Heartsease

It was a bad time.
I… Susan… That is, my wife, she… She died.

Wife. Such a simple four letter word; looking at it, it doesn’t really seem to do justice to what she was.

I don’t know how else to say it though; ‘love of my life’, ‘the better part of me’, ‘my soul mate’ but they are all so inadequate, so cliché. My wife; when you speak the words they say it all. Those few lucky enough to understand will know exactly what I mean. For the rest, no amount of words could explain it.

It was cancer, the big ‘C’. But she fought it, god how she fought it. We even thought she’d beaten it a couple of times but in the end the surgery, the radiation and cocktails of chemicals weakened her to the point where she… She had no more left in her.

Her last words to me were… She said she was sorry; she wanted me to forgive her because she couldn’t fight it anymore. I told her… I told her she’d done enough and it was time for her to rest, and then watched the light fade from her eyes and from my life.

I pulled her to me, held her; I think I was trying to… I don’t know, maybe I thought if I held her tight enough I could pull her back, keep her with me one second longer, just one more second.

I think the level of my grief at that moment scared them all; it scared me. I’d had time over the years of her illness to sort of prepare myself for the moment when she… For the end. It had always been a shadowy thought lurking in the back of my mind; always there but never fully acknowledged, never brought into the light but nothing could have prepared me for that terrible moment. Everything stopped; time, space, life; all that there was, was that single moment. I knew if I let her go, if I set her back down on the bed the world would go on as it had before only she wouldn’t be there with me anymore. I knew I couldn’t face it, not without her.

They left us alone for a time and I swear I could feel her there with me still; close enough that I could almost touch her but far enough that I could never reach her. I don’t know how long they left me there, I didn’t care but eventually they came back with hushed words telling me that I had to let her go. I could hear the sympathy in their voices – I ignored it and them; too intent on holding Susan to me for that final important second. Her presence was gone now and all that I was left with was the clay that had been her – it was a favourite saying of hers when she’d tried to speak to me about the possibility that she might… That this might happen.

In the end they had to get Jeanie; Susan’s sister to tearfully pry my hands away from her still form and drag me from that room, from her.
My eyes never left her; serene and quiet; at peace – the ravages of the cancer faded now that it had done its work. Then they pulled the curtain around the bed and she was gone, really gone from my life. I screamed then; no words just sound, just pain made into noise. Jeanie hugged me close whispering words that I didn’t want to hear, that I couldn’t understand.
The sound finally died with the last of my breath but I couldn’t… My body refused to drag air into my lungs as the scream continued in my mind and all the while Jeanie kept saying that death wasn’t the end; that Susan was with me still. She whispered words of family legacy, of secrets kept for hundreds of years but at the time my mind refused to acknowledge her words.

God, nature, the fates, whoever, whatever, they hadn’t just ended Susan’s life but mine as well; I couldn’t see anything before me; there was no future only the past, only what I had lost. I could feel a growing emptiness inside. When death had taken… taken my Susan it had infected me with its touch; some part of who and what I was had gone with her. Even in death I couldn’t, wouldn’t let go of Susan and that grip was slowly and inexorably pulling my soul after hers.

The funeral was hazy and blurred; monochrome; like an old piece of film. There are only parts of it that I can recall clearly – it was raining; a typical Salem autumn day, that much I remember but other things. I don’t remember the priest’s words, or the coffin being lowered into the ground, I don’t remember taking the handful of dirt and throwing it in but I remember that Jeanie and her parents weren’t crying; I remember that they didn’t even seem that sad, standing a little way off to the left of me and away from the small group of our friends and Susan’s work colleagues. It seemed strange to me even in the state I was in back then; I mean I know that death had freed Susan from the pain but they seemed more – I don’t know, more relieved than anything else.

*

Weeks turned to months and my depression deepened. Her family and our friends gave up trying to console me; to bring me back to the world of the living. Jeanie was the last; her patience finally expended; she left me in my grey netherworld.
I barely noticed their absence in my life as I fell deeper into my nightmare world. I stopped eating and would’ve probably taken up drinking but I’d never developed the taste for alcohol – Susan had always abhorred the stuff. Work colleagues began to talk about me; the word ‘zombie’ was often used and my boss even requested that I take a drug test. I didn’t argue, took his test and sat in his office as he stared at the report. I could see the sympathy in his eyes but also the inability to understand. He gave me a six month sabbatical, telling me he wanted the old Jack Carlson back. I didn’t waste the time telling him that Jack Carlson was still sitting in a hospital room holding the body of his dead wife and waiting…

It got worse then; at least work had been a distraction; an anchor to the world of the living. I stopped going out altogether, stopped shaving and bathing even stopped sleeping – often I would wake up in the night feeling her slight weight in the bed beside me, hear her slow and even breathing. All I could do was close my eyes and tell myself that it was nothing more than tricks of my mind.

Then there were the dreams. She was with me again; we would laugh, hold each other, make love and I would see such joy in those mischievous, hazel eyes… Then I would wake up and have to lose her all over again.

There were times when I had to go out though; supply runs for the coffee and energy drinks that staved off sleep and the dreams. When I came home from one such trip about nine months after the funeral I found Jeanie on the doorstep waiting for me. I remember the shock on her face at the sight of me with my greasy hair, red rimmed eyes and unkempt beard. I remember her screaming at me angrily. I can’t recall all of what she said, only the last. ‘…do you think Susan wants this?’
It was enough to shock me back to some semblance of life. I let Jeanie into the house, gave in to her cajoling demands to take a shower and tidy myself up and even ate the plate of food she put in front of me but all the time she bustled around the house; tidying up months of neglect, I could feel myself being pulled back into the grey half-life of my grief.

Before she left she invited me to her parents house for the weekend; I remember that I didn’t want to go – the memory of their reaction at the funeral was still fresh and still bothered me – but she wouldn’t let it drop; kept on and on about how important it was; that I would understand… In the end I agreed to go, mostly just to get her to leave – there was too much of Susan in her; I could see it about her eyes and mouth and in the same lustrous red hair. It hurt too much to look at her.

It’s funny, thinking back I know I had no intention of going to her parents but as the weekend neared I found that I had packed a bag and managed to get myself cleaned up. I didn’t want to go – I can remember that clearly yet I found myself driving the forty odd miles from Tewksbury to Salem that Friday afternoon. I remember that I felt… I don’t know how to describe it; there was a sense of expectancy, excitement even but I couldn’t understand why. It’s hard to explain; it felt like… like you do when you’ve been told something was going to happen but forgotten about it until it happens. I don’t know if that makes any sense but that’s the best I can put it.
I wasn’t surprised when I saw the girl standing at the side of the highway with her thumb stuck out in that age old signal. I remember she was wearing a white summer dress and a wide brimmed summer hat which she took off as I slowed down and pulled in past her but try as I might – and I have tried – I can’t remember her face. I watched as she calmly walked up to the passenger door. She climbed in without a word, setting her hat over dimpled knees.
I can’t remember her face. She seemed young; I remember that, younger than my thirty five years, no more than twenty I’m sure; the same age Susan was when I first met her.

Thinking about it now it seems funny that I didn’t ask where she was going or what her name was; I just checked my mirror, indicated and pulled back onto the highway. We drove in silence for nearly twenty minutes and I got the feeling she was waiting for me to say something. She must have got impatient though because she started to talk and her words are burned into my memory; every last one of them.

‘Oh Jack, what are you doing?’

I didn’t answer, just kept driving.

‘So this is how it’s going to be? Would you have preferred that I linger on in that hospital bed in pain?’

I wanted to answer but I couldn’t bring myself to speak.

‘You said I’d done enough, you said I should sleep that’s why I let go but I never let go of you Jack.’

I felt a gossamer touch on my wrist.
'Oh my silly Jack-fool don’t you see you haven’t lost me; I’ve been with you through it all, I’ve come to you in the night and lain beside you; I’ve held you when you wept and when I saw that wasn’t enough I sent Jeanie to explain it all to you.’

I remember thinking that I was finally loosing what was left of my mind; that I was sitting in a car and hallucinating…

‘You’re not imagining this Jack. You know my maiden name was Good and that I was born in Salem. My family line dates back to the sixteen hundreds and carries a legacy that has been passed down through the years from mother to daughter.’

I remember adding the information up, remembered the history of Salem the dates the names – hell, everyone born around the area was all too aware of the witch trials it was a major tourist industry. I remember shaking my head, denying what she was telling me; I was imagining her voice and in the night it was only dreams…

‘They are dreams, and more. I won’t ever leave you Jack not until you want me too but you have to start living life again. Will you do that? For me?

I didn’t say anything just kept driving. Somewhere in the back of my mind I knew I should’ve been freaked and the fact that I wasn’t was a good indicator that I had finally lost my mind. But you know what? I didn’t care.

When I drew up outside her parent’s rambling home in Salem Village I plucked up the courage and looked over at the passenger seat. Of course it was empty, well almost. There was a single, tiny purple and yellow flower on a delicate stem. Heartsease. It was Heartsease; Susan’s favourite flower.

I reached gingerly for it, halfway expecting it to vanish in a puff of smoke but when my fingers closed on the stem it was real enough as was the delicate scent that brushed my nose.

I jumped when Jeanie pulled my door open.
‘I didn’t think you’d come,’ she smiled.
I muttered something, I can’t remember what, and climbed out of the car, stretching. I remember thinking… well… everything seemed so normal after what had happened. I didn’t realise at first but something had changed.

Jeanie gave me a knowing look then hooked my arm with hers and leaned close, telling me she was glad I had come. We walked up to the door in silence but when we reached the front door she stopped and turned to face me. ‘Does it all make sense now?’ she asked me quietly.

I knew she was speaking about what had happened on the drive up. I asked her how she knew. She just gave me a patient smile then twitched her nose with a wink and went inside. I stopped, looking back at the empty car then followed.

Nothing more was said about it, not to this day but something inside me had been changed. The hole had been filled… Well, not filled but stitched – it was healing. Whenever I feel her loss more than usual, I feel… I’ll say it; I feel her! She’s never… That is to say, I’ve never seen or heard Susan again outside of my dreams just the sense of her presence but its enough. I’m back at work now; functioning again after a fashion. Jeanie and her knowing smile visit often – it doesn’t hurt to look at her anymore and sometimes when I feel Susan’s presence Jeanie’s smile will widen…

Oh I know you probably think I hallucinated the whole thing or that I’m just making it all up; another tacky story to add to the myths and legends of Salem. That’s up to you; maybe you’re right.

What I know is that on the mantle over the fireplace there’s a small wooden box no bigger that my fist and inside that box is a small, delicate purple and yellow flower on slight stem that is as beautiful and alive today as the day I found it on my passenger seat five years ago.