After You

Chapter Seven - Shake it Out

"I won't be jealous if you cry on another man's shoulder, Merry. Lord knows, you need to cry on someone's."
- Rhys

It was Sunday, mid-morning. I'd worked another wedding the day before. It had been Hell on Earth. The morning got off to the worst imaginable start by my waking up to a dream about you. A dream where you were still alive. I lay in bed, blinking in an ignorant state of bliss; one of those cruel mornings where I'd wake up having momentarily forgotten that you were dead.

At the sight of your empty side of the bed, I assumed that you were in the shower. When I couldn't hear the water running, I thought you'd already gone to the boathouse to meet Luke. Slowly rolling out of bed, I noticed that your pillow was undented; that you hadn't slept there the night before. Confused, I padded into the bathroom, clutching at your bath towel. Dry.

Then realisation struck, but I was half asleep, so instead of knowing that you were dead, I only feared it. My heart began to race, feeling like I was trapped in a recurring nightmare, where I always found myself a widow. I did what I always did when finding myself in this particular nightmare. I rushed to your wardrobe, opened the door, and rummaged through your sparse selection of suits. My fingers riffled through each one, but I couldn't find the perfect cut of your Hugo Boss suit; the one I'd bought you last Christmas.

Heart pounding, breath catching in my throat, my eyes tore through the hangers, until I found the velvet-covered hanger with the Hugo Boss logo. A hanger with no suit. I snatched it off the rail, gripped it with whitened fingers and fell to the floor in a flood of tears.

Like the living nightmare always went – when I got confused about where you were – I'd check the wardrobe and find the hanger with no suit. The suit – your very best one – was missing because it's what we took to the undertakers for you to be buried in. But then you know that, because you helped me choose it. All I had left was the hanger; another cruel reminder of what and who was missing.

After endless tears before work – the morning more difficult than usual because I'd spent a few disoriented moments believing that you were still alive – I dragged myself into the office, only to be met by a barrage of questions from a confused set of waiting staff. Then there was the bride who expected nothing less than perfection; the proud groom who cried at the sight of his beloved walking down the aisle, and the personalised vows. I was dead inside before the speeches even started.

Thankfully, when I woke up on the Sunday morning – admittedly, not all that early – I'd been excited at the prospect of getting back out on the water with my crew. The boys had taken responsibility for finding a replacement for Jamie, but it was a slow process. You know Bateman's isn't an especially competitive club, and with my hectic workload and Owen often being on call, we weren't exactly a tempting prospect for any serious oarsman. Finding decent, reliable rowers was tricky, because they tended to aim for the more serious crews; ones like yours and Luke's, where your training schedule was sacrosanct and anything less than a P.B. was a failure. My crew's relaxed approach to training didn't entice the best rowers, and Owen had been sorting through applications from guys who were either too lazy to get up for a pre-dawn session on the river, or too inexperienced to know which end of the boat was the bow. It was only thanks to Luke's offer to row with us that we were able to get back on the water, at all.

After a hiatus of nearly three weeks, I'd arrived at the boathouse – wrapped up like an Eskimo – full of anticipation. The river always soothed me and helped me to reclaim some perspective over my life. And my guys; they were exciting, never wrapping me in cotton wool. They were precisely the type of company I needed; a very necessary reprieve from the overwhelming concern of Tabby and Luke.