to get rid of it but I couldn’t do that yet either. It was easier to lock it away for now, deal with it when I was stronger.’
Lara screwed up her face. ‘And then I blundered in and tried to make you get rid of all your precious memories. I can’t believe how awful—’
Shelley shook her head. ‘Stop. Please. It was a relief to be with someone who didn’t know I was a widow. Who didn’t treat me with kid gloves or whisper at me or apologise when they said something that they thought might upset me. It’s been nice to be normal with someone again.’
Lara covered her face with her hands. ‘I can’t believe I even tried to persuade you to pass on your wedding dress to that girl at the charity shop.’ Her face was red when she took her hands away again.
Shelley reached out and took her hand. ‘Honestly, please don’t apologise. You have been a lifeline these last few weeks. Without you, I would have been sitting on that sofa downstairs, staring at the TV and trying to summon up the energy to put a frozen lasagne in the microwave. You’ve been good for me. Really good for me.’
Her voice cracked as she spoke. The truth of her words bounced back at her. It had been wonderful to spend time with someone who saw her as a single entity, and not just the remaining half of a broken whole. It was a relief to tell Lara the truth, but it was like tearing a mask from her face, leaving herself raw and exposed. Would this change things between them? Would Lara become a fountain of sympathy? Because she really didn’t need – or want – that right now. She just wanted a friend.
She needn’t have worried. Lara took a tissue from the box, blew her nose loudly and wiped the tears from her eyes. ‘Okay. No more sympathy for either of us. We are mates now and we are going to get through your stuff and my stuff together. My new house, your new job and anything else life decides to throw at us. And after I have had this baby, we are going to go out for a full-on girls’ night together.’
Shelley smiled. ‘Sounds good to me.’
Lara threw the tissue in the bin. ‘In the meantime, as someone who took up residence in a very dark tunnel for a while, we need to do what the book says. Both of us. Start making way for joy.’