Whether it could be called a stage of grief or not, anger was a very real part of April’s grieving process, as were the doubts she nurtured about Jason’s character. She wanted to hate him, and convincing herself that he had been unfaithful was a neat way to validate that rage. She needed to be more like Faith and be honest about that. She had audited Jason’s life and found nothing more than a handful of cash withdrawals. It was another change of behaviour that could be linked to what was going on in his brain. Doctors didn’t know everything. It was time to let go of this idea that Jason wasn’t worth breaking her heart over.
Turning onto her side, April snuggled up to Dexter, and the malleable mutt obliged by spooning with her. The soporific sound of the dog’s snoring relaxed April’s body and mind. She smiled, having finally worked out that it was Saturday and she could doze a little longer before paying a visit to the cemetery to make an overdue apology.
Taking the path around the side of the church, April filtered out the distant hum of traffic and the occasional bleat of a car horn, and concentrated only on the crunch of autumn leaves underfoot. She and Jason hadn’t been churchgoers, but his parents had wanted him buried here and it was one less decision for April to make when there had been so many others being forced upon her.
Eight months on, some decisions were yet to be made. Moving back home was meant to be a temporary arrangement and, whilst her parents were happy to keep her in the nest to rest her wings, April was no fledgling. Her so-called messiness clashed with their organised clutter, her binges on box sets were countered by daily doses of soap drama, and the rock music that got her moving in the morning chimed against the murmurings of Radio Four.
She envied her fellow group members who had a vision of what their new lives should look like, whether or not they were there yet. Even Nick had some idea of where he was going and what he wanted to achieve, and he had looked surprised and saddened when she had mentioned living with her parents. Every one of them was a survivor, while in contrast April remained a victim, trapped beneath the wreckage of a life that had collapsed around her. To escape, she had thought she needed to dismantle everything, including her marriage, but after her most recent nightmare, she realised she had gone too far.
April passed the ramshackle rows of headstones nearest the church without pausing to read the weather-worn names of the husbands and wives whose cherished memories had been eroded by time. The section of the graveyard reserved for its newest committals was hidden from view by a row of firs, but, as April approached, she felt the hairs on the back of her neck prickle.
Her pace slowed and the crunch of leaves became a whisper lost to the soughing of the evergreens. No one would hear her approach and, as she dipped beneath the shade of a tree, she tensed, preparing for that first glimpse of Jason’s imagined lover. Wisps of her dream floated through her mind until tears blurred her vision. She was looking for someone who didn’t exist.
The white marble of Jason’s headstone sparkled in the sunshine but offered no warmth as April trailed a finger across her husband’s name. She knelt down in front of the patch of earth where his cremated remains had been interred, marked by a square of marble filled with pale frosted pebbles and a spray of white lilies. On another day, April might have questioned who had left them, but not today. They could only be from his mum, who made regular visits to tend his grave, although April doubted Jason would appreciate the flowers. He would much prefer the bottle of beer she took from her pocket and placed upright in front of the headstone.
‘I don’t know if you played any part in my dream this morning,’ she whispered, ‘but you need to know that I don’t hate you. I hate that everything in my life has to be transformed into something other than us. I hate that you left me, Jay.’
April stroked the velvet petals of a lily and when her fingertip pricked on the calling card, she told herself that turning it so the writing faced her was accidental. The message was from a mother to her beloved son, as April knew it would be. The futile search for tokens left by another woman had to stop.
‘I took what we had and tried to turn it into something I’d gladly throw away. I didn’t want to think about how happy you made me,’ she said as tears slipped down her face unchecked. ‘But you did make me happy.’
April poked at the flower spray. The edges of the lilies were yellowing, and a couple had grown limp and brown. She suspected Jason’s mum would return tomorrow with a fresh spray, but April didn’t want to leave decaying flowers on his grave. Her shoulders shook as she picked out the dead blooms from the arrangement.
‘I love you, Jason and I know you loved me. Please forgive me. I’m so sorry.’
April went to cover her face with her hands, but the movement unbalanced her and she fell forward. She grabbed hold of the marble border and stared downwards past the lilies, as though she could see through the earth to the small oak box containing ash and broken dreams.
‘I miss you so much,’ she cried over and over as her tears trickled down her nose and splashed onto the thinned-out spray of bruised petals. Still sobbing, she pushed the arrangement out of the way and sank her hands into the misshapen pieces of smooth glass mixed with dead leaves and the detritus of a summer Jason had never seen. She grabbed handfuls of the pebbles and watched helplessly as they slipped through her fingers.
As one particular stone dropped, she noticed it was whiter than the rest, and when she picked it up again, it didn’t feel as cold. Wiping her eyes with the back of her hand, she realised the pebble wasn’t glass at all. White and smooth, it appeared to be a flattened oval, but as April explored its circumference with her fingers, she noticed a dip in the centre of one of its longer edges. Turning it on its side, there was no mistaking the shape of a heart.
Squinting, April examined every millimetre of the stone. She rubbed her thumb over one side and felt a roughness that wasn’t on the other. There was a scratched engraving so faint it was difficult, but not impossible to read with the naked eye: April stared at it long enough for her tears to dry.
Her nose was blocked and her throat hurt each time she attempted to swallow back the lump of dread. This token of love had not been dropped casually, or placed gently on her husband’s grave. It had been buried out of sight. It was a gesture to be shared privately between the giver and the man whose remains lay beneath the dirt. April wasn’t meant to see it.
After months of torturing herself with guilty thoughts of betrayal, April had visited the cemetery to bury her doubts, but instead she had unearthed a secret. The warm stone burned her palm and she was tempted to hurl it across the rows of headstones and into oblivion where it belonged, but instead she dropped it into her pocket.
Her breath came out in short, shallow gasps as she fought to contain the anger and the pain. She brushed off the mud clinging to her jeans and glared at Jason’s headstone, too angry to speak. She was about to walk away when she caught sight of the bottle of beer she had left. She picked it up and in a move Jason had taught her, used the corner of the headstone and the side of her hand to knock off the bottle top. The beer tasted as bitter as her thoughts.
The fluffy dog sprinting across Pickering’s Pasture towards Tara looked like a Steiff teddy brought to life, with its tongue lolling and ears flapping. At the end of a rapidly extending leash was April, one arm stretched forward and the other trailing behind. Tara made the mistake of bending forward to greet the dog and he ploughed straight into her.
‘Oh Tara, I’m so sorry,’ April panted as she caught sight of the muddy paw marks smeared over her caped coat. ‘Dexter, will you sit still for one minute. I said sit!’
Dexter emitted an excited whine but otherwise ignored his mistress and continued to add streaks of ochre to the velvety blue of Tara’s coat. ‘It’s