Chapter Thirty-Five
Thomas
Today marks a year since we lost you. One whole year since you left this earth.
It’s only in the last week or so that your mum has been able to talk about you without crying.
It’s nice to see her returning to herself, but does that mean we’re losing you too, slowly, as our routines return?
She still takes in washing, but now she plays the radio again.
It’s nice to hear the lament of Portuguese love songs blow across her balcony to mine, instead of the sound of her anguish.
Her sadness was devastating to hear and only exacerbated mine.
How much we both loved you, still do. It’s why I went from work to the pastelaria, to give her that privacy to grieve, and that’s how I stumbled onto the Little Porto Book Club.
And look where that has taken me. Honestly, while it’s crazy, it’s been the best kind of distraction.
And reading, the way I have, has been cathartic. Healing.
While I might find small relief in those hours, when I return home, it hits me anew.
Nothing can make the pain stop, except maybe time, but that will only dull the sharp edges, not erase it.
I’ve heard it said that grief is the price we pay for love.
It’s true. And somehow knowing that makes this pain bearable.
This pain is my love for you, a love that has nowhere to go, it’s directionless, because you’re not here.
My love remains, strong and true, and in every facet of my day, you’re there, just out of reach.
It’s why I search for you in each room. Pretend you just stepped out.
Spray your perfume to fool myself. Make up the bed, neat, tidy, just the way you like it.
I’ve taken to reading your romance novels.
I catch myself grinning, reading the way the two meet, a coffee spillage, a tumble, a head bump.
Their initial denial of feelings. The universe putting them in each other’s path.
All those miscommunications! The grand gesture …
swoon, as you’d say. And the happy ever after.
Who knew that reading romances would go some way to help my broken heart?
But it has. You’re always the heroine and I’m your dashing hero.
That helps too. Keeps ‘us’ alive. In a year, two years, ten, if I need a dose of ‘us’ I can open a romance novel and there we are, sneaking glances over glasses of wine at a ski lodge.
Nursing hot chocolates at a Christmas market.
Mostly, I get a thrill finding your notes in the margins.
Who knew you vandalised literature! My first impulse was to pull every book from the shelves and flip through them looking for your annotations.
I resisted. It’s more fun this way. Yesterday I got lucky.
The couple had just had a rather successful outing at a flea market in Paris and you wrote: oh my love, can you see us, walking hand in hand by the River Seine, snow is falling, stars are twinkling? Je t’aime, Thomas! <3
These annotations keep me going. Your collection of love stories make each day brighter.
And so, with this newfound strength, I’ve been taking your mum to the markets.
I’m not you, will never be you, but her smile is slowly returning.
She cries less. Now she sits on the balcony and stares out, as if she’s also waiting for you.
Just like I do. Maybe she’d like to read one of the novels from your collection.
Maybe they’ll help her like they’ve helped me.