Epilogue
CAM
“Sometimes, some days, especially at the beginning when I first lost them, it was loud. The loss, it was so loud, it consumed me, and I had no tools to shut it down. The only way I could see forward was to end my own life. To go be with my husband and children.”
I watch as Georgia finishes brushing Iris and then covers her in a stable rug before stepping out of the stall and bolting the gate.
She’s still wearing the blue velvet riding helmet I had custom-made for her.
It matches the colour of her eyes, which are shining from her makeup-free face, still flushed from her ride this morning.
With her hair hanging in plaits on either side of her shoulders, she looks younger than her fifty-seven years.
“You’ve been honest about your suicide attempts and admitting that your family felt the safest way forward was to have you go to a facility to get the help they couldn’t give.”
Georgia gives Daniel the side-eye. “I was institutionalised, committed, sectioned, Daniel. Let’s not sugarcoat it. My family were already going through hell. I was just adding fear to their misery and grief,” Georgia tells him as they walk across the field towards our house.
“What brought about the change? What made you stop? Did the facility help you to quieten that noise, the sound of your grief?” he asks her.
“Not really, and no disrespect to the facility I was in, but it’s one of the reasons I wanted to get our own places up and running.
There isn’t a one-size-fits-all for dealing with grief, and that’s how that place was run.
I wanted to open somewhere that was tailored to the individual, not the process, if that makes sense? ” Georgia explains.
Daniel nods, but I’m not sure he’s understanding what she’s saying.
“I didn’t want to be dragged out of my room every day and forced to discuss my feelings. I wanted to be left alone with them, to wallow in them. I needed that time. If they’d just given me that, I probably would’ve learned to quieten the noise a lot sooner.”
“So, how did you? What made the change?”
I watch my wife shrug. She and Daniel climb the steps up to our back deck and each take a seat on the chairs out there. Georgia lifts the top of the round table that sits between them and pulls out two bottles of water. After handing one to Daniel, she unscrews the cap on hers, then pauses.
“It was a combination of my family and my own mindset. Jimmie and Ash were so angry with me and did not hold back from telling me how selfish I was. Then, one day, not long after I’d been allowed home, Marley turned up with my old car—Hilda my Triumph Herald.
My parents’ house has an in-and-out drive, and the first couple of days, I’d start her up and just pull forward and back in the drive.
I soon realised that while I was doing that, the noise quietened.
So, I drove down to the end of the drive, and eventually out of the drive, down to the roundabout, and back again.
My dad had seen what I was doing and noticed I was more communicative, less inside my own head, so he had Iris transported over to their place, and I started riding.
It was the same, but even better. When I ride, my head goes silent.
It’s just her and me, focused on what we’re doing, how it feels… ”
Georgia swigs from her bottle of water and stares out across the land surrounding our property.
“Is it the same now. Do you still have loud days? Does riding still help?”
I shift as I wait for her answer, crossing one leg over the other where they’re stretched out on the coffee table in front of me while I sit on the sofa and watch my wife up on the screen.
“Riding helps everything,” she says with a smile. “Whether I want to shut down the noise or solve a problem, riding’s the cure.”
“You do still have noise, then?” Daniel pushes.
“Very rarely. Thanks to Cam, my kids, and my extended family, it’s quieter now.
Some days, barely a whisper. Some days, complete silence.
But like I’ve said before, grief isn’t linear, and some days, for absolutely no reason, it’s roaring in my head again.
But just a touch, a look, one conversation with Cam, my kids, or my family, and it’s quiet. A ride out on Iris, and it’s silence.”
The sound of tyres crunching on gravel comes from the screen.
“You expecting guests?” Daniel asks Georgia, as if the cameras weren’t following them.
“Yep,” she replies with a grin as she removes her riding helmet.
From around the side of the house, Marley appears with Jake Wright. Georgia stands as they climb the steps to the deck and approach her. They both get a big cuddle before they lean in and shake hands with Daniel.
“You two know each other, right?” Georgia asks Daniel.
“Of course,” he replies. “We’re practically family.”
“Oh, really?” Georgia says, her smile now lighting up her face because she knows she’s about to deliver Daniel the exclusive of his career. “Us, too. Jake’s my nephew.”
Marley and Jake take a seat next to each other, opposite Daniel, who takes his own seat. His smile is now joined by a frown.
“What?” he asks. His accompanying laugh is either one of nerves or confusion, I’m not sure. “Your nephew? How is he…?”
“He’s my son,” Marley says.
Turning to my wife, I take in the smile on her face as we sit and watch the final scenes from the interview she gave from the sofa in our studio, plus the two weeks after, when Daniel and his crew followed her life.
“You loved dropping that on him.”
“Yep,” she replies. “Me and Marley have spent almost our entire lives having people spill the tea, being paid vast amounts of money for their blatant lies and innuendos about our lives. This time, it’s us doing the spilling.
By going public ourselves, we took away the power those trolls usually have with their made-up stories.
This time, Marley, Jake, and I spilt the tea, and by Marley and Jake agreeing to an exclusive interview with Daniel to be aired along with what he filmed with all of us, we’ll hopefully have viewers tuning in in their millions. ”
“You look very pleased with yourself,” I tell her.
“I am.” She shrugs. “Not often you get one over on the press, earn money for charity, and gain a nephew in the space of a few weeks. I mean, I don’t think it’ll be a shock to anyone that Marley fathered a child back in the day.
What will be the shocker is that the kid is Jake Wright, who happens to be in a band with his biological half-brother, who are signed to his biological father’s label. ”
“Are you not worried you’re going to get a whole new set of claims about Sean fathering kids?” I ask, watching her as she sips on the tea she’s been holding.
“Can I tell you something honestly?”
“Go for it.”
“I would love for there to be a kid of Sean’s out there somewhere. I’d love it if there was a part of him left. I hate that there’s nothing.”
I nod slowly, amazed that she’s so at peace with this when, in the past, just an accusation like that would’ve broken her.
“You’ve come a long way. I’m so fucking proud of you.”
She responds by giving me a small smile.
“All thanks to you and my lunatic family getting me this far.”
“Yeah, we’ve supported you, but you’ve done the work. Before the interview and recording the show, I was worried this might be too much. You’ve been… not you for a little while.”
“Menopause will do that to ya. Well, not you, because you’re a bloke, but to any woman—most women. Some survive unscathed, most of us don’t.” She chews on her bottom lip for a second, and I can practically hear her brain ticking over.
“You know what, I’ve never really thought of it like this before, but menopause is a bit like grief. We might survive it, but we come out the other side changed—different.”
“You think you’re out the other side?” I ask.
“I do. And I actually think doing the interview and the show has helped. As traumatic as some of it was, it was also cathartic.”
“I know this sounds mad, but I think it may’ve been like that for all of us,” I tell her.
“Even you?”
“Me and the kids. We’ve always felt… segregated?
I’m not sure if that’s too strong a word, and I know it’s never been intentional, but it’s like you’ve had these two lives, and we’ve only ever been a part of one half, while Marley, Jimmie, Len, and Ash got all of it.
But now, listening to everything, hearing first-hand what everyone went through, we feel like we get it.
Like we know you better. That we’re part of all of you now, not just a part of you. ”
It wasn’t my intention to make her cry, but her eyes are now shining with tears.
“Fuck me, I love you,” she says.
“Don’t swear. I love the fuck out of you, too, Kitten. You never cease to blow my fucking mind.”
“Play your cards right, Tiger, and later on, I might just blow something…”
My amazing wife’s words are cut short when our gate alarm sounds.
I pick up my phone to check the camera footage and see Marley’s car pulling onto our drive.
I know that within minutes, our peace will be destroyed by the noise and chaos that’ll no doubt arrive with my wife’s lunatic family, her people who’ve become my people.
I may be getting soft and sentimental in my old age, but these times, the times we’re all together, are the best times.
The End