Jason - September 2013
Two words opened the paragraph inside the card. Jason's heart ricocheted from one side of his chest to the other. He glanced to the name at the bottom of the card and he could sit no longer, his feet carried him at pace from pillar to plant pot outside the hospice frontage. Two large urns sprouting palm-like plants offered a glimpse of escapism to a place that was perhaps much sunnier, much more exotic. The floor in the entrance to the hospice was paved with a light sandstone and, under a neatly maintained slate porch, sat a bench with a golden plaque engraved with a message of thanks from a family of a previous resident. A reminder, laced with optimism, that Annabelle wouldn't be leaving this place. And before she did depart, in any sense, Jason had loose ends to tie up. For her, and for him, to be able to say goodbye.
Jason took a deep breath in, until he felt his heart encapsulated within a cloud of air inside his chest and slow down. He continued to read, and it was as if he could hear the voice behind the writing. The voice that would make the little hairs on his neck stand up and release a shiver of excitement down his spine. Jason closed the card and sat back.
A tear ran over his cheek. Annabelle was the love of his life, and she had been there for him through all the highs and lows of his life. When his dad was made redundant, when him and his dad launched Gary's Gardening, the funeral... and now he was facing this alone. Without Annabelle. She was there, but she wasn't really.
And now this card. A folded piece of card that offered him a way back to a safety blanket. Someone who could help him get through this, perhaps. But was it really right to have that comfort from them, when Annabelle sat, her life, personality, and thoughts slowly evaporating as the sun shone over her and her fading red chair?
Two Jason's sat on the bench, the present husband to Annabelle, and then the eighteen-year-old confused boy who was infatuated with his future wife, but also sharing a part of his heart with another. The part of him that 'could have been' – a totally different life. But, through a promise to his dad to protect his business, he had followed his first crush. The first beat of his heart.
He sat now, staring at two flowers in the nearby plant pot, observing how they sprouted from the same place in the soil but yet danced their way into the sky in totally different directions. He sniffled out a single spout of a laugh. How would things have been different?
A pang of guilt at even entertaining the thought, or the pondering, as a solid realisation hit him in his chest. Samuel. Of course. And could he even imagine a life without his quirky little son? Definitely not. He had made the right decision all those years ago.
He looked back to the card and looked at the name on the sign off. Surely they would know that every minute Jason had spare, outside of work and caring for Samuel, he would be spending beside Annabelle at the hospice.
He watched as a tear fell from his face and onto the inside of the card. He should go and read this to Annabelle. It might make her smile. Though lately, Jason couldn't actually tell if Annabelle really was smiling or if he was imagining it.
As she stared at him with those empty eyes, he just imagined her somewhere deep inside shouting out to him. And he only wished, and kept wishing, that he could reach in and pull her back to the surface. Even just for one more kiss, for one more goodbye, to tell him it was okay. He sat, and wondered what she would say in this situation, but he couldn't find anything in their life together that mirrored this moment. They had been completely faithful to each other since they were eighteen – there was just that one kiss. Jason's eyes found the name again.
'Oh Annabelle... what do I do?' he asked the dimming daylight sky.