She’s already dressed in her smart black outfit, her curly hair pulled back in a neat ponytail. Despite her tired eyes and worried frown, she still looks beautiful.
I, on the other hand, must look anything but. I’m still wearing the T-shirt and pyjama bottoms I woke up in. I just couldn’t face getting changed yet. Putting that suit on would make it all seem real somehow, and I’m not sure I’m ready to believe yet that it is. So the suit’s still upstairs, on the back of the bedroom door, waiting for me to climb into it and relive one of the worst days of my life: December 10th, 2018.
Daff plonks a steaming bowl of porridge down in front of me and attempts a smile.
‘Here you go. Please eat something.’
She kisses me on the top of the head. Not the kind of kiss you give a husband or a lover: the kind you give a child. Then she mutters something about going to put on some make-up, and leaves the room.
I try a mouthful of porridge. It’s blisteringly hot, and I wince as it scalds the roof of my mouth. But, weirdly, the pain feels good – sharp and alive – in stark contrast to the numbness in my chest.
I swallow another spoonful. My watch is still stuck at one minute to midnight, but the clock on the wall says 10.35 a.m. I woke up much earlier on this day first time around. I’d thought I wouldn’t be able to sleep, but I had, somehow. I remember having a dream in which Mum was still alive. I had those dreams a lot in the months after she died.
She was always still alive, too, in those first few hazy seconds after I woke up, blinking and yawning and becoming increasingly aware that something big and awful had happened but not quite able to put my finger on it yet. And then I had to remember all over again, and sometimes the pain of remembering was so intense it was actually physical, bending my body at odd angles, or curling my hands into claws as I lay there crying silently into the mattress, trying not to wake Daphne.
She comes back in and stands in the doorway, looking at me. The shadows under her eyes are now hidden under a layer of foundation, but she doesn’t look any less miserable. ‘Simon will be here soon,’ she says quietly. ‘You should go and get changed.’
I stare down into the porridge. ‘I’m not sure I can do this,’ I hear myself say.
‘Oh, Ben …’ She sighs and runs a hand across her forehead. ‘I’m not sure I can either. But we have to.’
‘No, I just …’ I don’t know what to say. How can I explain it to her? How can I tell her that I just physically can’t go through this again? This day nearly broke me the first time. It will break me this time. I know it will. So why do I have to relive it? What the fuck is the point?
I suddenly want to see the watch-seller again. I want to demand an explanation for why this is happening, for what I could have done to deserve this.
I look down to see tears dropping steadily into my porridge bowl.
Daff rushes across to me and wraps me in her arms. ‘Ben, we can do this. We can get through this day together, I promise you we can.’
The tears are starting to roll down her cheeks too now, spoiling her fresh make-up. I didn’t even try to get through this day with her, originally. I barely took any notice of her grief because I was so caught up in my own. I just shut her out completely and retreated inwards; I didn’t even realise I was doing it.
Maybe this is why I’ve come back, then: so that we can go through this terrible day together, as a team. I have to relive these next few hours; I’ve got no other choice. The only thing I can do is to try and make them better than they were before.
I can already think of something I’ve always regretted about today. Something I was supposed to do but didn’t. My stomach twitches with nerves at the thought of it, but I suddenly know I have no choice but to do it.
I wipe my eyes on the sleeve of my T-shirt. Daff goes to kiss me again, on my forehead, but I lift my chin and kiss her on the lips. She smiles in surprise – an effortless reflex smile – and a surge of strength shoots through me. That’s what I need to do, I realise: I need to let her in. To lean on her, and let her lean on me. That’s the only way it will be OK.
‘You’re right,’ I tell her. ‘We’ll get through this together.’
She touches her lips to mine again, and then nods. ‘You’d better go and put your suit on.’
‘I will. But first, can you help me find something? You know that book of Walt Whitman poems …?’
Chapter Thirty-One
‘Are you sure about this, Ben?’ Uncle Simon gives me a concerned glance in the rear-view mirror. ‘You know you don’t have to do it. No one’s expecting you to. No one will think any less of you if you don’t.’
He looks back at the road as he guides the car onto the dual carriageway. I can understand why he’s dubious. Three days before the funeral, I pulled out of reading Mum’s favourite poem during the ceremony. I just completely lost my nerve, terrified that I would break down in front of everyone. The programmes even had to be reprinted to remove the mention of my reading. So the fact that I’ve just told Simon – at the very last minute –
