All I Have Left of You

by Laura Daniels

  I’d been told he’d pled guilty to manslaughter so there’d be no need for a trial. That was supposed to make me feel better, but it didn’t. How could it? It didn’t bring back my husband. My best friend.

  A couple of hours later, my door opened.

  ‘Sweetheart,’ Mum whispered as she peered around the door. Light poured in from the hallway.

  ‘Hi, Mum,’ I said in a croaky voice, wincing at the light that bled into the room. With all the crying I’d done over the past week or so, I’d all but lost my voice.

  She pushed the door wider and stepped inside. She held

  two cups of tea in her hands and was wearing her white fluffy dressing gown. ‘I brought you this,’ she said softly, as she came towards my bed and handed me one of the mugs.

  ‘Thanks, Mum,’ I said, sitting up and pushing back the covers so that she could climb into bed with me.

  She got under the quilt, and I rested my head on her shoulder, seeking comfort. ‘Did you manage to sleep at all, love?’

  ‘A bit.’ My eyes started to burn again. ‘I’m scared, Mum.’

  ‘I know, darling,’ she soothed. ‘Michael wouldn’t want you to be scared, would he? He’d want you to be strong. Have you written something to read at the service?’

  I nodded, sniffling. ‘Yeah. But I don’t know how I’m going to get up there, Mum. I don’t know how I’m going to stand in front of everyone and say goodbye to him. I just don’t know if I can.’

  ‘I know it’s going to be hard for you, love. It might be the hardest thing you ever have to do. But you’d regret it more than anything if you didn’t do it.’ Her voice was tender as she stroked her hand through my hair.

  ‘I know you’re right, Mum. I just can’t believe this is happening,’ I said, starting to sob again. ‘I can’t believe he’s never coming back. I can’t believe we’re talking about Michael’s funeral. Why did this happen, Mum? Why?’

  ‘Oh, sweetheart, I know. I wish I had an answer for you. I wish I could make it better.’ She started to cry too. She quickly stopped herself and took a deep breath. ‘I think all we can do is take it one day at a time. Can you do that, darling?’

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  23rd December 2017

  The funeral

  We’d asked people not to wear black.

  Michael was so full of life and laughter. He was colourful. Bright like the sun. He was anything but the morbid drab that was black. I wore a royal blue lace dress that Michael had bought me for my birthday a couple of years before. It came in at the waist and spun out, the hem cutting just above my knee. The sleeves were long, and the neck made a ‘v’, allowing me to showcase the best present he’d ever bought for me. It was a black cord necklace with my birthstone hanging from it. Michael had bought it for my birthday when I was thirteen. I’d worn it almost every day since.

  The service was held at the local crematorium, and the room in which we were to say goodbye to Michael was painted cream and had soft red chairs set out before the lectern. It was bright but a bit clinical, a bit impersonal.

  The room was full, though.

  There weren’t even enough places to sit, and there were a few rows of people stood at the back, here to pay their respects to my late husband. It was… nice.

  It warmed my fractured heart a little to see how many pe-

  -ople had cared for my dear Michael. To see how many people wanted to say goodbye. I looked forward to chatting with them after the service. Perhaps they could tell me stories about my husband that I’d never heard before, maybe I’d learn something new about him after all this time.

  I tried hard to pay attention to the speech his dad made, and the speech Max made. But I couldn’t. My speech was last, and I’d worried about it constantly. I feared I’d break down in tears or pass out from the laden weight of my grief. I worried I wouldn’t give my husband the send-off he deserved.

  Too soon, it was my turn, and I found myself walking on shaky legs to the front of the room, my eulogy in hand. I stood in front of his coffin and a framed picture of him. He was smiling, beaming. It had been taken on the morning of our wedding day. His brown eyes burst with light, laughter, and hope. I couldn’t quite fathom that the same man in the picture was now lying motionless in that coffin, never to smile again.

  My legs started to wobble and my vision blurred.

  But I had to do this. I had to say goodbye to my husband.

  I took a deep breath, unfolded the eulogy and spread it across the lectern. ‘Hi,’ I said in a small voice. I’d never been the best at public speaking in the best of situations.

  I looked out at the sea of colour before me; it was a sea of love for Michael. It pushed me onward.

  I swallowed back a lump of fear. ‘As you all know, my name is Elina Mills, and the sweet, kind, wonderful man we have to say goodbye to today is- was- is my husband. I’m not going to stand up here and tell you all how much I’m going to miss Michael or how much pain his… d-death has caused me. You all know that. You all feel that same pain. What I am going to do is tell you about the first time I realised he was the one I wanted to share my life with.’ I paused to take another deep breath. ‘It was the week before my thirteenth birthday. I’d had a bit of a bad week at school thanks to some horrid girls who’d decided they wanted to humiliate me. You see, Michael and our best friend, Max, spent every lunchtime together. But on this occasion, I decided I wanted some girly time and attempted to build a friendship with two girls from our form. So, one lunchtime, when Michael and Max went off to their climbing club, I met the girls for choir practice. Anyway, it didn’t end well, and the girls ended up making a fool out of me in front of what felt like the whole of Year Eight. But, that weekend Michael and Max had a surprise for me. I’d gone over to Michael’s house as I did every Saturday night, and the two of them had bought girly magazines, nail polish, face masks, the lot. I painted their nails, and they painted mine. The two of them took my mind off everything that had happened, and I ended up having one of the best nights of my life. And then later, when Max had to go home, Michael gave me a present. I excitedly ripped off the wrapping paper and inside was a box. Inside that box was a necklace. The necklace was a black cord with my birthstone hanging from it. It’s the one I’m wearing today. It’s the one I wear most days, actually. Michael had bought it with some money his grandparents had given him, and I couldn’t believe that he’d spent it on me. Me. He’d wanted to make me happy. At the age of twelve, Michael put my happiness first. And from that moment on that’s all he did. Michael spent his life making me happy, and I am so grateful to him for that. Michael gave me the best fifteen years of my life. He was my best friend, my partner in crime, my soulmate, and my husband.’ I paused again as I noticed my voice starting to shake. Another deep breath. Another. ‘He was everything to me, and whenever I wear this necklace, I’ll try my hardest to smile. It will be hard at first, I know that. But the best thing I can do now is remember Michael and how kind he was. His life has been taken from us. But I won’t let his death take away the hope he gave me every day, nor will I let it take the memories that will warm my heart until my own dying day. Michael will still live with us, in our hearts until they take their last beat. Love is something death cannot touch.’ I turned to face the coffin, and tears burned my eyes. My whole body shook, aching with loss. ‘I love you, Michael. Thank you for marrying me, and for letting me be the proudest and happiest wife in the whole world.’

  At the end of the service, Michael’s favourite song started to play.

  American Pie by Don Mclean.

  As the song played, we were invited to say goodbye to Michael before leaving the crematorium. I trembled as I walked towards the coffin. Mum and Dad held my hands. I held on tight, holding on for dear life. I don’t know how I did it. But somehow I put one foot in front of the other and said one last goodbye to my soulmate to the same song we’d danced to at our wedding. It was the first time we had ever danced as husband and wife.

  I
’d laughed so much that day.

  I’d felt invincible. Like nothing could hurt me. Not now that I’d married Michael.

  We had our forever ahead of us. Bright like the sun. Warm like its golden rays.

  I’d been so wonderfully unaware then, of just how fleeting our forever would be.

  *

  The next time I saw my husband he was handed to me in a jar.

  A pile of grey dust, in a jar that looked like an old style sweet shop container.

  But Michael was anything but grey. He was yellow, red, orange, bright green and blue. He was hope, bright. He was my sun in the height of summer, my moon and stars in the dead of winter. He was light. He wasn’t grey.

  I stared at it. At him.

  At what my husband had been reduced to. Inside that jar were the hands that had once offered me guidance, the shoulders that had once offered me comfort and the heart that had once offered me love.

  But all it made me feel was an unrelenting cold.

  It didn’t feel like him.

  ‘What do you want to do with them?’ Kit asked softly.

  It was the day after the funeral, and I was back at my parent’s house. Roanna, Kit, and Max were sat in the living room with me while Mum and Dad prepared some sandwiches in the kitchen for lunch.

  The room was all decked out for Christmas. A Norwegian spruce stood in the corner decorated in white twinkly lights and gold and red baubles. Stockings hung over the white stone fireplace, and the scent of mulled apple filled the room.

  It was Christmas Eve.

  To someone glancing through the window, it might have looked like a warm, happy day spent with friends and family. It might have looked how Christmas was supposed to look.

  I stared at the jar that sat on the coffee table.

  ‘I… I don’t know,’ I replied in a low voice.

  ‘Did Michael ever say where he wanted them scattered?’ Max asked, wrapping his arm around me. His touch was soft and kind.

  I shook my head. ‘No.’

  ‘You can have ashes made into jewellery,’ Roanna suggested with a small smile. ‘You could have them made into a nice ring or a necklace. He’d always be with you.’

  ‘That’s a nice idea,’ said Kit warmly.

  I thought about it for a moment. ‘It would be nice, I suppose. But what if I lost it?’ The idea of losing him all over again made my heart thud against my chest, and my breaths became quick and shallow.

  Max squeezed my shoulder. ‘You don’t have to decide today,’ he said delicately. ‘You can decide whenever you want, Lina.’

  I nodded and grabbed my glass of water from the coffee

  table. I took a long sip. ‘You don’t have to stay with me all day, you know. It’s Christmas Eve; you should be with your families.’

  ‘Pete has the twins, he’s fine,’ Kit assured me. Her twin boys had just turned one.

  ‘And I was spending Christmas with you, anyway,’ Roanna reminded me. ‘I’m divorced, and my parents are in Paris. You’re my family, Lina. This is the only place I want to be right now.’

  I smiled at them both and hoped they knew how much their support meant to me. ‘Max, your girlfriend must want to spend Christmas Eve with you.’

  Max shook his head. ‘I’m with these two. I don’t need to be anywhere else right now. Poppy will understand.’

  I nodded. ‘Okay. If you’re sure,’ I said and stared once again at the grey dust that was my husband.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  17th January 2018

  Time without Michael: 31 Days

  It was the third week of January when I’d finally moved back into the apartment Michael and I had shared. I hadn’t been back since it had happened a month earlier. Mum and Dad had been the ones to collect all my clothes and had brought me everything I’d needed.

  She’d also cleaned up and tidied the mess I’d made on the bedroom floor as I’d frantically searched for a pair of shoes to wear on the night it had happened.

  Living in our home without him was torture. It didn’t feel like home at all. How could you go home when the person who made it home was gone?

  Silence came every morning and night, seeping into every inch of the apartment, lingering there like stagnant water. And eventually, that silence swallowed all sound and all colour. Our home was scarred. Irreversibly broken.

  But then I’d hear his voice everywhere; I’d see him sat on the sofa nursing a beer, or getting out of the shower, whistling cheerfully away. I’d hear his laughter echo throughout the hollow space.

  At first, I’d thought the nights were the hardest.

  They were long, dark, and lonely. I’d stare at the ceiling

  for hours on end, waiting for sleep to take me in its welcoming grip. But when sleep came, I dreamt. Oh, I dreamt. I dreamt of Michael’s last moments. I saw him wincing in pain. I saw his eyes shut for the last time, saw the life slip from them. In other dreams, he was alive again. And we’d be having breakfast or sat watching TV. Just being us.

  But when morning came, it slapped me hard in the face with its cruel silence.

  Michael had always got up before me. He’d go into the lounge and turn on a lamp and put the news on. So when I woke up and ventured out of the bedroom to discover the news wasn’t on, and the apartment was covered in a sheet of darkness, it hit me all over again that he wasn’t here anymore, lighting the way for me.

  And just when I thought it couldn’t possibly hit me again, it did. Just as hard as the first time.

  I went shopping for some groceries the day I moved back in, and without thinking about it, I’d bought some beers that Michael liked. They were god-awful. Elvis Juice, they were called. They were strong and bitter, but Michael loved them. I’d returned home and opened the fridge to find he still had three left.

  I’d collapsed on the floor next to my shopping, screaming at the cans of beer I’d just bought, panting and sweating.

  Would this missing ever stop? And how?

  People die every day, all the time. Grieving wives, husbands, mothers, fathers, daughters, sons, brothers and sisters. They’re all over the place, standing next to you in the queue at the bank, serving your food at restaurants, delivering your post. But at home, they’re staring at beds that will never be slept in again. Staring at the biscuits that only their loved one liked, the books they’d never finished, the clothes they’d never wear again, an alarm clock they’d never set again, a wet towel on the bed they’d never tidy up. What could possibly heal such a gaping hole?

  It felt like I was drowning, with one-hundred-foot waves crashing over me without remorse, only seconds apart, giving me no time to catch my breath.

  One night, I sat in front of the TV and found one of Michaels’s favourite DVD’s. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. To be fair, it was one of my favourites too. Every year, we’d watch all the Harry Potter films, all the Star Wars films, and all the Lord of the Rings films.

  I grabbed the teddy bear he’d given me before we went off to uni, Mikey, and took one of his beers from the fridge.

  I settled back into the sofa, lifted the remote, and pressed ‘Play.’

  ‘The world is changed. I feel it in the water. I feel it in the earth. I smell it in the air.’

  I mouthed the opening monologue, and suddenly Michael was next to me doing the same thing, a goofy expression lighting his face.

  I smiled and held Mikey closer to my chest.

  ‘I’m always with you, Elina,’ Imaginary Michael whispered in my ear. I closed my eyes. ‘I’ll never leave you completely. You know that.’

  I woke hours later, greeted by the end credits of the film. Mikey was still nestled in my arms, as was the unopened can of beer. It was the first time I’d slept without dreaming since it had happened.

  I sat and looked up at my bedroom door. It was half open, and darkness stared out of the gap, like a monster under the bed.

  I got to my feet, still holding Mikey and the can of beer, and walked toward
s the bedroom. I paused at the threshold. And then, I stepped inside and quickly grabbed the quilt and Michael’s pillow and headed back out into the living room, shutting the door behind me.

  I pulled The Two Towers from the shelf, swapped the DVD’s over and pressed ‘play’.

  Back on the sofa, I snuggled beneath the quilt and rested

  Michael’s pillow on the sofa arm. It still smelled a bit like his cologne. I smiled and breathed it in as I put my head down, my face tight with dried tears.

  I squeezed Mikey against my chest and kissed his fluffy head. ‘I love you so much, Michael. I always will.’

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Christmas Eve, 2019

  Time without Michael: 2 Years, 7 Days

  I took a deep breath as I walked up the path to my parent’s house. It had been two years since Michael’s funeral, and I couldn’t help but recall the painful memories of saying goodbye to him. I’d sat in my parents’ living room, staring at Michael’s ashes on the coffee table as my friends and family sat around me, offering nothing but love, kindness, and support.

  But I didn’t want Christmas to be a painful time.

  And the news I had to share tonight would hopefully ensure it would be as happy as it was meant to be. Of course, it wouldn’t be as it had been, it never would, but maybe we could smile again. Maybe we could approach Christmas without a feeling of dread in our hearts.

  I dragged my suitcase up the snow-dusted path with a bead of hope in my belly.

  Dad opened the door as I approached. ‘Merry Christmas, sweetheart.’

  ‘Merry Christmas, Dad!’ I said cheerily as my dad took my case from me and ushered me inside. ‘Come on in! You’re the last one here!’