by Lesley Jones
Beau was brought to me to hold at 8.30 p.m. that night when I came around from my surgery. My whole family was around my bed, but I asked them all to leave. Marley refused, and he stood and watched as I bathed and dressed my perfect little boy in the coming home outfit that was packed in my hospital bag. Thanks to my very organised husband, it had already been in the car and had travelled everywhere we did these past few weeks.
Beau had a mop of brown hair and looked exactly like his daddy. I wrapped him in the blue, fleece blanket Milo and his wife had bought for us. It had guitars on it, and Sean had asked where it had come from and ordered a half dozen more.
I sat on my bed with my brother as he held my son, his nephew, and sobbed while we waited for the nurse to come and fetch me.
At 9.45 p.m., I was brought up to intensive care in a wheelchair and allowed to introduce Sean to our son. Lennon and Bailey helped to lift me onto his bed, where I curled into his side and put his arm around our little boy and me.
Sean’s life support was switched off at 11.28 p.m., and he died peacefully at 11.43 p.m. that same night with our son and me in his arms, surrounded by all of my family and his parents.
We buried them together two weeks later, when I eventually “recovered” enough to attend the funeral. My only regret was that I wasn’t already dead and going in the ground with them. My life was over anyway, it was only a matter of time before I joined them.
I wanted to be numb, and I wanted not to feel, but I was in total agony. Once the funeral was over, I knew exactly what had to be done. I stayed alive purely to say my goodbyes and see my husband and child buried, but as it turned out, I really didn’t remember anything about the day. I didn’t remember much of anything about the past few weeks. All I knew was the pain—the massive, aching hole inside me, and the pain that came from it. Now the funeral was over, I knew I could put a stop to it.
When I was at school, a well meaning but over-enthusiastic religious and social education teacher told my class that suicide was wrong and that God would not allow anyone that chose to take their own life into heaven. Heaven is exactly where I knew Sean and Beau were, so I had to wait until after I’d said goodbye to them forever at their funeral before I could do what needed to be done.
I lay in the dark on the bed in my old bedroom at my parents’ house. The combination of Valium and sleeping tablets finally pulled me down into the blackness I so desperately sought. I wasn’t scared, but I was impatient. I wanted the black nothingness so badly. I wanted the pain to be gone so desperately that I gave myself over to it without any kind of a fight. I just let it take me.
Epilogue
My eyes fluttered as I felt Sean kiss across my shoulder, along the curve of my neck, up my throat, and over my jaw to my ear.
“Wake up, Gia. It’s time to go, baby.”
I sighed and reached out until my hand found his hair, and I ran my fingers through it. “No. I’m so tired. I want to stay here. Let’s just stay in bed.”
I heard him chuckle. “We can’t, G. You need to go. It’s time to open your eyes and go.”
I tried, I really tried, but my eyes were just so heavy I couldn’t open them. He kissed me again, and I breathed him in.
“I love you,” I whispered.
“I love you more, Georgia Rae, but it’s time for you to go.”
I shook my head.
“Gia, I’ll be with you baby, always, every single day. I’m not asking you now, I’m telling you, open your fucking eyes.”
“All right, I will, just not yet. In a minute.”
“Now, G. Open your fucking eyes right now.”
So I did and in an instant he was gone. The room was too bright, and it took ages for me to be able to open my eyes fully. My dad was sitting at the end of a two-seater sofa, my mum was lying with her head in his lap, and they were both sleeping. Marley was in a chair right next to me with his head on the bed and my hand in his.
And then the pain punched right through me, and my breath caught.
Why?
Why was I there?
I didn’t want to be there, breathing and feeling.
I didn’t want to be alive.
I was lying on the warm and worn leather sofa and staring up at the ceiling. My hand was inside my pyjama shorts, tracing over the very faint indentations on my lower belly. They were barely noticeable now. Most women probably couldn’t wait for their bodies to bounce back into their pre-baby shape and for their stretch marks to fade, but the very few that I had, I wanted to remain with me forever. The very fine silver lines and the scar from my surgery were the only physical reminders of what I’d had and what I’d lost.
I let out a loud sob, and the tears rolled down my face and into my ears. I pulled my knees up to my chest and wrapped my arms around myself, squeezing tight. Holding on. It didn’t ease the pain. It didn’t stop the ache, and it didn’t do anything to fill the massive, gaping hole that had been punched through my heart, through my life, and through my existence. But for a few, short seconds, it stopped the sensation that I continually had of falling. Only a few, short seconds, and then it was back. I rocked from side to side, just to give me something else to focus on.
The tears that had collected in my ears escaped and ran all the way around to the back of my neck. I sobbed louder. My throat ached, my chest ached, but it hurt more to hold it in. The counsellors, the shrinks, and every other expert that I’d been made to sit and listen to for these last three months had all agreed on one thing at least: it was good to cry. It was better to let it out than to keep it in. Personally, it made no difference to me either way. It all still hurt just as much, and they were still gone. My husband and my baby, our little boy, my handsome, vibrant, clever husband and our beautiful baby boy, gone, snuffed out, in just a few seconds of complete and utter carnage.
Carnage, how ironic is that?
That was the perfect word to describe the circumstances of their deaths, three whole months ago.
Three months, I couldn’t believe it had been three months. I didn’t really remember December. In January, my family had me committed to a private mental health facility after my second suicide attempt. They kept me there for almost three weeks. I didn’t know what they thought it would achieve, other than stopping me from, once again, trying to take my own life. What did they think I was going to do once I was out?
I wasn’t insane. I wasn’t mentally unstable. Well, no more than the next woman that just had her husband and child killed in front of her. I just didn’t want to live. I convinced those that needed convincing that I wouldn’t attempt to take my own life again, and they let me out into the care of my family.
I intended to end it all as soon as I had the opportunity. Then Jimmie came to see me, and she brought my nieces and nephews with her.
I was sitting on my mum’s sofa when she came in. She carried Harley in her arms, Jimmy, Paige, and Ziggy trailed in behind. I knew as soon as I looked at her that she was pissed off. Ziggy overtook her and threw himself into my lap. He’d just turned six and was the mirror image of my brother. I held him close and breathed him in. It hurt, and it healed me a little all at the same time. Just like my brothers, he’d taken to calling me Porge after learning the Georgie Porgie nursery rhyme.
“Auntie Porge, we’ve missed you so much.” He almost strangled me, as he wrapped his little arms around my neck, tightly.
“I missed you too, Zig. I’ve missed you all.”
“But not that much, hey George.” I looked up at Jimmie from the sofa. My mum stood from where she’d been sitting in the armchair. My dad, Len, and Marley all walked into the room.
“Not in front of the children, please Jamie,” my mum begged her.
“Erm, yes, actually, Bern. I think the children need to hear this. I think George needs to tell the children why they aren’t important enough to her? Why they mean so little to her, that she doesn’t want to hang around and see them grow up?”
Lennon walked over and took Harley ou
t of Jimmie’s arms. Marley walked over and took Ziggy from my lap. My eyes didn’t leave Jimmie’s. My bottom lip trembled, as I tried to swallow down the lump in my throat. My tears escaped, with no effort from me, and trekked down my cheeks.
“Why don’t we count, George? Why does it not matter to you what you’re putting us all through?” She swiped tears away with the back of her hand.
“Sean was like a son to your mum and dad. He was like a brother to Ash, the boys and me, and a favourite uncle to all of your nieces and nephews. We all love him. We didn’t get the chance to get to know Beau, but we already loved him regardless. His cousins love him, his aunts and uncles love him, and his grandma and pops love him, and we all lost him, same as we all lost Sean, and it hurts.” She sobbed as she spoke and could barely get her words out. “It hurts so fucking much, George. We are hurting from our loss, and we are hurting for your loss, which we can all only try to imagine. But let me tell you right now, what you are doing by keeping on trying to top yourself, it’s selfish, so fucking selfish. You’ve watched us all suffer, George. You’ve seen what everyone has been through these past couple of months. Marley is barely hanging on. Len is in bits, and all you want to do is add to that. Where does it end, George? Where does it stop? You kill yourself, then what?” She looked around the room at my parents and brothers. There was silence, except for the sound of sobbing, and it was my dad that was sobbing the loudest. That hurt what was left of my heart so much.
“You kill yourself, how does that leave your mum and dad feeling? How does that leave your brothers feeling? How do you think it will leave me, Ash, and Sam feeling? What about your nieces and nephews? My babies, Ashley and Sam’s babies, how do you think it will affect them when they grow up and realise what you did. How do we explain to them? Can you imagine the issues that could leave them with? Have you, for one single second, thought about anyone other than yourself?” She knelt down in front of me and looked down into my lap at first. She drew in a breath as she tried to compose herself. I didn’t bother, I just let the tears, the sobs, and the other awful, inhuman noises that I was making, come at will.
“We need you, George. Getting you through this is what will get us through this. Sean would be so fucking angry with you, George. So, fucking pissed off.” She lifted my hands out of my lap and held them in both of hers. “No one… No one ever should have to go through what you have, but you need to look at the bigger picture, and you need to consider the consequences of your actions. Can you die knowing that Marley will probably be right behind you? And that you will be leaving Ash, without the love of her life, and that you will be leaving Joe, Con, and Annie without their daddy? After losing their uncle, auntie, and baby cousin, are you quite happy going to your grave, knowing that you are probably taking their daddy with you? Are you?” I let out another loud sob. “George, are you? Fucking answer me?”
I shook my head. “No,” I whispered. “No, I’m not.”
She wrapped her arms around me. “Then this shit stops now. We will love and mourn for Sean and Beau for the rest of our lives. We’ll never forget them, and we will help each other deal with their loss the best we can, but we will not—none of us—add to the untold grief this family is already suffering. Are we understood?” I nodded my head slowly and took in a few breaths. “I love you, George, and I don’t want to lose you. You need to go and live your life, and you need to live it large. You need to live it for Sean and for Beau too, and you need to make every day count.”
Ashley was next in line. She arrived at my mum’s later that same afternoon. I was leaning against the worktop in the kitchen, watching my mum make a cup of tea. Marley was sitting on a bar stool, talking to us both about how well Joe was doing at football, when Ash walked in. The kids were with her, but they’d all gone straight to the playroom. She ignored Marley as he said hello and strode purposefully in my direction. She smacked me hard around the face as soon as I was in reach.
“Ash!” Marley shouted at her. She held up her finger for him to shush, and she looked back at me.
“That’s the last time, George. That’s the last fucking time you put us through this shit. Your husband would be so ashamed, so fucking ashamed of you right now.” She then pulled me in for a cuddle and told me how much she loved me.
That all happened three weeks ago. Three weeks in which I’d been alive, but dead. I didn’t die. I didn’t try to die, but I was dead anyway. Death without dying was the worst kind of death.
The door to the soundproof studio at my parents’ house swung open and Marley walked in.
“Up ya get, George. I’ve got something out here for ya to see.”
I wiped my tears on my sleeve, stood from the old Chesterfield where I’d been spending most of my days, and followed my brother outside. There on the drive was Hilda, I turned and looked at Marls. “Where did you get her from? Have you been to my house?”
Marley hooked his hand over my shoulder and kissed my head. “I did, hope you don’t mind? I thought you might like to take her out for a drive?”
For the first time since December, I felt something other than pain in my chest. It was like a tiny, tiny flicker of warmth, and I looked up at my brother and smiled. “I don’t want to drive her out on the road Marls, but I’ll drive her around out here.”
“Yeah?” He grinned down at me.
“Yeah.” I grinned back.
“Well, it’s a fuckin’ start I s’pose.”
And it was, more than he could ever know. At that moment, I realised it was a start. A very, very small start, but a start nonetheless. The tiniest of steps forward, and for the very first time that year, I had actually wanted to do something. It wasn’t much of a something, but by getting in that car and driving, my mind would have to focus on something other than my husband, my son, and my own death. As I stood with my brother’s arm around me, staring at my beloved Hilda, I suddenly felt the slightest glimmer of hope. Hope that I might just get through my empty, painful, black hole of a life.
THE END
TURN THE PAGE AND READ ON FOR A BONUS SCENE FROM SEAN’S POV
Bonus Chapter
MINE!
Sean…
I used my napkin to wipe the water from my face and then pushed my dripping hair back. I was acutely aware of people staring and the fact that the restaurant remained relatively quiet after my wife's dramatic exit.
We lived in his house.
His fucking house!
She knew.
I didn’t.
She fucking knew!
Georgia had pulled some stunts in our years together, but they were usually about her stamping her feet and throwing a hissy fit when she didn’t get her own way… or, when she lost her temper over some bollocks and blew things out of all proportion before having a major meltdown. But I’d never known her to bare faced lie to me.
And it had to be him.
Cameron fucking King. The one man I knew down to my marrow, loved my wife almost as much as I did.
I’d seen the way he’d looked at her the night he’d realised I was back in her life. I’d seen numerous photos of them together at the opening of his latest nightclub a few months back, and I’d seen the way he’d looked at her when we came through the door of the restaurant less than half hour ago.
He loved her then, and from what I could see, he loved her now. For him, over ten years later, nothing had changed.
I inhaled a deep breath through my nose and attempted to unclench my jaw as I let it out of my mouth. It took a lot to piss me off, but if anyone knew how to push my buttons, it was Georgia.
She fucking lied, and I needed to know why.
Why the fuck would she choose to live in a house with me, that once belonged to her ex-boyfriend-lover-what the fuck ever he was to her?
I signalled to the waiter for our bill, handed him my credit card and then knocked back my second double bourbon inside of fifteen minutes.
I collected my card on the way out, and as I did, I could see thr
ough the glass doors that Gia was still outside and she was talking to King.
My heart pounded in my chest as I watched the tall fucker bend his knees to put himself at eye level to my wife. He said something, but I couldn’t make out what as I watched from behind the glass, just a few feet away.
Georgia smiled, but it wasn’t a happy smile, she looked more like she wanted to cry. She laughed, then shook her head.
My gut tightened, and my fist clenched as I watched him raise his hand as if he was going to touch her.
“Do it motherfucker, and I’ll rip your head right off your neck,” I whispered through gritted teeth.
What if he offered her a lift?
My head jerked back at the thought as I continued to watch them.
Would she go with him? Choose him and his relatively anonymous way of life over the crazy train of fame she was forced to ride with me?
His arm dropped back down to his side without making contact with Georgia. Good, keep your hands to yourself dickhead. He’d had his chance, and she chose me. It’s me she married, and it’s my baby that’s growing in her belly. Now fuck off!
For a very split second, a shard of doubt pierced my brain, causing pain so sharp, my eye twitched.
That baby inside her was mine.
Not his.
Mine.
She, is mine.
They, are mine.
No, she wouldn’t do that. Gia loved me, of that, I was one hundred percent sure. And yet, as I read his lips and watched him ask her if she needed a lift, I held my breath and silently begged her to say no.
“Cam”. I watched his name on her lips, and I stepped towards the door. I didn’t give a shit how big the fucker was or if he was carrying a gun, I’d fight him. For her, I’d fucking kill him.