AMELIA

Was I really the person they were describing? I didn’t feel like it. In the heat of the moment, it felt like they were describing someone else. The suggestion that I was a domestic abuser or drunkard made me feel grimy. I methodically went through our relationship from the start until the end, and I began to remember things I’d said and the violence I’d been inflicted. Whatever Harry had told them must have been blown out of proportion, and he was no longer around to correct them. If they had this perception of me ever since we met, why wouldn’t they have intervened sooner?

I wouldn’t stand back and be lectured by Yvonne about drink and drugs. She chain-smoked an entire tobacco harvest each day and drank enough to kill herself ten times over. I could take or leave the drink, truthfully. I wasn’t addicted to it like Yvonne was. The tablets I was on were taking were prescribed to me by an actual doctor, and I didn’t take them often enough if anything. I’m sorry that I couldn’t be a saint like my darling sister-in-law Penelope in her perfect home and marriage, and I needed something extra just to feel normal. I resented what they’d said about it making me aggressive, and if Harry was there, he would have defended me. The more I mulled it over, the more I thought they were just trying to hurt me for no apparent reason.

I fully admit that we were going through a rough patch ever since we’d started trying for a baby. What with the house move and Harry changing jobs, we’d taken too much on at once. Nevertheless, I didn’t think the episodes of violence between us were regular enough to be considered a problem. Why would he want to have children with me if he was so scared of me? Harry always championed our relationship and fought for it, but that didn’t fit the image his family had of our marriage.

Poppy and Yvonne were standing in the bay window, staring at me in the car. I decided to start driving. I couldn’t stand to be in their gaze. I didn’t intend it, but instinctively, I’d started driving towards where Harry was buried. I suppose subconsciously, I needed to feel close to him, and I hadn’t visited the cemetery since the funeral. I parked the car and started the long walk to his grave. I took out my phone and sent James a text as I walked.

Did Harry hate me for all the arguments we had?

Harry yearned to solve the disputes between you. I can see he loved you very much.

James’ message confirmed to me what I thought. Either I was misremembering our entire marriage, or they were lying. I reached the grave; the flowers that had been left there had already started to rot after being constantly attacked by the Filey sea air. I removed the unsightly ones and tidied the grave up the best I could. I should have brought something with me.

“Harry,” I whispered, “if you felt like I was ever abusive to you, I’m sorry. I just loved you so much.”

Harry remained silent.

“Whatever you told your mother and sister, it’s fine. I’m just so sorry for everything that happened,” I said.

I was interrupted by the sound of a vehicle pulling into the car park in the distance, and a figure alighted from it and started walking towards me. As they got closer, I realised it was Kim, holding a bunch of flowers. She paused briefly once she’d recognised me but then continued the walk.

“Do you mind if I join you?” she asked.

“I could do with some company, actually,” I said, pointing at the flowers, “are those for Harry?”

“Yes, I thought I’d freshen them up while I was here.”

“That’s kind of you.”

We both stood at the grave in silent reflection for a minute or two after Kim placed the bouquet on the ground. I felt myself starting to cry, and I turned to Kim, who must have been crying the entire time.

“Did Harry ever tell you about any arguments between us?” I asked.

“No. Like what?” Kim responded.

“Poppy and Yvonne have been spreading around that he’d told them I used to get drunk and hit him.”

Kim looked shocked when I mentioned it and started shaking her head. “No, he said nothing of the sort to me,” she said.

“I’m starting to think Harry wasn’t the man I thought he was,” I confessed.

“How so?”

“It turned out he did loan a huge amount of money from the Broadheads. Oh, and he thought he had a son from a one-night stand a decade ago. That ended up being a lie, though. He was actually being blackmailed and kept it all a secret from me.”

“Oh my god,” Kim gasped.

“I just can’t help but think if he was lying about that, what else was he lying about?”

“What do you mean?” Kim asked.

Years of jealousy and paranoia broke through the defensive line of antidepressants I’d built up in my system. My quiet tears of reflection quickly turned to outright sobbing. Kim looked increasingly concerned and confused. She touched my arm to console me, but I batted it away impulsively. For all I knew, she was one of the secrets he had kept.

“He was cheating on me. The entire time,” I confessed.

“Oh god, who with?” Kim asked.

“I don’t know. But I could just feel it. I’d felt it ever since we moved to Manchester.”

“Harry wouldn’t do that.”

It was innocent enough what Kim had said, and if the roles were reversed, I would probably mustered up the same lame response. Yet, she didn’t know Harry like I did. She didn’t hear the constant excuses to get out of the flat and the times he would just leave me alone in it for hours. I knew that there was someone else. It was the only thing that made sense. I just didn’t know who. It could have been a string of women, for all I knew. I despised people speaking for Harry, and I was the only one who truly knew and loved him. Everyone else needed to stay in their lane. I thought Kim could help me get to the truth, but she was starting to become a nuisance. I just wanted to be alone in my grief, but like magic, she appeared whenever I was at my lowest moments.

“Oh, piss off, Kim,” I said matter-of-factly.

“Excuse me?” Kim gasped.

“You didn’t know him. You had a short relationship with him a lifetime ago. Keep your opinions to yourself,” I said scathingly.

“You know what? I’m off. I thought about turning around as soon as I spotted you at his grave, but somehow I felt sorry for you.”

“Sorry for me?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t need someone like you taking pity on me. You aren’t welcome here, anyway.”

“Fine. And for the record, Harry didn’t need to tell me about you hitting him. I saw the bruises with my own eyes,” Kim said with her finger pointed at my face. She turned around dramatically and thundered back down the path to the car park.

Everyone thought it, apart from me, it seemed. I’d convinced myself that Yvonne and Poppy were just being cruel and making things up, but Kim shared the same notion. My hands and feet started trembling erratically, the pins and needles moving up my limbs to the back of my neck. I hadn’t taken the tablets that day, and I could feel the panic attack setting in. I hastily rifled through my bag, looking for the pills, but I struggled to find them. I emptied the bag out on the grass next to Harry’s grave and saw the tablets. I frantically took two and lay on the grass, waiting for the panic attack to subdue.

But it didn’t go away.

Usually, two tablets and a few minutes on my back would do the trick, but it wasn’t working. I couldn’t stop my mind racing. Every single argument I’d ever had with Harry flashed in my mind like a gruesome slideshow. It featured every time I screamed in his face. Or each instance that I’d put my hands around his neck. I remembered the injuries. I heard every vicious put-down and all of the wicked cruelty I’d subjected him to. I recalled every single time I’d falsely convinced him it was all his fault or he was to blame for my actions. I tried to ignore it, but the panic-induced horror coursing through my system forced me to look at it head-on. Everything they had said to me was true.

I started feeling faint and dizzy; the clouds in the sky started to swirl and blur. A sharp pain shot from my left shoulder to the right, and I clutched my chest in agony. The extreme nausea hit, and I took another two tablets. Followed by more; I had lost count. The tablets weren’t working, and I could feel my heart slamming against my rib cage as the panic attack grew stronger and stronger. That was it; I was going to die at Harry’s grave. And at that moment, I thought I deserved it. Just when I thought the panic attack was at its peak, it kicked up into another gear. I’d never had a panic attack so strong in my life, and I was convinced this was the end. Just the thought of that made it even worse; I could barely feel my arms and legs at that point as I thrashed intensely on the floor.

I didn’t know whether it was the copious amounts of drugs in my system or if I was actually having a heart attack, but I started to sweat profusely. I was wheezing and struggling to take every breath. I was still on my hands and knees in the dirt, too dizzy to even think about standing up. The delicate sway of the grass and trees in the graveyard slowed until they were perfectly still. Every bird and creature fell totally silent and stared at me alarmingly. Even the breeze had ceased. I felt like I was trapped in a place devoid of time itself.

Was this it? Was this the end?

I felt terrified of what was coming, and I couldn’t help but think this was how Harry felt in his final moments.

“Amelia,” a familiar voice said to me.

I’d recognise his voice anywhere.