Chapter 2
Subject: Some news
Dear John,
Oh my goodness, I’ve only just realised how funny it is that I’m sending you a Dear John letter! I’m sure you would laugh at me for that.
Would’ve laughed.
That is hard to get used to.
Frankly, John, everything has been hard to get used to. These last couple of weeks without you in the world have been so . . .
I’m afraid I don’t have the right words.
Seb would probably call the whole thing bananapants, but I know you never liked it when our children used made-up words.
You would probably peer at him over your reading glasses and ask what exactly about the situation involves a banana or a pair of pants.
And you can’t argue with that kind of logic.
Although I did have a banana for breakfast this morning, if that matters.
You would no doubt find it strange that I’m writing you an email, of all things.
When would I ever email you? Never! Not when I saw you every day.
I can’t remember the last time I really even used it, except to confirm my work schedule with Gary.
The only emails I get are from Facebook about the community group page upset about potholes, and JustGiving because of that time Tilly ran a 5k.
Tilly’s been taking care of everything since you .
. . She’s been calling people and letting them know.
About what’s happened. She’s desperate to arrange your funeral, but we have to wait for your remains to arrive back in the UK before we can do that.
I spoke to the nice man with the nice accent again about it yesterday, and he says it might be a few more weeks.
Some of the paperwork has come through, but not your death certificate or your .
. . ashes. I’m told they take longer to arrange.
Tilly cancelled your mobile phone contract yesterday.
I didn’t want her to do that, not yet. Not with so much going on that I need to talk to you about.
But you know what she’s like; she said it was important to get everything sorted out as quickly as possible.
She said it would allow me to ‘deal with all the tentacles of grief’.
She really liked that analogy, but I’m afraid I don’t.
It just made me picture an octopus handing me a hankie. And you know how I feel about seafood.
Either way, I tried to ring you this morning. It’s not like I expected you to answer, but I wanted to hear your voice on the answering machine and I needed to tell you something. Of course, it was dead.
Not dead. Just . . . not working.
I’ll stop waffling, I know you hated it when I waffled.
The point is, John. We won the jackpot.
All those tickets. A lifetime of tickets! The same numbers on the same standing order for all these years. And we finally won.
Did you know, we’ve been playing the lottery since 1995? I remember that first ticket because I was pregnant with Seb at the time, and you held my arm so tightly and said to me that we were definitely going to win. You were right, as always. Just thirty years and one fatal car accident too late.
We talked so many times about what we’d do with the money, how it would fix everything.
But we never really considered all the fiddly bits.
It’s been a funny old time since I got the notification on the app.
Tilly called the helpline for large prize winners, and the operator scheduled an in-person meeting.
Someone called Amy rang us back. She was very nice – her mum is called Paula, isn’t that a coincidence?
We had to go and see her at the office with our identification, where she talked to us about financial advisors and investments.
It was all very overwhelming. If I’m honest with you, I didn’t take much of it in.
Thank goodness Tilly was with me. She made all the decisions, answered all the questions and filled in all the paperwork.
I was just back from that meeting when I got the call about you.
I haven’t really been able to process anything since. Tilly says it’s the grief. She said that thing about the tentacles again and I had to stop listening because I couldn’t stop picturing clammy little suckers reaching for me.
If you’re wondering how much we won, John, I’ll tell you.
It was 25 million euros on the Euromillions.
I thought it would take a long time to sort, but it was only about a week.
￡20,725,250, just sitting there in our bank account.
And there it still sits, I’m afraid, though Tilly keeps telling me I have to do something about it.
It has to be moved or invested or something.
I’m sure she’s right but I can’t. Not yet.
Goodbye for now, John,
Paula xx
PS. The kitchen ceiling has another leak and I don’t know what to do.