I walked once again through the black gates that surrounded the sleeping people as my Mummy calls them. Daddy is one of them now. We come here every week with flowers that are his favourite colour, yellow. We normally come here on Saturday after my swimming lesson; I’m getting very good at it now and I can’t wait to show Daddy my new armbands I love them because they have my favourite animal on them a lion of course, I know he’ll love them just as much as Mummy does.
I look to my left and there is that man again. I keep on asking Mummy why he’s always crying but she won’t answer me and won’t let me go and talk to him. I placed the flowers in the container at the bottom of his stone just like Mummy told me how to do it whilst she went to go and get some water from the pump at the back. I realised that I could hear a noise in the background, it was the man, he is crying again. He’s always crying and I don’t know why because Mummy tells me not to be sad but instead to tell Daddy about my life and what I’m doing. She tells me not to cry because it would make Daddy upset even though I sometimes see her wipe away a tear from the corner of her eye when she thinks I’m not looking. But I am, I will always look out for Mummy because the first time I came here I promised Daddy that I would look after her and make sure she doesn’t cry too much.
I wonder if that man has anyone to look after him.
I guess that I could just go and say hello to him, after all he is upset and Mummy wouldn’t notice, she’s talking to someone. I make my way carefully towards the weeping man and as I get closer I can hear what he’s saying.
“Dan, please. It hurts. It hurts so badly and I just want it to stop. I tried to hurt myself again last night; I tried to escape this Hell that you’ve left me in.” I saw his shoulders jump as he took a breath that sounded like he was breathing in glass. He pressed a kiss to the stone and whispered “But it’s ok because tonight I’ll be with you again and finally all of this will end. I can’t wait to see you again Dan, please don’t hate me for it. I’ll do it because I love you Dan, I’ll love you endlessly.”
With those words that I didn’t understand the man got up off of the ground, didn’t bother to brush off the grass and mud on his black skinny jeans. I thought the top he was wearing was weird as it was just plain black with a white circle on it. I was wearing my new dress, Mummy always told me to look nice when we come to see Daddy. Even though he is walking away he is still crying. Why was he always crying?
I looked over to Mummy and she was still talking to that person, I moved out from behind the oak tree and went over to look at the person’s stone, it was black marble with gold writing. The only writing that was on it was his name “Dan Howell” in big letters at the top and that was it. On my Daddy’s stone there is his name, the age he was when he went to sleep and a verse from a song I think.
“Phoebe! Come back here what are you doing?” My mummy shouted at me so I ran back to her and we left for another week.
The next time I saw the man was the following week, he was wearing a different t-shirt this time, it was all different colours in a patchwork pattern, it wasn’t as beautiful as my fairy costume but it was still pretty. I walked over to him again and yet again he was crying and talking to the stone.
“I’m so sorry my love, it didn’t work. I woke up and you weren’t there so I know I’ve failed.”
I decided to say hello, maybe I could ask him why he’s crying all the time. “Hello”
“Oh! God, you, you scared me! Why did you jump out at me?”
I saw the tears fall out of his eyes which were surprisingly blue and make their way down his pale, thin face. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to. I just wanted to know why you’re always crying when you’re here.”
“Oh, I’m sorry for shouting, you just scared me that’s all.”
I giggled and saw a small smile threaten to tug at his mouth. “So why are you crying?”
“I...um, well you see the person I love isn’t here anymore. I guess I’m sad because it hurts.”
“I know, my Daddy is sleeping as well and Mummy says that I’m not ready to join him just yet but one day I will be.”
“Yeah well she’s right.”
I sat down next to him and traced the words on the stone with my finger. “Do you love him, Dan?”
I t seemed like he was shocked at what I’d said. “Yes, I do love him, so very much but I miss him terribly. Do you miss your Dad?”
Pleased that he had asked me a question I answered with a smile “Yes I miss Daddy so much but I know that I’ll see him again but in the mean time, I can still tell him about me and everything I do. What was he like? The man you love.”
“Dan was, he was the best and worst person in the world. We used to wake up together in the morning and make pancakes but we’d end up getting most of the flour on the floor and not clean it up until the evening. We would play games for hours together and go get coffee, make videos together. He made me so happy. Then there were days that I didn’t like so much, he would wake up grumpy and push me off him, plug himself into his laptop for the whole day and I would barely even talk to him that day but everyday was just as special as the last because I knew he loved me.”
I started to make a daisy chain whilst he was talking “You said that he loved you.”
“Yeah I did why?” A look of confusion crossed his face
“You said loved, not love. Just because he isn’t physically here with you right now and you’re not making pancakes, he still loves you just as much as you love him. What are those on your arms?”
It took him a moment to listen to what I’d said but then he went to cover his arms but I grabbed them and turned them over, I could see little lines most of the way up his arms and then I realised what they were. Mummy had told me about them when my cousin James had them, she said that someone did this to themselves when they thought they weren’t worth anything, but they were wrong. “No, stop it. Don’t do this to yourself anymore. You are so much better than this.”
“What’s your name?”
“My name’s Phoebe, what’s yours?”
“Um Phil and listen, thanks.”
“You’re welcome. Promise me I’ll see you here next week but not too early because I am going round my friend Heather’s house for a sleepover. Just pinky promise that you won’t hurt yourself anymore. Right now you can’t be with Dan because you’re not the best you can be and Dan is. He was just too good to stay here but he’s waiting for you Phil and however long it takes for you to be ready to be with him again, he’ll always be waiting for you. Never forget that.”
“I, I won’t.”
“Ok bye then!”
“Yeah bye Phoebe.”
I saw Phil get up and brush the grass and dirt off of his jeans, straighten up his shirt and hair and for the first time as he walked away he wasn’t crying.
