Page 88 of Postscript

‘Jesus, haven’t you been? The guests are going to arrive soon and we’ve got nothing! I should have run this speech by you before.’ There’s sweat on his upper lip, beads on his forehead.

‘I offered and you said no. You wanted to do it on your own. Now hear me out.’

He calms.

‘I haven’t been honest with you. This whole time I’ve been going along with your enthusiasm, swept along by your mission, but I’d be doing you a disservice if I didn’t stop this.’

One jab to the heart, and he readies himself for more.

‘Your ideas are wonderful. They’re exciting. They’re moving. They’re filled with love … but mostly they’re for you.’ I pause to see how he’ll take it and it’s not looking good. I continue. ‘They’re so you feel included in the moments. And also so that they’ll feel you’re there, but you will already be in their minds in these moments. If you don’t do all this, it doesn’t mean that you disappear.’

He looks downward, emotion gathering and bubbling around his jaw.

‘What if Casper doesn’t want to drive? What if he does and Claire wants to teach him? What if Eva never gets married? What if she marries a woman and what if Claire wants to make the speech? You can’t decide their futures for them.’

‘I hear what you’re saying,’ he says, voice shaking. ‘But I don’t want them to feel like they’re missing something. Growing up empty, like there’s a hole in every place in their life. An empty place at the table where their dad should be.’

I think about whether to say it or not. Even Gerry thought about what Paul hasn’t, his final letter paved the way for his space to be filled. ‘What if the seat isn’t empty?’

‘Oh wow. Holly that’s just … Jesus. You saved that one for a good moment,’ he says angrily. ‘This is bullshit, I’m done. I’ll record my own message.’

He storms out of the room.

I chase after him, afraid. My aim was to fill the PS, I Love You Club with hope, but now I’ve broken his heart even further, a man who’s facing the end of his life. Well done, Holly. I race out of the conference room, through the bar, past the photo booth and a box of silly clothes ready for the party festivities, and out the door of the bar. He’s sitting outside, at a picnic table decorated with pink and silver balloons, looking out at the view. I’m sure he would rather be left alone but I’m not finished yet. I’m not finished until he understands. I approach him and my heels crunch over the pebbles. He turns around to check on his company, then back to the view again.

‘Go away, Holly, we’re done.’

I sit opposite him anyway. He looks out, still ignoring me but at least not challenging me. I take this as positive encouragement under the circumstances.

I take a deep breath. ‘Halfway through my husband’s letters, I wished he’d stop.’

That gets his attention. ‘Now you’re being honest. You think you could have told us all this a few months ago?’ he asks, but the anger is gone.

‘When Gerry died, I was in a dark miserable fucking slump that I couldn’t get out of. That’s how it is. Just shit. I was angry, I was sad, everything was unfair. Why and how did the world keep turning without him in it? Poor me, that’s what I honestly kept thinking. I wasn’t strong. I wasn’t wise. I didn’t handle it well. I gave up. The letters gave me purpose. Companionship. More of him that I craved. His letters forced me to get up and get out. He got me moving, and then, when I was back to life again, I felt that waiting every month for another letter held me back. Every new letter was a reminder that he was gone, that everyone around me was moving on. Friends were getting engaged, pregnant, and I was still waiting for more letters, for direction from my dead husband, afraid to do anything for myself in case it clashed with the next mission. I loved them, but resented them at the same time. After a year, the letters stopped and I knew that was the end. Closure.

‘The right letter can be a blessing; the wrong one can be dangerous. It can be a setback, it can trap you in a dangerous place where you’re living in between. My husband got my letters right because he knew me, he thought about me. If he’d continued writing letters for my whole life … it wouldn’t work, because he doesn’t know me now. If we had children, maybe he wouldn’t know that somebody helped raise them, loved them, maybe even called him dad or walked them up the aisle. You can’t replace people, Paul, you’ll never be replaced, but you can replace roles.

‘By writing your letters, or filming your videos, you can’t write others out. I know you can’t see into the future, nobody’s asking you to be perfect, but if your wish is to be there for your family – for Claire, for Casper and Eva – then you can’t decide their futures for them. You won’t always get to be a part of their every day. But the memory of you will.’ I think of how I felt Gerry fill my body with his energy at Bert’s funeral. ‘And maybe you will get to be there in another way, maybe they’ll feel you in ways that you can’t plan or imagine. I believe that now.’

I stop speaking and stare straight ahead at the fields that surround the castle. I wait for him to stand and leave, but after a moment he’s still there. I sneak a look at him and he’s rubbing tears from his cheeks.

I hurry around to him and sit beside him, and wrap my arms around him. ‘I’m sorry, Paul.’

‘Don’t be sorry,’ he says, voice trembling. ‘That’s the best advice anybody ever gave me.’

I smile, relieved, but I feel his aching sadness; a pressing weight on my chest. ‘I should have said it a long time ago. To you all.’

‘I probably wouldn’t have listened.’ He wipes his eyes. ‘I’m dying,’ he says, finally. ‘I’m just trying to do everything to give them more of me.’

‘I know, but you have to leave room for them to remember you themselves.’ A thought strikes me, clear and vivid and it’s directed at myself. ‘And they can’t allow the ghost of you to take someone else’s place.’

After meeting with Paul, I give up on the idea of gathering with my family and go home. I take Gerry’s letters from my bedside locker, never far from me after all these years, and I open the one that I need to examine with a different pair of eyes.

Gerry’s fourth letter was one I treasured and was grateful for. In it, he encouraged me to rid myself of his possessions – not everything, of course, but he guided me as to what to keep and what to lose, what to give away and to whom. He told me I didn’t need his things to feel him with me, that he’d always be there wrapping his arms around me, guiding me. Gerry was wrong. At the time I did need his things to feel him with me. I smelled his T-shirts I refused to wash and hugged myself in his sweaters to fool myself into believing his arms were around me. This letter was one of my favourites because it kept me busy, it wasn’t a one-off event, it took me one month. It was weeks of work, gathering items, reminiscing, holding on then letting go as I allocated homes for them.

I wish I’d taken more time before following Gerry’s instructions. I wish I’d thought about my life more carefully and about what I would need. Instead he instructed me based on the woman I was when he knew me, instead of the woman I became when he was gone, and there are items that I gave away that I wish I’d kept and, most importantly, there are precious belongings of his that he told me to keep that I know I shouldn’t have. I kept them because he told me to, and I used him as my excuse for my own needs and greed.

It was delivering Bert’s letter to Rita’s sister that has played on my mind for some time. You can’t blame the dead, Rachel had blasted, respecting her mother’s final wishes, as though the final decisions of the dying are the correct ones, sacred and untouchable. I used to agree with her, but perhaps we’re wrong. Perhaps the ones who leave us behind don’t always see the bigger picture, but instead place it in our hands with trust in us to make better decisions.