Belsize Park || Kate & Leo

☆ Two ☆

A car outside honks its horn and I look up from where I had half fallen asleep at the table. My tea is stone cold and my cereal is soggy and half eaten. I hear footsteps bound downstairs, and Mia’s keys jingling.

“Daddy!” Bear squeals, tripping over in the doorway. “Grandpa’s here!”

Your dad, Roger, called me yesterday evening, and asked if he could take the kids out for the day. I said yes. It would be nice to get them out of the house. For Mia to do something other than read your scripts and books in a corner, listening to music, for Joe to go out and see something positive, and hear the birds in the trees, perhaps. Who knows, he might make some less depressing music. Not that I can blame him. Music and time are the greatest healers, and I should probably leave him to it. And Bear’s just a child, he doesn’t deserve this. I don’t know what to do with them, how to talk to them. Not anymore.

I reel Bear towards me, and ruffle his hair. He talks to me the most because he doesn’t understand why everyone’s so sad all the time, he’s just too young. I wish you had more time with him.

“Okay, bye, Teddy Bear.” I pat him on the shoulder, craning my head to watch as he scampers towards Mia and Joe, who are already at the door. “Bye, Mia! Bye Joe! I love you all, have fun, and don’t wear your grandfather out too much.”

The door slams closed. And there is silence. Normally, even since you left, and a cloud tumbled over the house, there has been some noise. The distant strains of Mia's fiftieth rerun of Jagged Little Pill, turned pages and sniffles, drum beats and keyboards thumping through the floorboards, and Bear's excited bubbly chatter.

Sometimes I forget he isn’t a baby anymore. He is seven now and more independent than ever. He can dress himself, and make his own drinks, and he comes home and sits himself at the table to do his homework before he reads or watches television. I kind of wish he was still a baby, in a selfish sort of way. I guess I miss the coziness of lazy mornings snuggling with you and him in bed, and the unpredictability of our days. Sometimes we woke up at seven, and others four. It was tiring, but refreshing. It was back then we could go on walks at 5am, when most of the world was still asleep. When no cars droned. It was just us, paving the way into the morning, watching the pastel sun rising over our street. Now, Bear wakes up at seven every day, ready for school, even during the half term. We don't get up early to catch the sunset, and we barely leave the house unless we need food, or desperately feel the need to go outside.

I stand up, taking in the sunlight pouring through the window. I can see your smile reflected in the golden rays spilling on the carpet, the rainbows coming in through the sun catcher that you and Joe made when he was Bear’s age. I look out to the street. The houses look peaceful, as if nothing could ever go wrong on this street. Everything went wrong on this street. The floorboards creak under my weight as I saunter over to the sofas we picked out, to the wall of photos which held our kids' school pictures, movie posters – of the two we did together. I wish we had done more. I go into the kitchen, looking over at the garden you planted for us, our mini allotment. Mia has been keeping it alive for you, watering the plants when they need to be watered, and picking fruit when they are in season. We don’t bake with them though because no one can bake as well as you could. They go into a fruit bowl, and we eat them for breakfast, and Joe and Bear take them as snacks for their break times. I nearly burnt the house down the last time I tried to make a pie for the kids.

I walk contemplatively, my hand brushing the rail as I seem to float upstairs. The corridor upstairs is flooded with light from the window, and I swear I can still smell your Issey Miyake perfume. Its floral scent floats to my nostrils, and I have to close my eyes to breathe you in. I become dizzy, really dizzy, as if I am floating in an interstellar space. I look around: to Mia’s room, to Joe’s and to Bear’s and ours. I push the door open, listening to the creak it has always had. I am in here every night, with the window open, watching the embers pour into the room, spilling onto your pillow and your blanket. I’ve not touched them for a year. I’m too scared to. They still smell like you though. I press my lips together as I back out of the room, and close the door until it is ajar.