CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
I was at an all-time low on the day of Mark’s funeral.
My recovery from postnatal depression had taken the best part of a year, and it seemed I’d no sooner put that behind me than Mark started feeling ill and was eventually diagnosed with MS.
His life expectancy was a huge shock. The doctors were predicting no more than a few years.
That’s when we’d decided to get married and I would always be so thankful we did.
It was such a precious day – just a small ceremony at the registry office with close family and friends around us – and it was a memory to cling to when the going got really tough.
And it got very tough.
Although the doctors had said Mark could have a few years to live, we didn’t even have that. In the end his decline was so dramatic, even his GP wasn’t prepared and I definitely wasn’t.
It was such a heart-breaking, horrible time. Putting on a happy, cheery face for little Amelie while watching my darling Mark dying before my eyes was such a strain, I used to have to drive out into the country sometimes and just scream and scream at the empty fields to let out all the anguish.
‘None of this is in any way an excuse for what happened,’ I told Ellie. ‘It’s just how it was.’
‘Of course,’ she whispered, giving my hand another little comforting squeeze, and I could see sympathy mixed with sadness in her eyes.
Then I told her about the day of the funeral.
I’d moved through the day feeling numb and empty inside.
It was as if the whole thing was happening to someone else and I was just watching it all from a distance.
Mark’s family were in bits, of course. Jackie, Mark’s twin, was trying not to cry... to hold it together for their dad – they’d lost their mum to a stroke a few years earlier – but at one point, I saw Jackie running round the side of the crematorium, sobbing her heart out.
I followed her and we clung to each other desperately. And that’s when I felt the first choke of emotion in my throat.
After feeling so numb, the tears started and I couldn’t seem to stop them. Luckily, Amelie wasn’t there to see me break down. Mark had requested that she stay with her childminder for the funeral.
I remember sobbing as quietly as I could through the ceremony and praying for it to be over. But then there was the ordeal at the local pub to get through.
I’d booked a room and ordered food, although by the time we arrived I was so out of it, I couldn’t have told you what there was to eat and what the people who’d gathered there to celebrate Mark’s life actually said to me.
It’s always been a blank.
The first memory I have of after the funeral is Jackie outside in the pub garden, where I’d gone to escape, asking me if I’d like her to put off her trip.
She and her then boyfriend were embarking on a backpacking tour of Asia and were supposed to be leaving a few days later. They’d had it booked for ages because Jackie had thought, like I did, that Mark would have a lot more time left than he actually did.
‘I don’t want to leave you like this, Rosie,’ she’d said, hugging me fiercely.
But I’d told her she had to go.
‘Do it for Mark,’ I urged her. ‘He always wanted to see more of the world and he was delighted for you that you were going off on such an amazing adventure. The last thing he’d have wanted is for you to postpone your trip because of him.’
Danny had come over at that point and he’d helped me persuade Jackie that she had to go. She’d gone back into the pub to join her boyfriend and Danny must have asked me if I wanted to stay outside for a little while, because I remember we sat on a bench and talked about Mark.
Danny had been trying not to show how cut-up he was over the cruel death of his best friend. But with me, the floodgates opened and he shared some of his most precious memories of their friendship. We laughed about some of the things Mark did, and I felt better... a tiny bit lighter in spirit.
When Danny shuffled closer and hugged me, it was like a release of sorts.
I cried copious tears into his black jacket and we stayed there a long time, our arms around each other.
I knew Danny was crying silently, too, and that gave me comfort somehow, to know that Mark was loved so much by so many people. ..
I’d already told everyone I wanted to be on my own that night – to do my private grieving and to think about Mark – before I collected Amelie from the childminder the next day.
But sitting there on that bench, when Danny asked me if I’d really be all right, returning alone to an empty house, I’d felt myself waver.
Now that I thought about it, the idea was terrifying.
There would be so many memories of Mark. All his belongings. The wheelchair was still there.
In the cold light of day, I couldn’t imagine how I was going to cope.
Danny said he’d come over and stay with me if I wanted him to.
‘We’ll do whatever you want. I can make you food and we’ll talk about Mark.
Or you can be on your own, knowing that I’m somewhere in the house if you need me.
Whatever you want, Rosie. I just want to help you through this.
’ He’d smiled sadly. ‘You’d be helping me as well.
Because the last thing I feel like doing is going back to my empty flat after a day like today. ’
‘Okay. That would be good, Danny,’ I said, feeling some of the funereal heaviness rolling off my shoulders. ‘Thank you.’
And so he’d come over, like he said he would, and we’d sat and watched one of Mark’s favourite movies and shared more funny stories about him. And my heart felt so much lighter having Danny there. He understood and he loved Mark almost as much as I did.
The mistake we made was sharing a bottle of wine.
If we hadn’t, I really don’t think it would have happened.
Many, many times I’ve regretted opening that bottle.
But I did and the wine and talking about Mark made me feel even more teary and sentimental.
And in the end, I shuffled along the sofa and nestled my head on Danny’s shoulder. And after a while, I felt him slip his arm around me. It felt so good, I snuggled closer to him.
There was nothing in my mind except a deep desire to take comfort from another human being and to give comfort in return – to one who I knew totally understood the appalling grief I was feeling.
But then at some point, I turned my face up to his and we kissed.
Just a brief touch of the lips.
I remember Danny drew away instantly, wanting to put a distance between us.
But I reached for him, pulling him closer so that I could kiss him again, deeper this time.
I don’t remember what I was thinking. I think it was just a blessed relief for me, feeling that closeness with someone.
I wasn’t alone with my grief and that was all that mattered right then.
We slept together that night, Danny and I.
We had sex in the bed Mark and I had shared.
And then I woke up the next morning with a hangover and realised what I’d done, and I knew I’d have to live with that terrible knowledge for the rest of my life: that I’d betrayed my wonderful husband by sleeping with his best friend.
On the day of Mark’s funeral . . .