Chapters (46)
I make to go to the lounge but can’t get past the ruddy boxes lined up in the hallway. My hand rests on one of them, my fingers curling to ease it open, uncovering the clothes we’ve decided should now be worn by someone else. I pick out the top item, a red jumper I remember her wearing the Christmas before last, and do what I have resisted doing with company around. I bring it to my face and I breathe her in. Deeply. Willing her to come alive to my senses. Willing her to be here with me. Willing her back. Desperately trying to grab hold of every last part of her that lingers in the fibres of the jumper.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I whisper, the heat of my breath hitting the fabric along with drops of tears and snot. ‘I’m so sorry. So sorry. I’m so so so sorry.’
My knees go. I’m down on the ground now, cradling a box of my dead wife’s belongings in my arms as I rock back and forth.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I repeat, unable to stop the words going around and around on a loop.
Sorry.
Sorry for not being able to protect her.
Sorry for not paying more attention to what I now know were symptoms.
Sorry for telling her the ache in her armpit was probably nothing.
Sorry for not making her go to the doctor’s sooner.
Sorry for that one day last May when we both went to bed angry without declaring our love.
Sorry for finding her irritating when she kept talking during Ozark.
Sorry for not complimenting her more because she deserved to know she looked amazing every single day. Even when she rolled out of bed hungover, her face covered in smudged makeup from the night before.
Sorry for being a pain in the arse sometimes.
Sorry for not having sex with her more.
Sorry for being pathetic.
Sorry for the times we sat in silence when we could’ve been talking about everything and anything.
Sorry for no longer being able to see the beauty she saw in the world.
Sorry for not being able to stop death.
Sorry for having to be here without her.
Sorry for all the ways I’ve failed her.
Sorry.
I’m sorry for being so sorry.
I just miss her so much.
