Chapter 3
You sleep, you dream, you wake, but you never, ever, forget.
You are sitting across from Flora and you barely recognize her. She’s an adult now and she’s two years shy of 30 and you’re getting older too.
You’re 50 now and you miss her, your Dani, every single moment of every single day. You tell Flora as much, in so many words, but not entirely. Flora doesn’t remember who she is, she doesn’t remember who you are, she doesn’t remember her sacrifice and what you’ve lost in return.
She’s crying over the fear of losing her love, her light, and you can’t fault her for that because you know how that feels. You know because there’s a hole in your heart at the bottom of a lake and nothing can be done now to fix it.
Flora tells you how he’s her forever person and you know because she was yours.
Dani was your forever, in every sense of the word, and now she’s destined to be lonely without you forever.
“How am I supposed to live a life that he’s not in?”
“You shouldn’t be thinking of losing each other at all.” You didn’t. You never thought of what it would be like to lose her. You never wanted to. “Don’t let that hang over your happiness right now.”
One day at a time, Poppins. That’s what you would tell her.
“Enjoy that easy silence with him. It is rare, what you’ve got.” You know this too. You had the rarest of loves. The type of love that hurts to speak of once it’s gone. The type of love that you haven’t mourned.
You can’t bare to start.
“But, when the time does come, years and year from now, mind you, it will be hard every day and it won’t get easier.” You can barely stand to sleep in a bed without her and you haven’t in years.“But, eventually, after some time you’ll find little moments, little pieces of your life that remind you of him.” Dani, Dani, Dani.
“And they will be silly or dumb,” And those are your favorite
“Or they’ll be sad and you’ll cry for hours.” And those come the most.
“But there will still be a piece of him and you’ll hold him tight. It’ll be like he’s here, with you. Even though he’s gone.” You know she’s here. You can feel her, you can smell her.
And for all the bitterness you have felt towards this girl, this child really for years now because you faulted her for taking the love of your life away; you know that if Dani was sitting here, on Flora’s wedding day, looking at her, she would do the same thing all over again.
Because that’s who Dani was. And Dani wouldn’t, Dani could never, sacrifice a child. Not for herself, not even for you.
You were 50 when you made peace with her being gone.
Dani really did love kids. That’s obvious, really, considering how you met her. The awkward au pair that tripped into your heart when she had no business being there to begin with.
You were horrible with children, dreadful really. Your temper was short and you could barely stand to humour their good nature. But not Dani. Dani was perfect with them. She had edge and she had bite but she was sweet and she was,
This was the closest to family you ever got. You never had any interest in child bearing or child raising or children in general, really and these, they got on your nerves all the same. But you were protective of them, of this family you had built.
Miles was a little bastard of a child who would rattle your cage more often than not, but he had his sweet side and you marveled at his brain. He was wise beyond his years, but of course he had to be. He was thrust into the role of an adult at only 9 - watching out for his sister, this estate, his future wealth.
Flora was a sweet girl. She was bright and she was happy and she had a vocabulary that was comedy, even to you. But they were work and they required discipline and constant attention and care.
So you loved them for what they were. But they were kids and you had already tried taking care of kids once but you were a kid and kids can’t raise kids and you never really wanted to try again.
But Dani loved them and she was so good with them and it was insanely attractive and you couldn’t help but show off in front of her when it came to them sometimes.
You were the coolest, Flora would say, but Dani was brilliant.
You watch her, now, from across the garden. They were out in the field, and Miles was chasing butterflies while Flora was searching for clovers in the ground. You watched Dani as she laughed at whatever Miles showed her and you thought to yourself, what a good mother she would be. You let a smile pull at your lips as you thought of it, her, with a young child in her arms.
You think about what it would be like to see those kids with bright blue eyes and curly blonde hair and how she could chase them around on a cool summer night, fire bugs lighting up the sky.
You think about how she disciplines these kids, here and now, in a way that makes your blood pressure rise and your heart beat in your throat. You think about how Owen and Hannah and even Rebecca constantly would coddle them and make excuses for their behavior but Dani, not Dani, she wouldn’t.
She was stern and she was brash but she was commanding in a way that made you wonder, just for a fleeting moment. And when you would scoop them up in your arms and help her put them to bed, you would wonder some more.
You think - maybe kids wouldn’t be so bad.
You watch her, watching them.
They come into the shop every week; a mother and her daughter. They come every Monday and you build them something to take home and smell and appreciate for the week.
And while you speak with the woman about her day and her week and what they have been doing on the farm, it soon became Dani’s ritual to take the young girl by the hand and let her pick out just one flower, on the house, to make the arrangement special just for her.
You would watch them, out of the corner of your eye, and you would try not to let the pain that began to hollow out in your chest eat you up. It was in the way Dani just looked at this young girl. It was the same way she looked at a boy in the park with his dog on your Sunday walks or a little girl in a little dress all muddied on the front from playing in the rain. It was the same way she looked at Flora and Miles all those years ago. It was the look of a woman who so desperately wanted to be a mother.
It hurt to watch them because you already knew the answer to the question you were afraid to ask.
You don’t ask, not yet. But it’s tumbling through your mind all day and through dinner, and dishes, and - you’re curled up on the couch now and she’s got her nose in a magazine and you think it’s better now and all of a sudden it’s coming out of your mouth and,
“Fancy having one of those for ourselves then, Poppins?”
And it was a joke, mostly to get her to talk to you. But now she’s looking at you with a furrow in her brow and you can tell she has no idea what you’re talking about.
“A wee little Dani running around, dirtying the place up, spreading germs and crumbs.” You smile and brush a lock of her bangs behind her ear but then you see she’s looking at you with a sad smile and you see both eyes, blue and brown, begin to water.
“You know I do,” she said. But then she shook her head and this time, with a shake in her voice, “You know we can’t.”
You nodded because you did know. You really did, but,
“We could adopt you know? Trick somebody into giving us their little one. You can, anyway. Or I can. One of us- we can, Dani.” You rub your hand through her hair as she leans against your shoulder, curling into your side. “If you want, we can.”
She leans back to kiss you. Just a brief rub of her lips across yours but you can feel the sorrow pouring out of her already.
“I want one, Jamie.” And you’re about to make the biggest decision of your life if that’s what she wants. “I want one, with you, so badly.” But the way her voice trails off. But, but, but.
“I don’t want to leave them without a mother.” And that’s her fear and you know it’s valid because it’s your fear too. “I don’t want to leave you without a wife and them without a mother. I-I-I couldn’t-”
She’s crying now, full body, and you are suddenly realizing that maybe you should have left well enough alone and just kept your mouth shut.
You bring her head to your chest and you coo in her ear to breathe. It’s several minutes before she seems to collect herself and your shirt is wet and snotty and you’ll need to change before you climb into bed but it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. Nothing but her.
It’s silent for a while, until, “I’m so sorry, Jamie.” And that’s so ridiculous because she’s already given you so much that your heart is full every day and this was never something you wanted or needed. So you kiss her head and you say,
“I have you, that’s all I need.” You mean it in every way.
But you wish you could give this to her.
You didn’t feel like there were any words you could give him that would help, so you stood in silence with your hands in your pockets and you listened.
You listened to people pass through and wish Owen their best. They gave him encouraging words of support. Told him that she was in a better place. You scoffed at that, how could anybody know?
Nobody speaks of her life, but only her death. They speak of her moving on, of her passing, but they never speak of her living, and her thriving. You think what a waste of years that feels like. That anything she accomplished was simply forgotten because her mind was no longer hers. You think of what a shame that would be to become a forgotten memory even while you were still here.
You had known Owen for close to four years now and each year you watched the way in which he spoke of his mum alter and change. He was a brilliant man, a kind man, and you watched how her illness ate at him, rotted at his core. You watched how it consumed his life, his entire life. He couldn’t be happy, he could only be with her.
You can’t imagine wanting to live a life like that. Like either of them. You couldn’t imagine wanting to lose who you were, slowly, becoming somebody that you didn’t recognize and that even those closest to you didn’t know you at all.
Put me out of my misery, that’s what you would say. Just shoot me.
You’d hate to be a burden. You’d hate for somebody to have to constantly remind you to turn off the stove or lock the doors. You’d hate not being able to drive yourself or forget the face of the person you loved. You’d hate that.
And for Owen - you have to imagine that while the pain of losing her is raw, there must be peace in her moving on. She was gone long ago, barely able to recognize him or remember their lives together. You can’t imagine that burden, that emotional exhaustion of caring for somebody who is slowly losing themselves and losing their place.
Owen looks blank. His face is tired, drawn in, dark. He looks like he hasn’t slept in days and that the mere work of being here has nearly devoured him entirely.
You think you’d want to be selfish and walk away before you ever got yourself in a situation where you would have to be the caretaker of somebody in their final days. You think it’s be too hard.
And as you watch them lower her into the ground you think, you’re lucky you don’t have anybody mean enough to you to ever have to go through this.
You were 43 and you were alone.
There wasn’t a funeral. There was nothing to bury and you couldn’t bring yourself to put an empty coffin in the ground. She was so much more than a hollow box sitting in the ground.
You couldn’t stand the thought of standing in a room, dressed in black, with people telling you they were sorry for your loss. You didn’t want to hear people tell you she was in a better place or with God now. She wasn’t. She wasn’t at all. She was at Bly and she was at the bottom of a lake and she wasn’t better off now than she was when she was in your bed.
You didn’t want to be a widow.
It took hours for you to pull yourself off the property and away from her. You waited the entire night to see if she would emerge from the water and walk the property but she never did.
By dawn the next day, you found the nearest hotel to Bly so you could stay as close as you could in case she came back. You wanted to make sure she could find you. You waited. Waited to see if maybe your Lady in the Lake would follow you.
Each moment that passed, sitting alone, felt like a century. You sat in the tub until it grew so cold that you shook. You shook and you cried and you hoped that something, somebody, would come and take you back to her. That she would show her face in your reflection.
You couldn’t bear the thought of going back home. Not without her. Not to an empty bed, an empty flat, and empty life. You couldn’t bear seeing her stuff, seeing her clothes and her shoes and her books.
So you stayed in England for a while. You lost count of how much time, but eventually it became too painful to wake up every morning and realize she still hadn’t come. So you went to Paris and showed up at Owen’s door. He didn’t have to ask why you were alone. He already knew.
Eventually it was time to fly home, to clean up your life and take all the next steps.
You called her mother and she was curt, but thanked you for letting her know. You called Henry and he offered you whatever he could. You called the bits and pieces of friends that were important to Dani over the years. They shared your grief
You didn’t tell anybody what happened. You simply said that she had passed. Most didn’t ask, not to you, though it was probably gossip in the town. You assume they thought she was sick, that she took her own life, that there was an accident.
But it was none of those things and all of those things at once.
She wasn’t sick, but what was inside of her ate away at the person she was, the person you loved. It wasn’t an accident, it was on purpose. It was headstrong. It was lingering in the shadows for years. And, mostly, she didn’t take her own life, she saved yours.
Dani had paid the ultimate sacrifice and now you both were cast to spend the rest of your time on this dreadful earth alone.
You were 43 and all you wanted was one more day.
You walked back to the hotel under the lights. She was silent as looped her arm through yours and laced her fingers through your hand deep in the pocket of your coat.
You turned to her and smiled and you loved this woman.
It was your honeymoon, of sorts. You had decided after you exchanged rings and vows in the comfort of your own home that it was only proper to take a trip somewhere romantic and when she suggested Paris, Owen, and Europe you jumped at the chance to escape.
“So it was a nice meal, what’n it?” You squeezed at her fingers and she turned to look at you.
She nodded and smiled but it didn’t reach her eyes. You knew why. Owen said the kids didn’t remember a thing. Didn’t remember you or her or,
“The name is a bit chippy but I think Hannah would have gone bonkers over it.” Another nod and hollow smile. “Didn’t care much for his hair though.”
Silence.
“I was thinking tomorrow we could take a train out to the country. Maybe a winery.”
She nods and looks out at the river.
"Hey.” You stop in the road and pull her to face you. “Talk to me, Poppins.”
“It’s nothing, really.” But her eyes look down and you can see them dulling in the reflection of the moon.
“Dani,” you duck to catch them and when you do she locks on, “it’s okay to be angry.”
She lets out a deep breath and she nods quickly. Trying to convince herself to have this moment, this moment to be upset and sad and whatever else she wants to feel.
“I-I-I just can’t believe they don’t remember.” And neither can you. Not really. You understand that trauma has a different effect on kids than it does on adults and there’s likely a million reasons they don’t remember any of what happened at Bly. And you’re a little hurt that they don’t remember you but you’re mostly hurt that they don’t remember her.
Her; who gave up everything, is giving to eventually give up everything, just to protect them. Her; who is saddled with this curse that seeps into every pore of your lives together. You both are paying the price so that they could go on not remembering and it’s hard. It’s hard to understand.
But you don’t want to spend your honeymoon angry or sad or confused. You want to spend it in love, with her. You don’t want to spend a minute of any day doing anything but loving her. So,
“Well, I’m fucking pissed. Those little snot nosed twats.” And you’re kidding, sort of, so she laughs and you smile and take her into your arms.
Dani Clayton and that damn laugh.
“Jamie Clayton.” You roll it around on your tongue for a moment. “I’dunno Poppins, don’t you think it’s a bit... Americana for me?”
She rolls her eyes and kicks at your thigh to move over in the bed.
“Why don’t you just take my name instead, then?” You ask her, half kidding, as you pull back the sheets for her to climb in beside you.
“It isn’t even your real name. It’s a name you made up.” You can hear some annoyance in her voice.
“Ah but…” You kiss her on the side of her neck and let your tongue roll over her skin. “Dani Taylor seems to have a nice lil’ ring to it, I reckon.”
“No.” But her no doesn’t feel so much like a no when it turns into a moan at the end.
You let your hand slip inside her shirt and your fingers grip at her ribcage. You’re just trying to take the piss out of her, of course. You have no intention of keeping Taylor.
“But you love to say my name.” You take her earlobe in between your teeth and you bite down.
“Jamie-”
“-See-”
“-Shut up.”
And later, when she lies beneath you, sweaty and sated, you whisper in her ear,
“Jamie Clayton it is.”
It’s addressed to ‘Jamie Clayton’ and it hurts because you never actually got around to changing until a few weeks before she was gone.
You kept putting it off, like you’d have time later on. Another time, maybe. Another night, maybe.
You went through so many of the last years like that. Like you’d have time later. Later, later, later. You wish you had never put anything off until later. You just hoped that later would never come. Until later was gone and all you had was before.
Now you lived your days in before. You lived in the what you should have done sooner, what you could have done better, what you wanted to do longer. All of those were to love her.
The idea of seeing them all again stung. You had heard from Owen that Flora was engaged a few months ago and you never dreamed that you’d be invited to the wedding. You hadn’t spoken to her since she was a girl, a child. You hadn’t spoken to Henry since Dani died. It hurt too much.
But Henry invited you and you suspect that it has something to do with what you and Dani had to give up in order for his daughter to have her day, her life.
You weren’t going to go. It would hurt too much and, if you were being completely honest, you were always scared to go somewhere she might not know, that she might not be able to find you. Even after all this time.
But then Owen called when you never sent your RSVP back and he said,
“Jamie, she’d want you to go.” And for a moment you are angry that anybody would tell you what she would want because she’s your wife and you’re the one who ran out of time to love her. But you also know he’s right and you know she’d be mad to know you were even hesitating.
Dani never hesitated, not for a moment, not when she knew something was right.
It’s my time.
I will wait for you until it’s yours too.
I love you completely.
Dani
You read it five times before you put it back on the dresser.
It can’t be. Not yet.
You were 52 when you got sick.
The doctor said it was inoperable and that you had four to six months.
Everyone looked at you and spoke to you with pity - like you were dying - but really; you were getting ready to go home.
“Are you ready now?” She motions to the suitcase at your feet.
You watched her close as she pulled a pair of your ratty old sweatpants over her legs. Her skin was so smooth, soft, perfect.
You had a flight in the morning, Heathrow to JFK. Two tickets, one way. She asked you at least ten times that night if you were sure, if you were ready to give up that little flat about the boring little pub. You were sure.
“I think I’ve got just about everything here.” You turn to her and throw the last of your sweatshirts in your suitcase.
You hadn’t worked out the details yet. You hadn’t figured out how you were going to pay for things once Henry’s check ran out. You didn’t know where to go once you got to America or what you were going to do. You didn’t even know how long you were going to have with her.
But you weren’t going to turn back. There’s no way you were going to let her go, not now, not when you just got her.
“You know, I’m getting kind of hungry.” She says and your stomach growls.
“They have some food at the pub downstairs.” It’s crap and it’s nothing like Owen’s but it’s food and you both haven’t eaten a proper meal in days.
“Fancy a boring lil’ drink then, Govna.” She says in that god forsaken cockney accent and you laugh at her while you wrap her up in your arms.
“Only if you promise to never say ‘Govna’ again.” You kiss her quickly on the lips and the taste is so uniquely Dani and suddenly, like a train, it hits,
“This is my favorite of us.”
“I know it is.” She pushes the hair out of your face and behind your ear.
You remember, you remember, “This was the first night of the rest of our lives.” And it was. You never left her side after.
“But the math is wrong.” You start to think about it. You notice a scar on her arm that she got after falling off a ladder in the store. “We are supposed to be much younger.”
“Thirteen years.” She nods her head and you turn to look in the closest mirror. There’s gray in your hair but you are 43 again.
“How-” You start to ask and she shakes her head and kisses you again.
“Do you want to go back?” She offers you and you know what she means. Back to life, back to the hospital bed where you last fell asleep. Back to living without her.
“Not at all.”
And then,
“Why didn’t you come sooner?”
And then,
“I’ve been here the whole time,” And you knew she had. You always felt her. “And you weren’t ready. Are you ready now?”
And it’s easy as it was the first time she asked you.
“As long as it’s with you, Poppins.”
You were 53 when she came back to you. And you’d do it all over again.