BUTTERFLIES FLY AWAY (4 page)

Tucked under his wallet a parking ticket dated last
week that he hadn’t told her about.  He was always getting them, mistiming
when the meter would run out and she was forever chastising him for it.
 Who would have thought that it would bring a smile to her face through
her tears?  She stuffed everything back into the envelope not ready to
discover anything else.

In-laws or out-laws? … Well, where did she
begin?  Rob had come from a loving family too but they were from an older
generation and she had never felt a connection with her in laws.  They
were kind to her but there wasn’t a deep bond.  She felt at times like a
girlfriend Rob had occasionally brought home, not that she was his
wife.   She called them Mr & Mrs Davies for months and they
didn’t encourage or correct her to use their first names.

Her father had contacted them and told them that
their only son; their only child had passed away.  Carrie was
incoherent. 

They lived a few hundred miles away and visits had
been few and far between as the Davies’ embarked on their retirement
travel.  They spent most of the winter in Spain and Carrie and Rob had
joined them for the occasional Christmas in the sun.  But it wasn’t the
same as her Mum’s turkey dinner surrounded by the swarm of family that was the
Reynolds brood.  Her Mum never quite knew just how many people would be
there for the festivities but chairs were added and sometimes the dinner
service didn’t match.  But who cares about that?

She had been chastised by her mother in law for not
having a tea set to serve tea for the visitors who had come to pass on their
condolences.   This was quickly rectified by her Mum who brought an
old service from home.  The fridge was over flowing with casseroles and
home baking but who felt like eating?  She certainly didn’t. 

Decisions had to be made, ones that she hadn’t been
ready to do but that’s the funny thing with death... it doesn’t wait.
 It’s not like you are making an appointment for the boiler to be serviced
or getting your nails done.  Appointments have to be made, protocols
followed and certain traditions maintained.  You can’t put off seeing the
undertaker until you are ready. Well I suppose you could but then that wouldn’t
follow tradition.  The decisions you make are what are right for you at
that time.  Life shouldn’t be for regrets after the fact.  When her
in-laws arrived most of the arrangements had been finalised to maintain those
etiquettes.  They were on a driving trip round the Lake District and drove
straight to Carries.  The camper van parked up in the driveway.  They
refused the offer to stay in the spare room and opted to stay in the
‘van.  It was their home from home with everything they would need. 
At the time she was hurt they didn’t want to stay but with hindsight could
understand they needed their space too for her home was overflowing with family
and friends.  A collective of grief. 

“What have I done wrong Mum, why don’t they want to
stay here?”  Carrie asked confused.

“I think it’s just overwhelming for them with all
the visitors to the house.  They just need to be on their own just now.”

Carrie returned from the undertakers arrangements
finalised.  And so this was when the fireworks began.  The taper
slowly lit by Carrie’s adherence to refuse to do in their minds ‘what was right
and proper’.  The booklet held tight in her hand.  She tried to show
them the casket she had picked but broke down leaving her father to continue.
 Couldn’t find the words to express what she had picked for what she had
repeatedly been told was her husband’s final journey.

Did she feel guilty at not involving them more?
 Not then but she did now, on reflection she could have asked their
opinion on certain things.  At the time she couldn’t wait for their input
as decisions had to be made.

Dignified, non-religious and a cremation all what
Rob would have wanted she explained to them.

The decision not to have a religious ceremony and
burial was what sparked outrage from her in laws.

“No Carrie  ... we can’t let you do that …
please don’t be selfish
we
need a grave to mourn our son.  How
could you deny us that?  We need somewhere to go and remember him”

“Selfish  ... you think I’m selfish.  It’s
what Rob would have wanted.  He wasn’t religious and didn’t want to be
buried.  We talked about it in the past. . . If you need a place to mourn
go to the motorway, you can put flowers there if it means that much to you!”
 She knew it was a cruel thing to say but then life was cruel sometimes
and the hurt made the words spew out. 

It was the beginning of the end of her relationship
with her in-laws.  She knew she should say more, could do more for them as
she knew they were hurting.  They were hurting for the loss of their only
son and for the loss of future grandchildren.  Grandchildren to spoil.
 Of  all the 1
^st
days at school, birthdays and
Christmases.  School nativity plays and trips to the zoo.  Of all the
never could or would be’s in their emptiness.  But she was hurting too and
couldn’t express this to them.   This was a barrier that she did feel
guilty over. 

That’s were her memory of all the details from the
funeral ends; blocked out in a combination of grief and exhaustion.  She
had dressed in a simple black dress but included Rob’s last gift to her. 
He had travelled with work a few weeks before his death and returned with a
beautiful turquoise and black silk butterfly scarf.  For as long as she
could remember she had loved butterflies and cherished this last gift. 
She wore it with pride.

She remembered the kindness and words said by her
brother in law.  He made them laugh with a tail of Rob’s home DIY which
was well known amongst friends and family to be non-existent.  Why build
it yourself when you can pay someone to do it was his mantra.  With a
brother in law as a bricklayer there were lots of favours traded between them
he had joked.

How the sun shone.  It shouldn’t have been a
perfect sunny day.  The skies should have been as grey and thunderous as
she was feeling but it was gloriously sunny for spring.  

How the undertaker told her that he wouldn’t be
cremated with his shoes on.  The regulations on omissions didn’t allow
it.  She thought of him lying there without shoes and it brought a small
smile to her face.  It didn’t matter how new the socks were he always
managed to get a hole in the right toe.  Did he have a hole in his sock
now?

How her heart broke and she felt like she would
never be complete again. 

During the service her tears had slipped down her
face and dropped onto the wooden floor in the crematorium.  She looked
down and could see the perfect circles of her wet tear drops. After the service
she bent down to pick up her handbag and looked at the floor whilst trying to
find the strap.   Her tears had dried and joined the perfect circles
of tears on the wooden floor – united in grief with many others who had stood where
she did now. 

She didn’t remember much of the wake, just a
multitude of people offering her words of sympathy.  Her numbness of grief
was a shield and she couldn’t absorb anything that was said to her. 

Then to return to the emptiness of a place that was
called home.  She hadn’t changed the bed sheets, wanted the smell to
remain unchanged as if it would bring her closer to him.  She hadn’t slept
in their bed but wherever her exhausted body fell into a slumber.  Her
parents hadn’t wanted her to leave.  They had wanted her to come back home
with them to her childhood bedroom. 

But all of this she declined – needed the solace –
needed to wail and scream at all the injustice of her loss.  People have
good intentions and sometimes these go awry.  Her sister was changing
bedding, trying to make her room feel more welcoming, a haven again.
 Carrie screamed at her to get out of the room.  “Leave it  ...
don’t touch anything!”  The en-suite was just as it had been that morning.
 Towels in the hamper.  Shaving foam marks on the counter next to the
twin sinks.  She didn’t want to create a shrine but she wasn’t ready to do
anything else, wasn’t ready to move on or disturb anything.  

They hadn’t spent every waking moment together due
to their work commitments so being in the house alone wasn’t strange to
her.  She expected him to walk in the door, pour a glass of wine and put
the world to rights.  She closed the blinds, turned off the lights and sat
in the darkness.  Maybe if she blocked it out it would all go away, it
would be a big mistake or like Bobby from Dallas and he would be in the
shower.   Anything but never coming home, never walking through the
door, never making her smile, never feeling his touch.

The phone would ring and she didn’t answer but let
it go to the machine.  They didn’t have a personalised message – just the
factory default and she was grateful for she couldn’t have borne that then.
 To hear his voice then again as a reminder of her loss.  Her mobile
rang out – again she didn’t answer.  Then texts. 

“Carrie answer your phone or I’m coming over” her
sister warned.  She could hear Harry crying in the background.  Still
teething and she knew her sister was worrying.  She sent a text to try and
pacify her.  Days merged into weeks and she was still in a grieving
free-fall.  She couldn’t say if it was Monday or Saturday.  The days
all seemed the same to her.  At first there were a deluge of condolences
from friends and family on her face book account.  The phone didn’t stop
ringing and there seemed to be a constant stream of people at the house. 
The notifications she couldn’t face and turned them off then closed the
account.  She stared at the packet of biscuits and again couldn’t remember
what day it was.  The calendar in the kitchen was stuck on March. 
Two crumbling biscuits all that remained in the packet.  Turning the TV on
she could hear the familiar jingle of “This Morning”.  That narrowed it
down to a weekday.  She knew they would eventually announce what day it
was.  She hoped it wasn’t Tuesday.  Her Mum was due to come round
then.  Flowers were withering in a vase.  The occasional decayed leaf
falling off.  The water almost gone. The bright pink gerbera flower had
drooped and the soft petals had fallen, scattered on the glass table
top.   She couldn’t remember when she bought them.  All she
could think of was Rob.  Her Rob was gone.  Then the pain would tear
through her again.  It was so wrong. 

How was it possible that she was a widow?  It
couldn’t be.  She was only 27 years old.  What happened to sharing
the next 50 or 60 years of their lives together?  Her beautiful home
mocked her with its emptiness.  Empty bed, empty fridge, empty rooms.

It must be Tuesday as the front door opening
announced the arrival of her mum.  Carrie was still in her pyjamas wearing
Rob’s dressing gown, fluffy socks on her feet.  They were sitting at the
dining table drinking tea and Carrie couldn’t remember when she had last eaten
anything apart from the packet of hob nobs.  Better think of an answer
before her Mum went nuclear with her at not eating properly.  Carrie
hadn’t moved the pile of mail that needed sorting which was growing by the
day.   

“Okay  ... let’s check this then  ...”
Kate began methodically sorting into junk, bills to be paid, stuff that could
wait and stuff that couldn’t. 

“There’s a reminder here for a parking fine. 
Threatening court action.”

“Oh let them take us to court  ... What’s the
worse they can do!”

Kate added it to the ‘bills to be paid’ pile. 

Carrie noted there was a letter from work.  HR
would like to visit and by the date of the letter they were planning on coming
that day.  Oh Great, visitors she thought.  

“Carrie love, why don’t you go for a shower and I will
give this place a quick tidy up.”

Carrie nodded in agreement.  No energy to
disagree with her mother as it would be a futile attempt to delay in the
inevitable.  As she walked up the stairs she heard the familiar sound of
the hoover blasting into life.

She recognised the face of the HR director.
 Had been to company do’s with Rob but this was very different.  She
was grateful her mum was there.  Didn’t know if she would have managed it
on her own.  They talked of Rob’s success at work and helping to build the
company.   How he would be sorely missed by everyone who knew him.
 Brought her flowers from the company.  A quick check to the dining
table and her Mum during her lightning speed clean-up had cleared the withered
flowers away.   Then the real purpose of their visit to discuss his
death benefits.  Benefits!  What a term.  They handed her a buff
coloured folder and it was all there in black and white.  Financial
security, share dividends, insurance and a monthly pension.  But it
wouldn’t bring him back.

“Carrie, I hope you don’t mind.  We’ve also
brought some boxes of Rob’s personal belongings from the office.”  They
left the boxes on her porch where she instructed.  Was it so easy to box
up his work life into those two cardboard boxes?

“Come back to work when you are ready Carrie.
 Your friends at AGM are here for you.”

She was angry.  Sod them.  They could move
on quick and clear his office when she couldn’t even change their bed.
 The boxes were moved into the garage – for later, for when it didn’t hurt
so much, for when she had the strength to face their contents.  The bed
remained unchanged for a few more weeks before Carrie was ready.  She
carefully ironed the matching bedding set added the multitude of pillows and
smoothed any imagined ruffles away but she still didn’t sleep in the
room.   Too many memories, too many ghosts.

“Claire, can you come round and help?  I want
to go through some of Robs things.”  Her sister was an organiser by
nature.  She brought boxes for storage and bags for the charity shop.
 But she also organised a babysitter and brought round a bottle of wine to
ease them through their task.  It was hard and through her grief Carrie
felt disloyal for sorting through her husband’s clothing.  Emptying suit
pockets of business cards and loose change that he always seemed to have
accumulated.  The fact he would have coins always baffled her as he
usually used his bank or credit cards to pay when they were out but somehow he
would have loose change.  Her heart was heavy and she took another gulp of
wine.