smiling down on him, encouraging him and assuring him it was OK to let go.
The days after that were a blur to her now. She had occupied herself by making the funeral arrangements and by meeting and greeting Gerry’s relatives and old school friends that she hadn’t seen for years. She remained so solid and calm through it all. She was just thankful that, after months, his suffering was over. It didn’t occur to her to feel the anger or bitterness that she felt now for the life that was taken away from her. That feeling didn’t arrive until she went to collect her husband’s death certificate.
And then that feeling made a grand appearance.
As she sat in the crowded waiting room of her local health clinic, waiting for her number to be called, she wondered why on earth Gerry’s number had been called so early in his life. She was sandwiched between a young couple and an elderly one – the picture of what she and Gerry had once been, and a glimpse of the future they could have had. And it all just seemed unfair. While the noise of screaming children was amplified in the room, Holly felt squashed between the shoulders of her past and her lost future, and she felt suffocated. She shouldn’t have to be there.
None of her friends had to be there.
None of her family had to be there.
In fact the majority of the population of the world didn’t have to be in the position she was in right then.
It didn’t seem fair.
Because it just wasn’t fair.
After presenting the official proof of her husband’s death to bank managers and insurance companies, as if the look on her face wasn’t proof enough, Holly returned home to her nest and locked herself away from the rest of the world that contained hundreds of memories of the life she had once had. The life she had been very happy with. So why had she been given another one, and a far worse one at that?
That was two months ago, and she hadn’t left the house until today. And what a welcome she had been given, she thought, smiling down at the envelopes. Gerry was back.
Holly could hardly contain her excitement as she furiously dialled Sharon’s number with trembling hands. After reaching a few wrong numbers she eventually calmed herself and concentrated on dialling correctly.
‘Sharon!’ she squealed as soon as the phone was picked up. ‘You’ll never guess what. Oh my God, I can’t believe it!’
‘Eh, no … it’s John, but I’ll get her for you now.’ A worried John rushed off to get Sharon.
‘What, what, what?’ panted a very out-of-breath Sharon. ‘What’s wrong? Are you OK?’
‘Yes, I’m fine!’ Holly started giggling hysterically, not knowing whether to laugh or cry and suddenly forgetting how to structure a sentence.
John watched as Sharon sat down at her kitchen table, looking very confused while she tried with all her strength to make sense of the rambling Holly. It was something about Mrs Kennedy giving Holly a brown envelope with a bedside lamp in it. It was all very worrying.
‘STOP!’ shouted Sharon, much to Holly and John’s surprise. ‘I cannot understand a word you are saying, so please,’ Sharon spoke very slowly, ‘slow down, take a deep breath and start from the very beginning, preferably using words from the English language.’
Suddenly she heard quiet sobs from the other end.
‘Oh, Sharon,’ Holly’s words were quiet and broken, ‘he wrote me a list. Gerry wrote me a list.’
Sharon froze in her chair while she digested this information.
John watched his wife’s eyes widen and he quickly pulled out a chair and sat next to her, shoving his head towards the telephone so he could hear what was going on.
‘OK, Holly, I want you to get over here as quickly but as safely as you can.’ Sharon paused again and swatted John’s head away as if he was a fly so she could concentrate on what she had just heard. ‘This is … great news?’
John stood up from the table, insulted, and began to pace the kitchen floor, trying to guess what the news could be.
‘Oh, it is, Sharon,’ sobbed Holly, ‘it really is.’
‘OK, make your way over here now and we can talk about it.’
‘OK.’
Sharon hung up the phone and sat in silence.
‘What? What is it?’ demanded John.
‘Oh, sorry, love. Holly’s on the way over. She … em … she said that eh …’
‘WHAT, for Christsake?’
‘She said that Gerry wrote her a list.’
John studied her face and tried to decide if she was serious. Sharon’s worried blue eyes stared back at him and he realised she was. He joined her at the table and they both sat in silence and stared at the wall, lost in thought.
Chapter Six
‘Wow,’ was all Sharon and John could say as the three of them sat around the kitchen table in silence, staring at the contents of the package that Holly had emptied as evidence. Conversation between them had been minimal for the last few minutes as they all tried to decide how they felt. It had gone something like this:
‘But how did he manage to …?’
‘But how didn’t we notice him … well …? God.’
‘When do you think he …? Well, I suppose he was on his own sometimes …’
Holly and Sharon just sat looking at each other while John stuttered and stammered his way through trying to figure out just when, where and how his terminally ill friend had managed to carry out this idea all alone without anyone finding out.
‘Wow,’ he eventually repeated after coming to the conclusion that Gerry had done just that. He had carried it out alone.
‘I know,’ Holly agreed. ‘So the two of you had absolutely no idea then?’
‘Well, I don’t know about you, Holly, but it’s pretty clear to me that John was the mastermind behind all of this,’ Sharon said sarcastically.
‘Ha-ha,’ John replied drily. ‘He kept his word, anyway, didn’t he?’ John looked to both of the girls with a smile on his face.
‘He sure did,’ Holly said quietly.
‘Are you OK, Holly? I mean, how do you feel about all this? It must be … weird,’ asked Sharon again, clearly concerned.
‘I feel fine.’ Holly was thoughtful. ‘Actually, I think it’s the best thing that could have happened right now! It’s funny, though, how amazed we all are, considering how much we went on about this list. I mean, I should have been expecting it.’
‘Yeah, but we never expected any of us to ever do it!’ said John.
‘But
