Hope Begins to Fade

First Class Ticket to Guilt

It was official, jetlag really was a bitch. I was moving through life as I was wading through a pot of goo and I didn't like it very much. Not at all. Nor was I overly fond of the way small energetic boys seemingly had immunity to the debilitating effects of crossing time zones. Personally, it didn't seem to matter how many times I did it the after effects never got any easier.

Despite swearing that he was basically immune to jetlag even Matt seemed off. Obviously he was tired but his voice was grittier and he had a cough that just wouldn't quit. He blamed it on the cold that the Stallyns had been suffering from when we were in Europe. He'd nicknamed them the Ebola monkeys. He was swallowing throat lozenges by the handful and a squeezy bottle of honey had taken up residence on the kitchen island. The doctor had told him it was a virus and I wondered if my general lack of enthusiasm for life was a different symptom of the same ailment.

My early morning walks which I'd recommenced the morning after we arrived back in California were practically middle of the night walks. If I'd been falling asleep early it wouldn't have been such a problem but I wasn't, my nights were late and my mornings were early. Each morning as I staggered along the beachfront path I began to feel more and more like a character from the Thriller video.

All that walking, staggering and not sleeping gave me plenty of time to think and think I did. It may have been the jetlag or it may have just been the entire situation but everything about my relationship with Matt had me confused. His house had started to feel like home to me but it wasn't my home, it was his. And Val's. Even though she was gone I could feel her in every room. I felt as though I was competing with a ghost.

It didn't help that a couple of days after we'd returned from Europe I'd received a message from Tim's younger sister Emily to ask if it was true that I was working for her FAVOURITE BAND!!!! The caps and exclamation marks were hers. Emily and I weren't close, she was eight years younger than me and we'd never really had much in common. Although I knew my parents still kept in touch with them I'd kind of drifted away from Tim's family a bit after his death. It had been difficult for his parents to face losing both their son and their future grandchild. I knew that deep down they didn't blame me but I still felt guilty whenever I saw them that I'd not only survived but that as Tim's wife I'd had to make the decision to switch off his life support.

So it was a surprise to receive Emily's message. I tried not to take her response to my message informing her that I was, in fact, only working for Matt and not the entire band to heart. In a message filled with caps, exclamations and emojis she poured out a fangirls grief over Val's death and waxed lyrical over what a perfect couple Val and Matt had been. She wasn't exactly wrong. Val had been great and by all accounts she and Matt had been great together although I'd never actually seen them in the same room together. Something about Emily's over the top emotions regarding the two of them grated on me, she didn't know and had never met either Matt or Val. It reminded me of how Steph had told me of her role as the fangirls most hated after she first got together with Brian. If they hated Steph who'd gotten together with Brian after Michelle had left him, what would they think of me for being with Matt after Val had died?

Strangely I didn't really care what Matt's fans thought of me, I'd already lost enough in my life to worry what a bunch of people I'd never meet thought about my relationships although the idea of them thinking badly of him tugged on my conscience. What I did care about was what people I did know would think. I was scared that they'd judge me, because I judged me.

Cathy and I sat on the patio one morning watching the Stallyns and Harper swim in the pool. Matt and Jeff were off playing golf, according to Cathy Jeff had been so ecstatic over Matt's return that he'd cancelled all his appointments for the day so they could hit the links. The fact that Matt and Jeff were golfing cheered me up, despite Matt being almost incapable of speech at times his other symptoms didn't seem to be getting any worse. I took the golf day as a sign he was on the mend.