I wondered how Jarrod’s classmates and friends were coping with their sudden mortality.
My gaze came to a stop on his empty chair and I leaned back against my desk, my fingers curling into the wood.
“I wish I could tell you why,” I said, clearing my throat when my voice broke on the last few words.
Staci, a pretty blond girl who sat at the table behind Jarrod and often walked out of class with him, caught my eye as she swiped angrily at her tears.
“Why it is that life can change so quickly?” I continued. “How it’s possible for a heart to stop beating so suddenly, instantly breaking all the hearts that were ever connected to it? But the truth is there is no sense in what happened to Jarrod. None that I can see. I wish I had a better answer, but I don’t.”
The entire room watched me silently and I kept speaking. “I can tell you that it’s okay to feel whatever it is you’re feeling right now. It’s okay to miss him and it’s okay to hurt and it’s okay to feel lost – just as long as you come to me, or your friends, or your family, when all those feelings try to overwhelm you. Because in amongst all those feelings, some of you are going to be angry, and some of you will need someone to blame. It’s okay to be angry. I can’t tell you if it’s right or wrong to feel blame, but what I can say is don’t be angry for too long and don’t hold on to the blame forever. That kind of anger can take away a piece of you, a piece of you that you might not get back. Jarrod wouldn’t want that. Under the bluster and swagger, he was a really good person” – my lips trembled and my eyes were bright with unshed tears I couldn’t and honestly didn’t want to hide from them – “and I don’t think he would want that for any of you.
“I won’t lie to you. This changes things. It may even change you. I know it will change me.” I shrugged helplessly, feeling suddenly so young, too young to help them. “I guess it’s a reminder of the uncertainty in life and the foolishness of merely existing when the world is pleading with you to live. If you take anything from this, please take that. We take life for granted. We have to stop that. We have to start living.” I looked around at them all, catching some of their grief-stricken eyes. “If any of you need to talk to me, even if it’s to write it down, to put what you’re feeling on a bit of paper, then I’m here.”
I smiled sadly through the blur of tears and tapped the pile of books at my side. “Jarrod once confessed that his favorite book when he was younger was Danny the Champion of the World by Roald Dahl. His primary school teacher read it to the class. So we’re going to honor him today – you can read along with me as I read it to you.”
Before class I’d run over to the primary school next door and asked them for copies of the book, explaining why I needed them. They were kind and gracious enough to let me borrow the books. I passed the copies out to my kids and placed the last book on Jarrod’s desk slowly, fighting my tears. His friend Thomas, who had always been full of cheek in class, made a choked noise at my gesture and when I looked his way I saw him bury his head on his arms on the desk, his shoulders shaking as he tried to muffle his sobs. I passed him, squeezing his shoulder in comfort before walking to my desk, fighting the burn of emotion in my own throat. The muscles in my jaw, in my gums, in my cheeks, ached with it.
Somehow, I managed to open the book and I started to read.
Feeling as though I were wading through mud, I got through the day. I had e-mailed the teacher I shared the adult literacy class with and explained why I wouldn’t make my Thursday evening lesson this week. I got a kind e-mail in response from him and he told me he had it covered. From there I finished up my classes and jumped on a bus to Leith after work. There was one person I wanted to see more than anyone.
I wanted Marco. I wanted to wrap my arms around him and feel his strength, breathe him in, and know that I hadn’t given up on living the life I really wanted, the life I needed.
I was determined that someday in the near future I would do just that. The Hannah I used to be, the Hannah from my diaries, wasn’t afraid of anything. I didn’t want to be afraid anymore, and I didn’t want life to pass me by. However, I didn’t think it was right to use Marco as an emotional crutch. Things were already so complicated between us as it was. When I went to him, I wanted him to be sure I was coming to him for the right reasons.
So I got off the bus and I strode to Cole’s apartment.
As soon as he opened his door I walked into his arms and burst out crying. Thankfully, his dodgy flatmate was out, so I could tell Cole about Jarrod in private. He left me briefly to make me a cup of tea and when he returned he pulled me into his side and held me close.
“I was standing there in front of the kids,” I whispered, “telling them that they had to learn too soon how fragile life is and that they should learn from it and really live life. I felt like such a hypocrite, telling them to live life when I’m so scared of living that I pushed Marco away.”
“What is it you’re afraid of, Hannah? Him hurting you?”
“Yes. But I don’t want to be anymore. Once I get through this, I’m going to go to him.”
“Hannah, he loves you. You should go to him now, let him help you deal with this.”
“I can’t.” I shook my head stubbornly. “I can deal with this alone. I’ll go to him afterward, so it’s clear why I’m coming to him. Plus, I have to talk to him about something that could mean he doesn’t want to be with me.”
Cole frowned. “What could that possibly be?”
“The fact that I can’t have kids.”
“Since when?”
“I don’t want them, Cole. After what happened. I almost died. I can’t put the people I love through that again.”
“Who says you will? There’s a risk?”
I shrugged, feeling stupid but no less absolute in my fear. “There’s always a risk of another ectopic pregnancy, but, no, the doctor said I could go on to have a healthy pregnancy.”
“Okay, so… you don’t want them? Or you’re afraid?”
I shrugged.
“Do you want kids, Hannah?” He insisted on an answer.
I pinched my lips together and nodded.
“Then one day… you’ll be brave enough.” And he seemed so sure I couldn’t help but hope he was right.
Cole wasn’t the only one who attempted to get me to call Marco to tell him about Jarrod. Ellie did too. As much as my family was there for me through the hard time of losing a student, they didn’t seem to understand that I could handle it on my own.
Thursday morning came all too quickly. I dressed in a conservative black pencil dress I sometimes wore to school and borrowed Ellie’s long black wool coat. Jarrod’s mother had decided to hold the funeral at Jarrod’s gravesite instead of inside the church. When I arrived, my knees almost buckled at the sight of his mum. I didn’t know if I’d ever witnessed such devastation.
Harvey, Jarrod’s little brother, clung to his mother’s side, his eyes wide and haunted.
My tears started to flow freely as I found a place in the crowd of mourners near the front. I recognized some faces of his classmates – Thomas and Staci were both there with their parents. After the minister spoke, Jarrod’s coffin was lowered into the grave.
Jarrod’s mother threw a rose in. A girl I didn’t recognize stepped forward and threw another in. She was followed by Staci, and then an older woman, who hugged Jarrod’s mum tightly immediately afterward.
During this, I stepped forward, the paper in my hand biting into my skin. Gently I threw the paper into the grave. On it were words I’d borrowed from Shakespeare.
“Good night, sweet prince.
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.”
It was my way of saying good-bye, of letting him know that he mattered to me, that I’d seen him for who he really was, and that I wanted him to find peace wherever he was now.
Good night, sweet prince. And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.
I stepped back into the crowd, taking a shuddering breath as the minister began to say his final words. In my sadness I was vaguely aware of the people near me shifting, but I didn’t look up.
I didn’t look up until I was startled by the warm, rough fingers sliding through mine to hold my hand tight. My breath left me as I turned to look up at Marco.
Shock, relief, disbelief, and gratitude moved through me.
His kind eyes locked with mine and he held on tighter.
Ellie’s words from months ago suddenly came to me in that moment.
Five years ago you started shutting us out, putting on this front, determined to take care of yourself without our help. You need to stop that. Not just for you but for us. We’re here if you need us, and frankly we need you to need us.
The truth hit me then that she’d been right all along. I needed them, I needed Marco, and I knew that just like my family needed me to need them, he needed me to need him. So I let him know that I did.
Thank you.
He read the silent message in my eyes and in answer brushed his lips against my forehead in comfort. I closed my eyes, rested my head on his shoulder, and listened as the minister laid Jarrod Fisher to rest.
CHAPTER 27
Marco’s flat wasn’t anything like he’d described.
It was a fairly new build, a two-bedroom flat at St. Leonard’s Hill east of the university. It was small, but it was furnished in a masculine, contemporary style – it captured the idea of luxury on a budget. A large flat-screen TV hung on the wall across from the three-seater sofa in the open-plan living space. A small but modern kitchen was situated in the back of the room. There was a door in the middle of the back wall that I guessed led to the bedrooms.
Marco had told me his place was a dump. He’d told me that because if he’d taken me to his flat he would have had to hide the photographs of Dylan that hung on the walls. He would have had to hide the toy box in the corner of the room, and the action figures set up by the French window that overlooked the gardens.
But he couldn’t hide the second bedroom that I had no doubt was decorated for a little boy.
Leaving me to shrug out of my coat and take a seat on his black leather sofa, Marco marched determinedly into the kitchen and started brewing me a cup of tea. My face was frozen from the winter wind, but the chill that ran deep through the rest of my body was from having to watch a fifteen-year-old be buried on a day bright with winter sun and dark with bitter confusion.
“It’s not fair,” I murmured. “And I have to move past that. You’d go crazy, wouldn’t you? If you obsessed over the unfairness of it all?”
Marco poured hot water from the kettle into two mugs and then lifted his gaze to me. “It’s times like these it’s better to accept it and move on. But, yeah. It isn’t fair.” He moved back to me with the mugs, handed me one and then sat down close to me. His gorgeous eyes held sympathy and concern. “I’m sorry, Hannah. I know he was a good kid.”
I clutched the mug tightly in both hands, allowing the heat to seep into me. “Was it Ellie that told you about Jarrod?”
“Cole, actually.”
I raised an eyebrow. “I would have lost that bet.”
Marco settled his left hip into the back of the sofa, sliding his arm along it until his fingertips were close enough to touch my shoulder. “My question is, why didn’t you tell me?”
Perhaps it was too much to have this conversation after Jarrod’s funeral, but I knew it was time. Marco was here. He had come to me when I needed him without me even having to ask.
“I hate that it took the death of one of my kids to wake me the hell up,” I muttered angrily, not flinching from meeting his gaze even though I felt almost ashamed by my choices these last few months. Strike that. These last few years. “I thought if I could just get through this alone, then I could come to you after.”
His brows drew together. “Hannah, you broke up with me because I left you alone to deal with a miscarriage that almost cost you your life. Now you’re telling me you want me to leave you alone to deal with the shitty things that happen? I’m confused.”
“No. I thought I could and should do this alone, that it wasn’t fair to want to lean on you, but as soon as you were there I knew I needed you.” I swallowed hard and admitted, “And I’ll always need you.”
I watched as he leaned over to put his mug on the coffee table and when he faced me, his eyes were blazing. “Are you for real? Because I don’t know if I can take you turning away from me again.”
“The miscarriage… I don’t know how to explain what it did to me. The worst thing that ever happened to me before it was Ellie’s tumor. When we didn’t know if it was cancer or not, and even the time in the hospital and how scary it was to see her like that… I was thirteen and suddenly I realized we didn’t live forever. Of course I knew people died and I’d known people who’d lost family, but I’d never experienced loss for myself before. And then there was Ellie, a huge part of my life, a huge part of what made me happy, and there was a possibility that we were going to lose her. One of the worst parts of it all was seeing what it did to Mum and Dad. It was like they could barely breathe until they knew she was going to be okay.”
I felt my chest compress as the memories flooded me. “When I started to feel ill after you left all those years ago, I tried to explain it away to myself because there was this dark part of me, buried deep down, that was scared there was something really wrong with me like there had been for Ellie, and that I was going to put everyone through it all over again. That fear almost cost me my life. And yet… I didn’t learn my lesson. I put these blinders on, facing the world on my own as if that somehow makes up for the fact that underneath my bullshit I’m utterly petrified. I didn’t mean to hurt you because of that. I am…” I shook my head, knowing an apology wasn’t enough but giving one anyway. “I’m sorry. But I can promise I won’t ever do that you again. Ever.”