The funeral
Max was lying on his childhood bed, in the foetal position, looking out of the old window he had spent so long staring out of as a boy.
He remembered nights when he was little, afraid that an intruder was going to break-in, and he would hide under his duvet, peeking out and seeing the moon in the sky, and somehow it made him feel better.
It soothed him when he was eight-years-old, but looking out of the window at twenty-five, on the day of his parents’ funeral, it did nothing but remind him of what being young had felt like.
When he was a kid, and afraid of some unknown person or persons breaking into their house, his parents had been there for him.
He would trudge into their room in the middle of the night, and clamber in-between them, and he knew that everything was going to be all right.
They would always protect him. At least that was how he felt growing up.
His parents had seemed to him like these constant pillars of security and strength that were always there, would always be there, no matter what. Until they suddenly weren’t.
So many ‘what if’ questions had been going through his mind on repeat since the day it had happened.
What if the driver hadn’t lost focus for a moment, his parents would still be alive.
What if they hadn’t stopped at Leigh Delemere, or taken a minute longer getting a coffee, or driven slightly slower, and they hadn’t been at that exact spot at that exact time, they would still be with him.
He daydreamed of the alternate reality where they hadn’t been killed, and instead returned home as normal, his mum calling Max as she always did, just to let him know they were all right.
Only the call never came. His parents had lived their whole lives the right way, done things exactly how you were supposed to do them, been good, kind, and yet they had died in a stupid accident because someone hadn’t been paying attention.
It was impossible for Max to understand.
What was the point of life, of working hard, of falling in love, having children, of making plans and having dreams, when you could lose everything in a second?
‘Max? How youse doing, pal?’ said Robbie from the other side of his bedroom door. ‘The car will be here soon.’
Max heard him, but couldn’t answer. They had taken the train up the night before and stayed over.
Robbie, Emma and Max. They had gone to the pub around the corner, the pub where Max had first got drunk with a couple of his sixth form mates, and had a few drinks and something to eat, before retiring to bed.
Only Max hadn’t been able to sleep. Emma was next to him, sound asleep, while he tossed and turned all night, looking out of the window for some sort of hope that never came.
There was a gentle knock at the door. ‘Max, it’s me. Can I come in?’ said Emma.
He didn’t reply, but the door slowly opened anyway, and she appeared, dressed top-to-toe in black, a sombre expression on her face.
He knew it had been a hard couple of weeks for her too, but it felt impossible to think about anyone else at that moment.
She walked across, and then perched herself on the edge of the bed next to him.
She reached a hand across and placed it softly on his shoulder.
‘How you doing, Max?’
It was a simple question, but the answer was a complex one.
The last two weeks, he had been so busy dealing with matters of his parents’ estate, arranging the funeral, contacting family and friends, and it had all felt so overwhelming, almost like the act of doing so much had prevented him from having the time to feel anything.
But that morning, for the first time since the accident, he had stopped and it had hit him like the lorry that had killed his parents.
‘I don’t think I can do it,’ he said, finally turning onto his back so he could see Emma’s face.
The beautiful, wonderful face of the person who had been supporting him every single moment since it had happened.
She had been brilliant, and in a strange way, he felt like he was letting her down because he wasn’t strong enough.
When it came to the crunch, Max hadn’t stepped up and been the man he wanted himself to be.
Before the accident, if he had been filling out a form, and it had asked the question: Are you good in a crisis?
He would have checked the box that said yes, definitely, one hundred per cent, but now, he knew he had been lying to himself.
He thought he could rise to the occasion, be stoic against the overwhelming pain of losing the two people he loved most in the world, but he hadn’t been able to do it.
Instead, he had drowned in grief, spluttering, gasping for air, desperate not to go all the way under.
‘Look at me,’ said Emma, and he turned his head slowly toward her. ‘You can do this, Max, and I will be there holding your hand the whole time.’
Crying had been one of the strangest sensations since it had happened.
After he had got the news from the police officers, and after the initial outpouring of tears, there had been a distinct lack of them since.
Emma had mentioned it on more than one occasion that he didn’t need to hold it in, and should let everything out.
It was OK to cry. Max hadn’t felt like he was holding it in, but more that he had been so busy, so preoccupied with telling people, arranging things, and to be honest, the shock of it made him feel numb.
So, he hadn’t cried, but looking at Emma in his childhood bedroom, he couldn’t stop the tears that suddenly came and came.
‘Come here,’ said Emma, and much like his mum had done when he was little, she wrapped him in her arms. The tears flooded out of him, and he couldn’t stop them, as his whole body shook with the force of the emotions that gripped him.
‘I can’t say goodbye to them, Em. I’m not ready.’
‘It’s OK. Everyone is here for you. We all want to help and support you.
It’s going to be OK, Max, I promise,’ replied Emma, and he knew she was right.
He had to go, and he had to say goodbye to his parents, or he would never forgive himself.
He just wasn’t ready for it. Arranging the funeral, and preparing everything had been one thing, but actually going into that church, standing there and singing the hymns that he had picked out, was something else.
It was actually admitting that his parents were gone, and they weren’t ever coming back.
‘The cars outside,’ said Robbie, poking his head around the door. ‘I told them five minutes.’
‘Thanks,’ said Emma, and she gave Max a tissue to dry his eyes and blow his nose. She had been carrying tissues with her for the last two weeks, just in case. Max looked at her.
‘Thank you. I won’t forget this,’ he said, and she smiled at him.
‘I know. Now, go and splash some water on your face, and I’ll meet you by the front door.’ She leaned in and gave him a kiss before she stood up and left the room.
Max sat up, putting his feet flat against the floor.
He was in his black suit and black shoes, all purchased from M&S days before.
A terrifyingly depressing shopping trip, but he didn’t have a black suit, and the one pair of black shoes he owned were old and scruffy.
He stood up and walked out of the room towards the bathroom.
Once inside, he turned on the tap, splashed some cold water on his face, before he grabbed a hand towel and dried it.
He stood up, looking at himself in the mirror over the sink.
The house, despite being modernised by his parents, still only had one family bathroom.
They had added a downstairs loo under the stairs a few years before, but if you wanted a shower or a bath, it was still the upstairs family bathroom.
Max imagined his parents looking at themselves in that mirror for the last time before their holiday to Cornwall, not realising it would be their last. He thought of his dad brushing his teeth the morning they set-off, and his mum applying her moisturiser.
The same tube of moisturiser that still sat beside the sink.
He picked it up, and looked at it, thinking of his mum’s fingerprints that were still on it.
A wave of nausea suddenly came over him, and he was forced to kneel down beside the toilet, and then before he had time to react, he threw up everything inside of him.
Then the tears came again, and he sat back against the wall, and he cried.
How could he say goodbye to his parents?
How could he accept that for the rest of his life, he would never see them again?
His whole body ached in pain, his chest tightened, his breathing became faster, he felt dizzy, disorientated, and it was the first time in his life he'd ever had a proper full-on panic attack, and he really thought he was going to die.