Dear Meredith

by Belle Kismet

  Glimpses of bright yellow suddenly catch my eyes, and as I look around the room, I see each guest is holding a sunflower, our thank-you gift to them for attending. Warmth fills their faces, flushing them a healthy pink. They smile at me, looking like flowers themselves in their best wedding clothes.

  Another vibrant wave of colour steals my attention, this time coming from right below me. It is the bouquet of flowers in my hands, which were pure white and utterly bleached of colour just minutes ago.

  Now, they're a riotous bloom of every imaginable shade possible, a stark contrast against my still-white gloves.

  The church organ suddenly strikes up the wedding song, and I begin moving forward with barely a thought. My timing is perfect, and I place my hand in Mike's and take my place beside him as the last chords die off.

  I look up at the man I am about to marry, seeing the goodness emanating from him. But something is wrong. I look at the altar again and see a mirror there.

  We and all the guests are reflected in it, a jewel-like sea of creatures... but I am the only one who is still completely white. My hair, lips and even eyelashes are white. Only my green eyes are still mine.

  Chapter 8

  "And, here's to Dog-Eared Books & Café!" Laney cries as she pops the champagne expertly. The cork shoots off somewhere and Janet, Avery and I let out a cheer, while Bandit joins in with a series of barks.

  I feel giddy with excitement as I cross over to the front of the bookstore and flip the sign from CLOSED to OPEN. That done, I turn around to survey the place, beginning with the wooden countertop supporting our ancient cash register, to the discreet opening into the kitchenette and toilet. Rows and rows of bookshelves stand to my left, of differing heights, all painted white to go with the warm grey walls.

  Halfway across the store, the floor raises onto a platform, which hosts yet more bookshelves, as well as eight squashy armchairs which we had reupholstered into vibrant, solid colours to bring life into the place. They face each other cosily, two to every little coffee table.

  And of course, the books, our main stars, are all compiled neatly into genres and broken down by their authors in alphabetical order, their worn and creased spines looking thrilled to be displayed out in the open again.

  The weather outside is just perfect for our first day of business and the morning sun shines into our store through the huge glass display and onto some of the armchairs.

  I've added some potted plants and a few hanging ferns, and the final effect makes me hug myself. Oh, Mike, I wish you were here to see this, I think silently.

  "Hey, come on over here," Laney calls from her perch on one of the armchairs, holding up a glass of champagne. I take it from her and clink glasses with them, feeling a surge of love as I see the same happiness and pleasure in their faces.

  Janet jumps up - "Oh, I nearly forgot about the brownies!" - and heads off to the kitchenette. She's incredibly graceful and I admire her silver hair which she tucked into a sleek French chignon. I wish hard that I'll look that good at fifty-four.

  Avery smiles at us, his open, good-humoured face broadcasting his thoughts before he says a word. He's good-looking, in a geeky sort of way. I am not very close to him, but he's still a good friend and a good boss to Laney.

  "This is brilliant, you guys. I don't know much about this decorating thing, but I certainly feel like I could get a lot of work done, just sitting here with my coffee," he says.

  I laugh. "That's the idea, Avery. And you're very welcome to come and hang out here with your laptop anytime."

  "As long as it isn't to bug me to hand in my articles," Laney chimes in quickly and he gives her a cheeky grin. "I wouldn't dare, or you'd kick me out!"

  Janet comes out of the kitchenette carrying a most delicious smell with her, coming from the pan of hot brownies in her hands. She dishes them out onto the waiting stack of paper plates.

  "Wait," she warns Avery, who is about to pounce on one unsuspecting plate. He drops back into his chair, looking for all the world like a chastised first-grader. She goes back inside and emerges with -

  "Ice cream," the three of us sigh together, while she laughs and scoops a big, fat serving onto each brownie. "Now, you guys can eat," Janet announces.

  Bandit, who has shot over to me and is milking every ounce of her cuteness, is practically drooling as she watches me take one sinful, endorphin-providing bite of cold ice cream mixed with piping hot brownie.

  "Bandit, I can't give you a bite. You can't eat chocolate, remember?"

  She cocks her head and thumps her tail hopefully. "Oh, I didn't forget about Bandit," Janet says, as she reaches into her bag. We all stare at her wide-eyed. Her bag, Mike and I have speculated, is probably enchanted like Mary Poppins', because Janet has been known to pull out all sorts of unexpected things from it, just when you need it the most.

  "There was once when mom took me to the park. I must've been eleven or twelve, just running around in that crazy way small boys do. Suddenly, the right sole of my sports shoe gave out and I had to walk/drag my way back to her. I was so upset. And do you know, she dipped into that bag and pulled out a tube of superglue," Mike had told me, shortly after I met Janet for the first time.

  Now, Janet pulls out a doggy bag and Bandit's head suddenly swivels around towards it, before her body catches up with her nose and she skids over there. She is rewarded with a soup bone, and she dashes off to the kitchenette to gnaw at it in privacy.

  "You're amazing," I tell her fervently, while Avery and Laney nod, equally impressed.

  After we're done with the celebrations, they scoot off back to the office after they do an impromptu victory dance, leaving Janet and me in stitches.

  I quickly clear off the plates and glasses, checking in on Bandit who is completely oblivious to my presence for once, lost in doggy gastronomic ecstasy.

  Janet is sitting in the armchair by the window, looking out onto the street. I am struck by the purity of her profile, outlined in the sunlight. I wish I have a camera on me. Then she turns towards me, sensing my gaze, and smiles.

  I join her on the opposite chair and we both sit quietly for a moment, gathering our thoughts.

  "Mike would have been so proud and happy today," she tells me at last. "I am so proud of you. This is incredible, what you've done with the place."

  "I have him to thank for all this. What he did for me, I don't even have words to express it. This, Bandit, the swim lessons, although I didn't see it that way at first," I say, gesturing around me with a sweep of my hand.

  "Yes, but not everyone takes the chance to live their dream. You'd be surprised at the number of people who have turned down the opportunity of a lifetime because they were too scared or hesitant to try," she says wisely.

  "I am scared, I'm still scared every day," I admit. "I have no idea how this is going to turn out. Not many independent bookstores succeed, but I owe it to Mike to try because he believed in me."

  To my surprise, Janet frowns. "No, Meredith. You owe it to yourself to try. Not to Mike, or to me, or to Laney. We already see that strength within you but you don't see it in yourself. I know my son. He wouldn't have done such a thing if he didn't already know you can handle it."

  I am shaken. I think back to his words.

  I've seen you with numbers and with people - you're brilliant at handling both, even though you don't think so. Just promise me you'll try, okay? You're capable of so much more than you believe.

  Janet looks at me searchingly. "Why do you think Mike signed you up for swimming lessons?"

  I stare back at her. "Because he wants me to face my biggest fear?"

  She nods. "But more importantly, because he doesn't want you to be crippled by it. Do you see what I mean? Because your fear has placed you into a mental prison, where you've locked yourself up on purpose. You've shrank your world down and set barriers for so long that you now think they've always been there."

  I realise my mouth is ajar. I feel completely blindsided by this remark, yet
at the same time I know Janet would never say anything with the intention of hurting me. I remember my utter disbelief when I first opened the study drawer, the surge of anger and resentment that had rocketed in me because Mike did such a thing despite knowing I couldn't handle it.

  Am I really in a prison of my own making? I think back to the beach holidays which I spent lounging on the sand, or working on my tan while everyone else frolicked in the pool. I was traumatised by the incident eighteen years ago, everyone knew that, and I had made a conscious decision to never put myself in such a position again. Or at least I thought I had.

  "Except that it was never really a conscious decision, was it? It was my fear which decided that for me, and my mind followed suit without question," I say aloud, the epiphany dawning loud and clear in my head.

  Janet was right, I had been living like a cripple, even though I wasn't handicapped. It was all in my head and I had never seen it.

  "Let me tell you a story about Mike," she says, after seeing her words had hit home. "When he was around seven years old, his dad sent him down to the cellar to retrieve something - I think it was a hammer. On that day, it was shrieking with rain and the wind was so strong that I was running around the house trying to close all the windows.

  "While I was upstairs, and his dad was perched on a ladder in the living room waiting for Mike's return, a particularly big gust of wind swept into the kitchen window and slammed the cellar door shut. It was one of the old houses, you know, the one with just one or two lightbulbs in the cellar," she tells me, her eyes turning distant as she remembers.

  "We didn't even hear it above the banshee wails of the wind. When Andrew went to check on him, maybe fifteen minutes later, he found Mike sitting on the topmost stairs leading down to the cellar, his arms hugging his knees as he shook in fear."

  I am horrified, my heart aching at the thought of seven-year-old Mike trapped alone in near darkness, not knowing when he'd be found. "Fifteen minutes must have seemed a lifetime to a kid."

  Janet nods, her mouth twisting downwards as it hardly ever does. "It took me a long while to forgive myself. It was worse for Andrew, he blamed himself for sending Mike down the cellar. For weeks after that, he would run sobbing to our room after waking up from a nightmare."

  "I had no idea, Mike never told me about this," I say, but I now understand how he always seemed to know the right things to say whenever we talked about my phobia.

  "One day, maybe a year later, he suddenly told me, 'Mom, I don't want to be scared anymore'. I had no idea where it came from, I still don't to this day. But from then on, what he did was, he forced himself to spend time in the cellar. First, a few seconds, then a few minutes every day until he eventually grew comfortable enough to try it with a closed door.

  "Two months later, he came up to us. 'I'm not scared anymore,' he said simply. And then he made us wait in the kitchen while he spent twenty minutes in there with the lights off. I've never known him to fear anything since," she says, with a quiet, proud smile for the son she loved so very much.

  I wipe the tears which her story brings, away from my eyes. Again, another facet of my husband has unveiled itself, one that I never suspected existed. "Mike knew," I say softly. "Mike knew what it felt like to be crippled by fear."

  "And he wanted desperately for you to overcome it too," she finishes.

  Later in the night, I find myself staring down at the emerald green bikini Mike had bought for me. Instead of the resignation and trepidation it usually inspires in me, I am filled with a kind of wonder.

  The conversation with Janet has opened a new pathway in my brain, a new way of seeing things. Why hadn't Mike told me this when he was alive?

  Even as I wonder, I know the answer to my question. There are some things in life that are just too sensitive to be talked about, when the words stick in your throat and refuse to come out. Talking face-to-face, watching naked emotions come and go, can be so intensely intimate that it is painful. There are some things you can write on paper that you will never be able to say in person.

  When Mike was first diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer, his disease suddenly became the huge, white elephant in the room, which we skirted around gingerly. It was so hard to talk about it, the both of us latching onto the old, familiar conversations with relief, unwilling to address the fact that he was going to die soon. It was only in the last few weeks, when we were confronted with the physical reality of his declining condition that we started to face it head on at last, together.

  And now, this. My fear of water is such a sensitive point with me, that I refuse point blank to have a prolonged discussion about it. And if I am truly honest with myself, I know I would never have attended, or even considered, the swimming lessons if Mike hadn't asked for it in his letter, written in secret while he was dying.

  You've shrank your world down and set barriers for so long that you now think they've always been there.

  Janet's words ring in my head, the truth in her voice as clear as a bell. But I've started breaking down those barriers now. They've crumbled just a little, in my half-hearted attempt to honour Mike's request. But now, I realise that I want this for myself now. I want to be able to swim without fear incapacitating me.

  I want to be free.

  Chapter 9

  I'm waiting for my fish and chips to arrive when I suddenly spot Grant and Ginny walking into the restaurant. He is casually clad in jeans and black tee, while she is a spot of sunshine in a yellow jumper.

  They take a booth seat near the door, and I notice with amusement that one of Ginny's braids is lopsided and coming undone, the little blue ribbon clasping it slowly but surely slipping off with every swing of her head. Like me, they must have slipped in for a quick bite before our lesson in two hours' time.

  Suddenly, I am hit with the utter conviction that Grant had braided her hair. Where is her mother? I've never seen any woman make an appearance at the pool, and now, it was just her and her father flying solo again.

  My gaze is drawn to his face, which is frowning slightly as he browses through the menu. He has incredible cheekbones, set high up and broad enough, while his stern nose and green eyes are enough to earn him a tenner on the Laney-Meredith Hot Guy Rating System.

  In fact, I know just how to describe him. A sort of cross between Johnny Depp and Robert Downey Jr, but more Iron Man and less Jack Sparrow.

  "Here you go, one fish and chips, extra cheese," intones the waiter, who suddenly appears beside my table. His name tag says he is Dan, and it seems like Dan is incapable of cracking a smile. I really don't blame him, however. If I had to wear a striped uniform in bileous yellow and green, I'd be pretty depressed myself.

  After thanking him, I go back to people-watching as I eat, except now I'm just pretty much checking out Grant and Ginny, since they're the only two people I recognise here.

  They're having a conversation, quite a serious one by the look on Grant's face. However, he suddenly breaks into a smile as she dissolves in giggles, and it's quite clear to me that he adores her. Just then, the waitress approaches again, and I can almost see his face closing up again, the shutters going down as he puts on a polite smile. I find myself consumed with curiousity. What's his story?

  Although we've been swimming, or whatever we do that passes for swimming, alongside each other for over eight lessons now, I still don't know much about him. Of course, he doesn't know much about me either, although I sometimes get the feeling he would like to ask.

  In fact, I realise with a jolt, Grant reminds me of me. Fiercely private, letting into my life only those whom I trust not to hurt me. I don't know if he is like that by nature or whether, like me, because something had happened to make him that way.

  I suppose it is natural, then, that my thoughts swing to my elder brother, Jamie. I have not seen him in over ten years and I have no idea where he is. When I met Mike five years ago, I was even worse than I am now. The only friend I allowed myself was Laney, everyone else was just passers
-by in my solitary life. Although I could sense right away that there was something special about Mike, it still took me a long time before I decided to fully trust him with my secrets.

  Lost in thought and eating without really tasting the food, I suddenly cannot breathe. I've had choking fits once or twice in my life before, but nothing like this. I try to cry out or cough, but only a faint wheezing sound comes and panic starts flooding my system as I realise I can't breathe.

  I start banging the table and clutching at my throat, while my senses narrow in on the piece of fish obstructing my airway. My thrashing alerts the diner next to me and I hear the woman raise the alarm, her panic suddenly causing some of the other diners to fall silent.

  "Oh my God, she's choking! Help!" Chaos explodes and I am beginning to see dark spots in my vision when I hear a calm voice I recognise - Grant's. "Meredith, I'm going to help you, you're going to be okay. You there, sir, please call emergency services," he says.

  I feel woozy as he starts giving me back blows between my shoulder blades, my body swaying with the impact as he counts, stopping when he reaches five. Oh God, I don't want to die in a fish and chips restaurant - the thought flashes across my brain, as he wraps his arms around and positions his hands against the middle of my abdomen. I feel a horrible, jerking sensation as he pulls upward, once, twice, thrice, and all of a sudden, the chunk of fish shoots out of my throat and I draw in a huge, ragged breath as I feel my insides trying to crawl up and escape.

  Trying to shiver, cough and gag all at once, it's all I can do to fall into my chair and bend down, letting the blood rush to my head. I hear Grant's tense voice somewhere near my ear, as the diners let out a cheer that I didn't collapse and die. "Are you okay?"

  I weakly hold up my hand, making the A-OK sign with my thumb and index finger. I am stunned, reeling from the events of the past minute. I could have died. I could have died. From a freaking piece of fish. This thought runs round and round in my head like a terrified rabbit and I know I have to stop right now before I go into meltdown.