Ecstasy

Chapter 66

Tyson:

  I was sitting in Sarah's new flat. It smelt like paint. I didn't like it. The space was echoy. They hadn't furnished it completely yet. Her boyfriend Brent was in the back room sleeping. Apparently he took night shifts. I'd met him once or twice before, but never so much as a conversation beyond 'hello, how are you,' passed between us.

I felt like shit. My face hurt every time I opened my mouth. I blew on the spoonful of hot lasagne, before shovelling it in my mouth. I felt like I was starved. Sarah sat across the table. The TV was on in the background and she had her eyes trained on it as she ate.

"You are going to tell me where you got those bruises." she said without looking away from the TV.

"No, I'm not."

"Yes you are. Because then I'm going to have to have a terse chat with their mother." She smiled.

I couldn't take it any longer. The pretending; pretending that I was alright. I had to say something. Anything.

"I saw Mum the other month." I didn't realise I had been thinking about it so much, until I voiced it aloud.

Her spoon halted on its way to her mouth. Her smile dropped. She looked at me sharply.

"Tyson–" she started. Her reaction said it all. I felt anger as I detected her coming lie.

"Is she alive?" I interjected.

She avoided my eyes.

"You told me she died in a car accident." I laughed. It was without humour. In fact it was the furthest thing from a laugh. It came out strangled, like a drowning cat, and my throat itched. "I can't believe I trusted you."

I began to stand. I suddenly wasn't hungry anymore.

"Wait!" Sarah stood. "Please?" She motioned for me to sit back down. I lowered myself into the seat and she did the same. She swiped the sweat off her top lip with a sweep of the tongue.

"Is she alive?" I demanded.

She blinked and tried to hide the water welling behind her eyes. "No."

I felt myself frown. Disappointment felt heavy in my chest. It weighed my heart, dragged it down to my feet. "How did she die?"

Her eyes were really wet now and she wiped them with the back of her hands. "Tyson, please."

"Tell me."

"Please." She begged me.

I'd never seen her like this. She always appeared so strong. Even when she was a teenager and Nanna died. I was eight and she was 17. She didn't even shed a tear at the funeral. In those days she was everything I ever wanted to be: clever, strong, cool. And then, three years later..."Please tell me." I said more softly.

She shook her head. "It wasn't her fault. Valerie didn't want to leave you. She just couldn't handle it any longer. After the baby–"

Warning bells went off in my head. "What baby?"

Sarah closed her mouth, she shook her head. She pressed her lips together tightly. "I've said to much. I promised her I wouldn't tell you."

I felt like room had turned arctic. The skin on my arms tightened. "She made you promise?"

She looked at me with wet eyes. "I'm sorry."

"Why?" I felt my throat constrict. "What happened to her?"

Sarah shook her head again and hiccupped. She was shutting down, and closing me out. Ending the conversation.

I thumped the table and she jumped. "Goddammit. Tell me!"

"She was pregnant." Sarah's voice was very quiet. "Frank–" she stuttered.

I could taste bile. It was like having a dirty coin in your mouth, foul and dry and metallic. I finished the sentence for her, "She miscarried."

Sarah nodded and swiped at her eyes with her hands again. It was the first time I had noticed the ring on her third finger. It was a diamond.

"Is that – is that how she died?" I asked, suddenly not wanting the answer.

Sarah shook her head again. "No." She spoke into her clasped hands, as if she were praying the words.

We sat in silence for a long moment. I stared at the tabletop. My mind was blank.

"How did she die?" I asked, not looking up to meet her eyes. My voice was more calm than I expected it to be.

Sarah took a deep breath and sobbed. "She took her own life."

It took more then a few seconds for my brain to compute the information. When I did, I looked up at her sharply. "What?"

Sarah was really crying now as she took her hands away from her face. "I tried to stop it, but I was too late. I was too late."

It was her choice. All this time I thought she had been taken from me. But in reality she left me. She abandoned me. She left me with him.

"Well? Have we told him the good news yet Sar–" Brent said as he came down the hallway and turned the corner. He stopped short when he saw the scene before him.

"What's wrong?"

I stood up. The chair scraped across the floor loudly. I pulled my jacket off the back of the chair and started to shrug it on.

"Tyson?" Sarah reached for me. I stepped out of her reach. She looked more hurt than I had ever seen her. "It wasn't her fault."

I tried my hardest to ignore her as I turned, and I left.

***

It was unseasonably warm for an early spring day. A haze of heat sat on the horizon, blurring everything. The grass crunched under my feet as I made my way between the stones. I didn't want to be here, but Sarah insisted it was right. I only just managed to convince her to wait in the car. Although, I was sure I had heard her get out behind me.

I clutched the page, tightly, scrawled with Sarah's slanted writing, and walked faster.

Lawn–Portion 8–Row 2–Lot 1260B

"Twelve, eleven, eight..." I counted the rows as I walked past.

Finally I was at two. I stopped and looked down at the crumpled paper. Sweat was running down my face. I wiped some off the end of my nose.

So many stones, white, like ghosts, stood bleached in the hot sun. I had finally made it to 1200s and the counting in my head had started to sound like drum beats as I walked. I spotted 1260B before I got to it.

I had waited so long for this and now I was standing before it. Her grave. I didn't want to stand here any longer than I had to. I didn't want to feel anything for her anymore. It was easier said than done.

It was a shared stone. Her name was etched on the bottom half of it.

Valerie Shelley
1976–2006
Loving mother and sister
Brave and Strong until the end

Sarah was behind me. I read the epitaph again, and again.

"It took bravery. What she did. That's why I had that inscribed." Sarah said quietly.

I ground my teeth. I thought it was weak. I had to suppress a scream. I wanted to yell and curse, and tear out the grass and kick over the stone. I wanted to punch a brick wall.

But at the same time I wanted to kneel before it. Kneel before it and pray. Pray that she was now safe. Where ever she was.

Sarah ignored my silence and stepped forward to kneel before the stone. She replaced the dried bouquet of flowers in the water cup, with her newly purchased ones.

She turned to me. "You're wrong."

I turned to look at her. She was staring at me. Her round face so hauntingly similar to hers.

"It did take courage to do what she did. To have faith that you would be okay. She couldn't handle it any longer Tyson." Sarah's voice cracked. "She was broken. She blamed herself for the bruises. Even if she would never get to see you again, she thought if she just eliminated herself from the equation, she would save you."

I looked back at the stone. "She was wrong," I said in a quieter voice.

Sarah stared at the ground. "Maybe."

***

My mood was slipping further and further into well charted territory – and I didn't like where it was going.

It was the fifth time I had tried Calla that week. I needed to hear her voice. To know that one slice of my life was still fine, was still functioning.

But she didn't pick up. So I went to visit Thomas.