Christopher let out a long breath and sat back in his seat, rubbing his eyes. So he was capable of falling in love. It was proof that, buried among all his urges, his maliciousness and his cruelty, there was still some normality to him.
Chapter 68
JADE
It was as if Kevin had saved up every last piece of verve and strength for his wedding, because fifteen days after saying ‘I do’, Jade buried her husband.
His decline had been noticeable by all, although none of the family spoke of it. Instead, they went about their day-to-day duties of running the farm and helping to make him as comfortable as possible. Jade aided him with his multiple medications and the town doctor visited twice daily to administer extra pain relief when necessary.
When Kevin’s matchstick-thin legs finally gave up, rendering him completely immobile, she kept him company in his bedroom, whether he was conscious or not, stroking his arm and occasionally being rewarded with a gentle hand squeeze in return. She’d read that a person’s hearing can be one of the last things to go, so she’d talk to him about nothing in particular. She didn’t want him to leave the world with a melancholic silence for a soundtrack.
Jade felt helpless for much of the time, watching her best friend slowly slip away. In his final days, and with the use of his body almost at an end, she would dab the inside of his mouth with a wet cotton swab to put some moisture back into his tongue and applied Vaseline to his chapped lips. She’d assist her father-in-law to change Kevin’s soiled bed sheets and bathed him with wet wipes. She couldn’t help but wonder that if the unthinkable ever happened to her, who would love her in the same unselfish way Kevin had? Her family aside, there’d be no one, she realised.
It was Kevin’s death rattle that scared Jade the most: an awful crackling, cackling noise his throat and chest as his lungs brought to the surface a putrid smelling liquid that made his breath reek. In his remaining hours, the whole family sat around his bed, waiting for his chest to fall one last time.
When that moment came, Jade almost thought she could feel Kevin’s soul quietly leave his body and move on to its next journey. The morning sun outside was beginning to rise. It would be the first in twenty-five years without Kevin beneath it.
Susan and Dan held on to each other, quietly mourning the loss of their son and, without thinking, Jade instinctively reached out to comfort Mark. To her surprise, he reciprocated, wrapping his strong arms around her. In that moment, she could feel everything that he felt, absorbing his months of pent-up frustration as his body and mind surrendered to grief. She could feel his longing for her. She felt it too. Unable to act upon it, he hung on to her with all his might, scared to let go of a second person he loved so soon after the first.
The funeral was conducted by the same reverend who had married Jade and Kevin. But instead of cramming themselves into his tiny, occasional church, they congregated on the farm, as per Kevin’s wishes. Mark and his father had dug the grave themselves under the shade of trees, next to the headstones of his grandparents about a mile north of the house.
The reverend made it clear to Kevin’s mourners that they were there to celebrate Kevin’s life and not to dwell upon how short it was. He spoke of what a wonderful young man Kevin had been and how many lives he’d touched. But when Jade heard her name mentioned, she felt like an impostor. She had no regrets about being Kevin’s friend, but she could never have loved him in the same way he had loved her.
As her husband’s coffin slowly descended into the earth, only now could Jade admit to herself how much she had fallen for Mark. She hadn’t merely transferred her affection from Kevin to Mark; everything she felt for him was genuine. Even in the worst of circumstances, when they were side by side at his brother’s grave, his presence made her stomach flutter. She was aware it was completely inappropriate but, by the way he couldn’t bear to make eye contact with her, she knew he shared what she was feeling.
However, with the exception of the moment immediately after Kevin’s passing when Mark unravelled, he’d since held a tight grip on his emotions and prevented himself from unspooling any further. Any communication between them returned to limited, polite smiles and acknowledgements – and she was growing to hate him for it.
‘It’s good to have them here when they’re so far away,’ explained Susan, as the mourners began to disperse. ‘Kevin always loved spending time with his grandparents, so I’m glad they’re together, looking out for each other. Like the reverend said, let’s go and celebrate Kevin’s life, not mourn it.’
Jade smiled and held Susan’s hand as they walked the rest of the way back to the house. But before she joined the others in the dining room for food and drink, Jade made her way to Kevin’s bedroom. She felt eternally grateful for having got to know Kevin and for him asking her to be his wife, but even more so now that she would never have to break his heart by telling him he wasn’t the one.
She lay on his bed and remembered her friend who’d made her feel so special. Theirs was the only relationship she’d ever been in where she’d felt truly loved, and it pained her that she could not reciprocate. She had given it her best shot, but the moment she felt the explosions there was no denying who she wanted to be with. The only way she could handle her suppressed emotions was to either furiously punch the pillows until the stuffing came out or, for the first time in her adult life, simply cry. She chose the latter.
Chapter 69
NICK
Nick’s final week at the advertising agency moved cripplingly slowly.
He sat at his desk looking over a spreadsheet on his monitor, reminding himself of what he had left to do both in and out of work before he could take his leap of faith. Often he became distracted, googling images of the new town in New Zealand where he’d be living.
With the exception of his remaining workdays, everything in Nick’s world felt like it was travelling at the speed of light, and he buzzed with the thrill of trying to keep up with it all. The most difficult and gut-wrenching parts of it had been dealt with – not for a moment did he doubt his decisions were right – and now he could look forward to the thought of his future with Alex.
Just days after he’d finalised his separation from Sally, Nick and Alex had consummated their relationship. They’d known each other’s personality almost as well as they’d known their own, but exploring each other’s physicality had been a completely different ball game – quite literally. There were awkward fumbles, new tastes and strange manoeuvres to discover, but there’d also been incredible sensations to enjoy – while others he wasn’t so sure about. And he realised that just because they were the same sex, it didn’t necessarily mean they knew how another man’s body worked. However, they both agreed it was something that they could and would work on.
It was Nick who had tentatively suggested that he join Alex on his return home to New Zealand. Of course Alex was delighted by the proposal, although he confessed to being daunted by the thought of introducing his family to a man called Nick when they were expecting a girl called Mary. But they would cross that bridge when they came to it.
Nick’s boss agreed to him taking a six-month sabbatical. Nick hadn’t explained the real purpose behind it, only that since his break-up from Sally, he needed to go travelling and ‘find himself’. However, with Alex, he knew exactly where he was.