They stared at one another until Kath dropped her bike, strode to Sue and fiercely pulled her into her arms, bicycle and all. She held her so tight and close she could actually feel Kath’s heart pounding against her own. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. And then, ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ until she too was weeping and ugly crying and making animal noises that normally would’ve terrified Sue to the point that all she would’ve wanted to do was find Gary who would make her laugh and make all of her fears disappear, only Gary wasn’t here anymore. It was only Sue. Sue and her tears and a talk show hostess who would probably be out of a job by the morning if what she’d just been saying about the sponsors was anything to go by and none of that was very comforting. She didn’t know what would be comforting. Maybe nothing at all. ‘Nothing’s going to take it away, is it?’ Sue sobbed. ‘Nothing’s going to fix the pain.’
‘No,’ wept Kath, angrily waving on a cyclist who was slowing to approach them. ‘I thought it would go away with time, but if anything it’s worse.’
‘Don’t say that,’ Sue wailed. ‘I don’t have the strength. There are all of those stages!’
‘What stages?’
‘The grief stages.’ Her words were coming out in solitary huffs and then as one big long sentence. ‘And the scariest thing is I don’t think I’m even at the first stage yet.’
‘What? Denial?’
YES!’ Sue shouted, no longer able to say anything without pushing it into the realms of hyperbole, as if all of the feelings she’d contained over the past few months were finally coming out in a series of FULL CAPS and PLOSIVES and LANGUAGE that described the most extreme states of existence like ANGUISH and TORMENT and HEARTBREAK. Heartbreak was EXACTLY what she had been trying not to feel since the beginning of February and PRECISELY, SEARINGLY PAINFULLY what she was feeling right this very second because no matter how hard she pedalled, or how many donations she raised for LifeTime, her beloved Gary wouldn’t, in two days’ time, be there at the finish line. He wouldn’t be holding a banner or a sign or a ridiculous bunch of unicorn balloons or even, as he sometimes did, a solitary rose. All that was waiting for her was several hundred miles away. A family who treated her like a spinster Auntie, even when she’d been married, and three more boxes of invoices that may or may not explain why her husband was dead.
‘He was supposed to be there,’ she said to Kath.
‘Who?’
‘Gary. He was supposed to be there when I finished. I don’t know if I want to finish now.’
‘You can. You will,’ said Kath in a way that sounded as if she was also trying to convince herself.
‘But how do you know?
‘Because we don’t have any other choice.’
Sue let her bike fall to the ground. Then sat down herself, right there on the roadside, too exhausted at the prospect of having to face the whole rest of her life on her own. Kath knelt down beside her, took one of her hands, but said nothing. So many of Sue’s life choices had been dictated to her. Her schooling. Her training (hairdressing had been her mother’s idea, not hers). Her role as N’auntie Sue. Neither a nanny nor an Aunt. But she had been a wife. And that had been by choice. Her one solitary choice and look how that had turned out. How could she trust anything she chose to do now? Even this. This so-called do-goodery. It wasn’t making her feel any better. If anything it was making her feel worse.
‘Go away,’ Kath yelled when her camera crew pulled up alongside them, ‘We’re having a moment here and I don’t want it fucking televised!’
They drove off rather sharpish.
Someone must’ve walkie talkied someone else because other riders did go past – but at a respectful distance, eyes on the ground or straight ahead – diligently sticking to the course that had been laid out before them while Sue and Kath remained glued to the ground, the weight of it all too much to bear on something as flimsy as a bicycle.
Sat there, in the rain, they talked and talked. Asking all of the questions out loud they had been too frightened to ask anyone else. Was it my fault? Could I have changed his mind? Was there anything I could have done to make him happy?
No. Maybe. Not really, because happiness came from within.
All of which led them to the one thing neither of them would ever know for sure. The reality was, they would spend the rest of their lives with unanswered questions, broken hearts and having absolutely no idea if they could or couldn’t have helped their loved ones because their loved ones had taken matters into their own hands.
‘Saying that,’ said Kath who’d now reached a more philosophical place, ‘I’m convinced Rob would’ve chosen something far sexier than choking on his own vomit.’
‘I don’t know,’ ventured Sue. ‘It sounds like something a rock star might do. You said he was super cool.’
‘Yeah, but …’ Kath tipped her head up, the rain falling more like a mist now. ‘I think he would’ve preferred to go a bit more by choice, you know.’
Yes, thought Sue. She did know. She’d never once thought of Gary’s choice as an act of empowerment. Maybe if he’d been in a cult or a monk living in an oppressive country, but … he was a plumber. An excellent plumber who had a wife who loved him and a football team full of men who he’d played with since he was eight and a local pub where they knew his
