Eight months.

It’s been eight months since she left us.

It feels like eight hours. No, that’s a lie. It feels like eight seconds.

This house is saturated with her.

She is everywhere, and yet, she is nowhere.

Every morning when I wake up, she dies again.

I haven’t returned to work or informed the school of when I think I’ll be back. I’ve ignored their calls, choosing instead to let Isaac or my mother deal with them. The truth is, I’m barely coping with the memories of Laura inside our home. I will break if I have to endure the memories of her in the school where we both worked.

The staff will avoid me or look at me with pity. The pupils will gossip behind their hands, their eyes watching me and waiting for my breakdown, their whispers scratching over my skin.

Her classroom will have a new owner, one that doesn’t belong there. Her hand drawn posters will have been torn down, replaced by generic words of educational wisdom. Her desk drawers will have been cleared of all the pens with chewed ends, all her hidden packs of Fruitellas, and all the random drawing pins on which she would undoubtedly prick her finger. Muttered curse words would never again pass her lips when she did, her soft voice quietly using phrases like ‘shine-a-light’ or ‘son of a monkey’ and my personal favourite that I’d relentlessly tease her about, ‘fudge nuggets’.

Everything about working there without her would be wrong.

Life still feels wrong.

If I’m truthful, and I’m trying to be for my kid’s sake at least, I’m still wrong.

So fucking wrong.

“Daddy, Daddy,” Ivy giggles loudly, calling me into the living room. “Look, Daddy. Arfurr thinks Uncle Iz is a bouncy castle.”

I round the corner into the room to see Isaac sprawled on his back, a chubby Arthur sitting on his stomach, his nappy covered bottom bouncing relentlessly on my brother’s belly. Isaac’s face beams up at the little boy who chuckles with every ‘Humph’ expelled from his uncle’s lips.

The scene is one of a family filled with fun and laughter. Of a giggling four-year-old and a content and mischievous toddler. And I can’t help but think it’s picture perfect, but only because I’m not in it.

“Arty, hold up little fella, let’s show Daddy what you can do now,” Iz instructs excitedly, as he lifts Arthur up and sits cross-legged with the bouncy bundle of baby between his thighs. Iz looks at me with a grin before announcing giddily, “Sit down, Josh. You’re gonna love this. Ivy-Leaves, go and sit by your Daddy so we can show him how hard your brother has practiced his new trick.”

Ivy jumps to her feet quickly and drags me over to the sofa so we can sit opposite Iz and Arthur, and have a prime view of whatever new skill they are going to show off. Her little hand links with mine, and she smiles up at me, eager for me to see the reason for all this fuss.

“Well, are you guys going to keep me in suspense?” I ask, with as much enthusiasm as I can muster.

Having just received mail addressed to Mr & Mrs Joshua and Laura Fox-Williams I can only assume I look as excited as I feel. I was making my way to our room to lock myself away when Isaac called me in here, and I’d rather be anywhere but sat on this sofa, in this room, with a painfully fake smile on my face.

“Okay, Arty. Let’s get this show on the road,” Isaac declares, his voice filled with delight. He rearranges Arthur so that he can see his face, although he currently seems more interested in squeezing his entire fist in his mouth and drooling all over the carpet.

“Just like we’ve been practising, okay, little man,” Iz encourages before leaning forward to make eye contact with the small boy with whom I’ve tried and failed to bond.

“After me… da, da, da, da, dad,” he coaxes. His voice pitched in that silly tone most adults use when talking with babies.

Arthur removes his fist from his mouth and smiles adoringly up at his uncle but remains silent.

“Aw, c’mon, Arty. Don’t let your sister and me down. Da, da, da, da, dad.”

My stomach cramps unbearably as I watch the tender exchange between my son and the man who has cared for him his entire short life.

“Da-da,” he gurgles in response and Isaac’s eyes light up at the sound while Ivy bounces excitedly at my side, her small hands clapping frantically.

My chest constricts, and my belly flips unexpectedly at this little boy’s first words spoken from chubby lips spread into a wide grin, his two front teeth peeking out from pink gums.

“Yay!” Isaac praises, turning Arthur more towards me and repeating the sound again. “Say it for Daddy again. Da, da, da, dad.’

“Da-Da,” Arthur repeats, lapping up the attention and clapping his plump hands just like his big sister.

“Da-Da,” he continues, shuffling around on his bottom and reaching up for Isaac.

“Da-Da, Da-Da.”

His short chunky arms extend towards Isaac, his proud little face wanting more attention from the man he adores.

Isaac’s eyes flick my way briefly, his smile slightly slipping before he scoops up Arthur and bounces him in celebration.

A stab of something unfamiliar, something a lot like jealousy, penetrates my ribs and digs at my heart. It prods at the gristle I’ve allowed to cover it, and jabs relentlessly at the soft flesh beneath the cracked shell.

I deserve this. We all know I deserve this.

“Here,” Isaac offers, standing with Arthur in his arms and walking towards me. “Say it for Daddy.”

I stand suddenly, Ivy’s soft hand falling from my leg, her broad smile dropping from her face to be replaced by a mixture of confusion and shock. What should be a happy moment is ruined by my inability to feel. Or maybe, the problem with me this time is that I feel too much.

“I… I need to see to… do something. I’ll be back later,” I rush out, my legs shaking beneath the weight of my body and the leaden bulk of the ugly creature called grief that has latched onto my back. Its razor-sharp claws have sunk into my skin and refused to let me go.

“Help your Uncle Iz while I’m gone,” I whisper through trembling lips as I bend to kiss my sweet Ivy on the forehead before I all but run from the room without looking at my brother or the baby boy in his arms.

He called Isaac, Daddy.

For a man who has frozen all his feelings towards that little boy for eight whole months, this fact shouldn’t hurt.

It does.

This new pain doesn’t give a fuck that I have no right to feel it. It slithers through my insides, scalding me with acid, and pulsing bile through my veins. It squeezes at my lungs, congesting my airways and threatens to choke me. It impales long, steel nails into my heart.

I’ve wasted eight months.

I’ll never get them back.

I’ll never get her back.

My feet slap hard against the pavement as I run, the impact sending aching shards of pain up my calves. I’m not a runner, and I’m not dressed for exercise. My jeans and deck shoes are more suited for a stroll, and yet I can’t get away from that house quick enough and my feet pound harder and faster than I’ve ever run before.

I take no notice of where I’m going, my eyes fixed ahead on nothing, my body attempting a futile escape from what I carry within me. Streets and roads morph into one, pedestrians avoided but barely, and cars blast their horns in warning, all of it combining into a cacophony of sound that ricochets against my temples and splinters my already fragile psyche. I likely look like a madman, but I’m not functioning well enough to care.

I run until my legs give out and my lungs burn. My brain tightens painfully and throbs against the sides of my skull, the ache in my temples rendering me almost visionless.

“Are you alright, mate,” a passer-by asks, as my doubled over form all but crumbles into the ground. “Here, let me help you sit.”

Strong hands guide me gently a few steps to the left until my legs hit solid wood and my body gives out. I slump into the seat, my head folds into my thighs, and the awkward position further squeezes my lungs and cuts off the small amount of air that passed through my dry lips.

“Here, boy. Lift your head up and take a sip,” the voice instructs, and the rim of a dark glass bottle appears in my fuzzy vision. I prise open my cracked lips and the bottle tilts. Warm liquid splashes up against my mouth and coats my tongue. Harsh heat slides down my throat, burning my raw oesophagus as I splutter and gulp, the fire intensifying and becoming an inferno in my stomach.

“Whoa, hold on there, boy. This here’s my good stuff. You can’t go downing it in your state,” the stranger warns and drags the bottle from my lips.

“What’re you running from anyway? You’re too clean cut to be dodging the law,” he notes, and I feel his stare on me as I blink awkwardly into the sunny sky. My glasses magnify the sun’s rays and strip away my sight completely. The loss of one of my primary senses opens me up and allows me to spill out the bile festering in my guts, confessing my ugly sins to this total stranger.

“My wife,” I confess on a raw exhale. “I’m running away from my wife, my kids and my family.”

My shoulders slump with the admission, my chest cracking open painfully, the bright sunlight scorching my exposed organs into dust. Saying the words, and baring my truth to a stranger should’ve allowed me to feel lighter, but it doesn’t. Instead, it wraps around my neck like a noose, choking me, rendering me mute.

“Do you love them?” he asks simply a few moments later, breaking the silence between us.

I suck in a deep breath, one that rattles in my lungs and clears the fog from my brain.

“More than anything,” I admit at length. “But that doesn’t change anything. Love is never enough.”

I turn my head to face the stranger for the first time, and my eyes land on a world-weary face half-covered in an unkempt beard. Keen blue eyes stare out from under thick, greying brows, and worry lines map a worn but friendly smile that’s missing a few teeth.

He grins at me, likely pleased with my non-reaction to his appearance. He looks like he hasn’t had a bath for months, possibly years and now that my senses are slowly coming back online, he smells like it too.

“Want another swig,” he asks, sloshing a half-empty bottle of cheap whisky in front of me, the brown glass reminding me of the slow burn that still bubbles in my belly.

I shake my head and offer him what I hope is a grateful, “I’m good, thanks.” To which he just shrugs and tips back the bottle to take a large gulp.

“More for me then,” he continues, once he’s drunk his fill. If I were more present in life, I might have shuddered a little at knowing I drank from the same bottle as this man, but I can’t bring myself to care. He showed me a kindness when many would not. He shared what he had and asked nothing in return. Just because he’s obviously homeless and needs a good wash, doesn’t negate the fact he has more humanity than me.

“You can love people too much, you know,” he muses after another long silence. “and you can lose yourself in the process.”

“I haven’t lost myself,” I reply with more clarity than I’ve had in days. “I’ve lost them.”

“Then find them again,” he replies as if everything in life were that simple, and I look at him, I mean really look at him. At his too small clothes that are too thick for the warm sunny day. At the stains on his hands and dirt on his trouser legs. At the shoes without laces on his feet, the left one gaping at the sole creating a flapping mouth that doesn’t speak yet tells the truth.

This man has nothing compared to me.

Nothing.

And yet I sit and take from him.

His comfort.

His drink.

His advice.

I take all this while my life awaits me in my too small house, too warm inside on this sunny day because I refuse to open windows and let in fresh air. At the stains on my soul from the guilt of abandoning my small son and being a piss-poor father to my daughter. At the shoes without an owner that sit in our hallway, the ones that leave a gaping hole in our lives and yet I refuse to remove them because the truth is, I need that pain to remember.

It’s all I have left of her.

That’s a lie.

I am a rich man with all that she’s left behind.

But I’ve been acting like a pauper.

“I’m going to try,” I say with a conviction that I’m starting to slowly feel.

He smiles at me, his grin wide; his gap-toothed mouth filled with pride for me, a stranger.

“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” he states as he begins to gather up his belongings in a tatty rucksack. “Take a moment. Sit back and marvel at what life has given you.”

When he’s satisfied that he hasn’t forgotten anything, he shifts and places his hand on my arm, squeezing once lightly to emphasise his next words.

“Let grief soften you not turn you to stone. Let the heartache you carry make you wiser, and take all your suffering and transform it into strength. No matter what life has thrown at you, you’re still here, and you can still learn. Be proud of this, be proud of who you are, and if you can’t be, be proud of who you can become. Trust me,” he admits as he stands and hoists his bag over his shoulder, shaking the bottle in his fist for emphasis. “You don’t want to end up like me, so go home to your family and love them too much. Because there is never too much when it comes to love.”

Then he’s gone. Hobbling away into the park that stretches out before us in a sea of green, until he disappears from my sight.

I never told him I was grieving.

I guess I didn’t have to say the words; they hang around my neck like a neon sign - flashy, and gaudy, and impossible to miss - ‘This man lost his wife. Pity him.’

I mull over his words as the sun begins its slow decent. Passers-by avoid the bench on which I sit immobile, choosing instead to walk further down the path to the next and pretend I don’t exist.

“You don’t want to end up like me, so go home to your family and love them too much.”

I stand on sore legs, my blistered feet protesting at the movement, and turn to make my way back.

Back to my family.

Back to the man I want, hope and pray I’ll become.

I’m sorry Laura Smiles.

I’ll do better.

I’ll make you proud.

I promise.