lie to me, April. Don’t lie to yourself,’ he warned. ‘How could you think I’d cheat on you? I don’t understand why you don’t trust me. What did I do wrong?’
‘You didn’t do anything wrong. It’s me. I’m being paranoid. I’m sorry,’ she cried.
He fixed her with a stare. ‘Why do you hate me so much?’
‘I don’t. I love you.’
‘Liar,’ he snarled.
‘I’m not.’
‘Go on, spit it out. Tell me why you hate me.’
April drew herself up so she was kneeling on the bed. She had longed to confront Jason, and this was her chance.
‘Say it, April.’
‘Fine then!’ she yelled. ‘I hate you because you died! You’re dead, Jason! You lay down next to me and you just died. There was no goodbye. No warning.’ Her voice grew weaker. ‘You left me alone with your cold, dead body. It was horrible. It still is.’ She clawed at the bedclothes, but her anger was spent and only the pain remained. ‘The only person who could have helped me through something like that is gone. If you loved me so much, why do that to me? Why Jason?’
As quickly as it came, the vision dissolved and darkness filled the room. It filled April’s lungs too and she struggled for breath. Panic consumed her as she fought her way out of the dream, and with one final, shuddering gasp, she opened her eyes. She was no longer kneeling but lying on her back. Above her head in the gloom, she could make out the limp paper lampshade that hung in her old bedroom at her parents’ house.
Covering her face with her hands, April let the tears confined to her dream seep into the real world. She recalled her angry words and hoped she hadn’t screamed them out loud. She held her breath and listened, but there was no sound except the thudding of her heart, which skipped a beat when she felt movement beside her again. Something cold touched her cheek.
‘Oh, Jesus,’ she whispered, recoiling until she remembered who was in bed with her. She allowed herself a smile as a wet tongue licked away her salty tears. She could hear the thud of a tail hitting the mattress as she turned to face her companion. ‘You scared the shit out of me, Dexter.’
Since moving back home, her mum’s cockapoo had been allowed to break the house rules and sleep upstairs. He was meant to guard against April’s nightmares, but the dog’s nocturnal movements had been responsible for the dark path her mind had just taken her down.
With Dexter’s head resting on her chest, April threaded her fingers through curls of fur and sought to hold on to the silvery threads of the dream she ought to let go. She had told Jason she hated him and she had meant it. She did hate him, or at least she hated the dead Jason. He had every reason to be mad with her. She was doubting him, and she couldn’t be sure he deserved it.
Joining the group had made April look at her grief with a more critical eye, and each member had offered a different perspective. She hadn’t been sure what to make of Faith at first. She wasn’t as warm or as open as Tara, but there were times when April caught a reflection of her own grief in Faith’s eyes. The difference was that Faith didn’t try to hide the kind of fury that April could only acknowledge in her dreams.
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
