Page 6 of The Perfect Son
“Where’s my book bag?”
“Oh.” I stare at my hands as if I don’t already know that they’re empty. Where are Jamie’s book bag and water bottle? I look at the empty hands of our son and just like that the anger is back.
“We’ve forgotten it,” I hiss through gritted teeth. It’s yoursodding book bag, Jamie. Yours. When are you going togrow up and take some sodding responsibility?I shout in my mind, struggling to keep it inside, but it’s still there in my loud sigh, and I sense Jamie’s shoulders sag.
“Sorry, Mummy,” he says in a voice so quiet I almost don’t hear. The hurt inside threatens to pull me in two.
“I love you to the moon and back,”I used to tell Jamie every day.
Jamie’s reply was always the same.“I love you to the sun and back a hundred times.”
It was never ever angry words and silence that we shared.
We turn around, back in the direction of the big white house with its black beams that sit a little wonky on the outsides of the house. Back to the L-shaped maze of rooms and cold and gloom. Back to the smell of the bonfire, and the memories it unleashes.
By the time we make it to school the playground is empty. The children have already filed inside. Jamie turns and disappears into the building, and just like that the anger from this morning is gone and all I feel now is the emptiness of the day dragging out before me.
—
When I look back at that first month without you, I wonder if I should’ve seen her coming. Like a siren, bright and blue, flashing in the night. If I hadn’t been so wrapped up in you and the grief, would I have seen the path my life was about to take? The old Tess, the person I was before, screams YES, but the new one is not so sure.
CHAPTER 4
Monday, February 19
48 DAYS TO JAMIE’S BIRTHDAY
Happy birthday to me! Thirty-eight years old. When did that happen? Of course my birthday this year would fall on a Monday. That’s five now, Mark. Five Mondays without you.
Happy birthday, Tessie.
At least it’s cloudy today. A thick blanket of gray hangs low, trapping in the cold of the night and the frost shimmering like glitter on the brambles beside the road. I don’t think I could’ve survived another clear-blue-sky kind of day, where airplanes leave those streaks of white cloud and I feel the injustice of it all like a savage beast in my gut.
So that’s one thing at least.
Jamie caught me crying at the kitchen table this morning—big heaving sobs—which made him cry because he thought he’d upset me, which made me cry even more because I was being selfish and shitty.
“Don’t cry, Mummy. Please don’t cry,” he said over and over as I held him tight in my arms.
By the time we both calmed down we were late for school, and I snapped at him for losing his school shoes, which were exactly where they should’ve been by the side door. And that set us both off again.
I asked Jamie if he wanted to stay home with me, but he said no. Monday is PE.
We arrived at school thirty minutes late, quivering, tear-streaked messes, the pair of us. At least the school has been lenient about the lateness. I’ve been waiting for the head teacher to grab me for a quick word, but the staff have kept their distance. I’m not sure if it’s out of respect for my grief or fear over how I’ll react, but either way I don’t care.
It wasn’t the best start to the day.
But it made me think—maybe I should take a tablet today. Just as soon as I’m home, just as soon as I’ve warmed up in a hot bath, I will. Maybe.
You don’t need the tablets, Tessie.
Easy for you to say.
Here’s what they don’t tell you about grieving—you feel cold. Really cold. An icy chill froze my body in those first moments of knowing, and it hasn’t left. Nowhere in the half dozen “Coping with Grief” pamphlets that have been thrust unwanted into my hands in the last month has cold been mentioned. It’s all about the stages of grief: the denial, the anger, acceptance; as if I ever will accept it. The emotions are listed in bold and bulleted as if we, the bereaved, can simply tick them off one by one and come out the other side normal again.
By the time I’m almost home from dropping Jamie off at school, my teeth are chattering and I’m shivering all over. All I can think about is sinking into a scalding-hot bath. So I don’t register the huge black Land Rover parked in the entrance of the driveway. Not at first anyway.
It happens all at once. I’m turning the corner, sidestepping between the car and the brick wall, cursing under my breath when my elbow catches the wing mirror, and then I see you and a rush like the wintry wind sweeps through me.
