The woman shadowed me. She lay beside me when I woke. She sat beside me at my table as I stared at uneaten food. She walked alongside me around my empty house, through the long, empty days, while I dreaded the lonely, empty nights. In my mirror I saw her haggard face and haunted eyes: my own grief staring back at me.
I recalled the day that my life and hers ended, on the way to a newly opened Disney theme park, relaxing in the front passenger seat in the company of my family; Sam driving the car; the children in the back seat singing the theme song to Thomas the Tank Engine; a screech of brakes, searing pain, silence, darkness, and then nothing.
I awoke in a hospital bed. My brother, Alex, and his wife, Hannah, were sitting beside me. Alex was holding my hand.
“Are the children alright?” I said, “And Sam. Where’s Sam?”
Alex shook his head. “I’m so sorry, Evie. Don’t think about it right now. Just concentrate on getting better. We’ll take care of everything.”
I didn’t want to get better, but I did. Weeks passed, my injuries healed and I was discharged from hospital. “You’re coming to stay with us for a while,” Alex said.
“No. Thank you. You’re very kind, but I want to go home.” I couldn’t face them, and their own children. I couldn’t face anyone.
“Give her time,” a nurse, or it may have been a doctor, said to him. “Let her reach out to you when she’s ready.”
Alex turned to me. “Is that what you want?”
“Yes.”
I walked through the rooms that had once been my home. Sam’s ‘Auto Car’ magazine, open at a half-completed crossword, sat on the lounge coffee table. Four mugs stood on the drainer beside the kitchen sink. Teddy bears and Barbie dolls lay abandoned and unloved on the children’s beds. I wrapped myself in my daughter’s duvet, and curled my body into a tight knot of despair.
Hannah called to see me next day. “Come shopping with me,” she said, “The fresh air will do you good, and we can grab a coffee at Starbucks.”
“I can’t go out,” I said. “I couldn’t bear it.”
“Okay, Evie, I won’t push it, but you must call us if you want anything. Promise?”
I nodded, but I knew I wouldn’t call. What could she possibly give me?
In the evening Alex rang and told me that he’d arranged for the local supermarket to deliver a week’s groceries to me every Friday afternoon. And I must try to eat properly.
Sometime after Alex’s phone call I saw the woman for the first time. Instinct told me she’d always been there but only now was I aware of her. We went through the motions of living. She cooked, she cleaned the house, washed and ironed my clothes and lay beside me through the sleepless nights. I was detached from reality; from the world around me; from myself.
Months passed. One summer evening she opened the front door and stepped outside. I followed her. The sun was setting in a blue and gold sky, and I caught the June twilight scent of honeysuckle from a neighbor’s garden. The woman and I walked together through the once-familiar streets until we reached Alex and Hannah’s house. We raised our hands and together we pressed the doorbell.
Hannah opened the door. She smiled. “I’m so glad to see you. Come in. I’ll tell Alex you’re here.”
They hugged her. Alex sat beside her on the couch and called to their children, “Auntie Evie’s here, kids. Come and give her a kiss”. Their small son and daughter flung themselves at her and smothered her with wet kisses. Hannah brought her a cup of tea and handed her a handkerchief to dry her tears.
I stand in the corner of the living room and watch. My nephew sits in the woman’s lap. She wraps her arms around the child and looks across at me. Her eyes seem less haunted. I see resignation in them, and she releases me. I start to fade, become insubstantial, and I escape into oblivion.
—
Maureen Bowden is a Liverpudlian living with her musician husband in North Wales. She has had 110 stories and poems accepted by paying markets, and Silver Pen Publishers nominated one of her stories for the 2015 international Pushcart Prize. The loves her family and friends, rock ‘n’ roll, Shakespeare and cats.
A truly haunting story. Very well done.