The packing had begun in earnest now, even the books in Tom’s study beginning to gather in large cardboard boxes along one wall. The new house was starting to take shape, at least in her mind, and in the plans she drew when sitting around at a loose end –where each piece of furniture would sit, which paintings would hang where, what colour each wall would be. She’d bought the paint for Mika’s room – bright yellow, according to Mika’s demands - and it sat by the door ready to go.
But for now, one more bookshelf almost empty. Just two more after this; Tom really did have too many books, that’s what this proved. Though perhaps they would be useful now, with all the empty space she had to fill. Oh how nice it would be, having space.
She heaved the box on top of one of the stacks, scrawling a code on top with permanent marker. What next? She was starting to get into the swing of this, of sorting everything into boxes and bags and bin liners and tidy stacks.
“Hi mum, I’m going out.”
She looked up. “Oh, hi Mars, sure. Back for dinner or not?”
“Not sure, probably not. Going to hit a cricket ball around and then go county ground this evening, probably grab some chips on the way to the match.”
“Okay. Have fun.”
“Will do.”
“Trent Bridge? Late back?”
“If you and dad want to go to bed I’ll lock up behind me.”
“That’s great, have a good time. Who’re we playing?”
“Durham.”
“Hope it’s good. See you.”
“Bye mum.”
A few minutes later she heard the door close and sighed. This was the worst bit about the move, really, moving him. Mika a bit too, but she’d adjust quickly enough, make new friends. Mars was older, that made it harder to start again. Still, he’d have been doing it in a couple of years anyway. And it wasn’t that far for him to pop back and visit occasionally. He was of the age where he could actually manage to keep in touch if he wanted to.
As for her… well, it was time to go. Time for a fresh start, somewhere people wouldn’t look at her in pity, wouldn’t dance awkwardly around any potential trigger and so make it a thousand times more painful.
And time to build a new life.
She checked her emails yet again, laughed at herself when there was nothing. She’d accepted, they’d get back to her soon enough, it wouldn’t hurt if the email sat in her inbox a couple of hours before she saw it. But still – a job interview! She’d forgotten what they were like. What would she wear? Did she have any clothes that still fit? Okay, with the years and the baby weight, probably not. But what would she get? What did working mums wear for job interviews?
She told herself off. Don’t go defining yourself by your family, Megan, you’re doing this as an independent woman. Think what your younger self would say! Pull yourself together, work out a bit, get rid of that stupid weight, and buy yourself a sharp suit. Is that what people would expect at an interview for a learning support assistant? Maybe not… ugh! See if the internet has answers, otherwise yet another question for Liza, though why she’d know…
Plenty of time for musing before Tom came home and she stuck her head out of the kitchen to greet him. “Hiya. Good day?”
“Afternoon. You’re looking bright. My day’s been okay, busy as always, nothing particularly exciting. Ruth's home, taking a break from the dramatics, which helps. You look like yours has been good.”
She dodged his eyes. “I was about to put the kettle on, want one?”
“Oh, please.” He followed her into the kitchen, dancing diagonally across the tiles as he'd taken to doing recently. “I keep feeling like you've got some big secret...”
She kept her focus on the kettle, studiously ignoring his antics. “It’s nothing bad or anything.”
“I never thought it might be. I'm being eaten up by curiosity though, and by trying to resist commenting. All this texting…”
“Oh, that’s Liza.”
“Ah, right, how is she?”
“Good. As ever.”
“Nothing wrong?”
“No!”
“Or extra right? I mean if it’s her secret…”
“What?” She shook her head. “Oh. No. It’s about me.” Come on, Megan, you have to tell him some time. She poured the tea first. “I’ve got a job interview. In Sheffield.”
A moment’s silence, in which she resisted the temptation to turn around. And then he was by her side, arms held out. “Oh well done you. Something exciting?”
She let him hug her. “Teaching assistant. Learning support.”
“Oh, you’d be wonderful. Good luck, when?”
“Next Friday. You’ve got Sheffield stuff in the diary so I thought you could take me most of the way.”
He held her at arm’s length. “So this is what you want to do?”
She shrugged. “Hopefully. Worth a shot. The kids are at school all day, there’s no point me hanging around at home.”
“I’m not sure if I should ask but… discernment?”
She turned away from him to fetch milk from the fridge and finish off the tea. “Dunno where that’s going, if anywhere. God doesn’t make it easy.”
“No.” He leant against the counter, tugged at the collar around his neck. “You’re having a rough ride. I’ve known others who’ve had similar struggles and found the answer in the end, though. It’s worth it, the journey’s an important part but it’s hard to let God take the lead. Especially when things are so vague and taking so long.”
“Ruth said something similar. And told me I should find a vocations advisor or someone.”
“You’ve had a chat with her?”
She pushed his tea towards him and returned the milk to the fridge. “A few weeks ago. After your ordination. Things just sort of… overflowed.” She pulled a face.
“Ah. Right. Well, obviously she knows exactly what she’s talking about. I'm glad you talked to her.”
“I was thinking maybe I’d try and get a job first, see how that goes. And wait until we’re all settled in Sheffield.”
“Sounds sensible. Let me know if you want connections, or anything at all.”
“Thanks.”
“Sorry I haven’t been supporting you.”
“I haven’t asked. Anyway, you’re not my bishop, you’re my husband.”
“Technically I will be your bishop in a few weeks…”
She stuck her tongue out and punched him lightly.
“…besides, I’m a bishop and I’m yours, does that not count? Actually, I just meant as your husband, as someone who loves you. Obviously you don’t have to tell me everything but… you know you can?”
“Just like you always confide in me?”
He raised his eyebrows at her. “I presume I’ve done something?”
“Ordination. Yes-no-maybe, weeks of you wobbling about without a word to me. You know, despite the fact it’s both of our lives?”
“Sorry.”
She turned away to find her untouched cup of tea. “It’s fine. Settled in the end.”
“Sorry. That wasn’t fair on you.”
“It’s okay. You were stressed.”
“How are you feeling about the move?”
“Like it’s all going to turn incredibly stressful in about two weeks and then we’ll be there and settled and life will carry on.”
“And you’ll find yourself a job.”
“Something, somewhere. Hopefully.”
“It’ll all work out in the end. I’ve got day off tomorrow, we can do some move stuff then - since you seem determined to leave nothing for the movers!”
“It’s fine, that’s hardly a day off thing. Do you want to go and sit down?”
“I’ve been sitting behind a desk most of today…”
“Well I’ve been emptying bookshelves and I’m going to sit down.”
“Oh yeah, sure.” He trailed after her into the living room, the part of the house with the fewest boxes and most acceptable for visitors. “We should do something together.”
“How about once things have settled down?”
“Or as a night off from all the moving stress.”
“I guess. That’d be nice. Or we save it for Sheffield to give ourselves a nice first impression. Somewhere new and different.”
“Definitely, if you’d like.”
He reached an arm around her shoulders, but she resisted the invitation to lean in against him. “There’s one trip we should do before we leave, though.”
“Oh?”
“You know.”
It took him a minute. “Oh. Yes.”
He squeezed her shoulder, and she finally melted towards him to lie curled on the sofa, head on his lap, staring into space as he wove his fingers into her hair. Forced her body to stay calm – there was no way he’d hurt her, there really wasn’t. She just… what? Why did it make her feel like this?
Perhaps she just didn’t like being reminded of her own body. Pointless as that was, maybe that was it. Not that there was anything she could do with the knowledge. A tear escaped her eye and ran down her face to soak into Tom’s trouser leg. A swallow, a deep breath, and she turned her head to look up at him, still half hiding behind her hunched shoulder. “Sorry.”
He drew her hair out of her face with gentle fingers. “It’s okay.”
“I’m so tired.”
“I’m here.”
She blinked away the tears. “Sorry. You’re hurting just as much. You shouldn’t be worrying about me.”
“We’re hurting together. That’s how we deal with this. I want to be here with you. I want to look after you.” He gave her a small smile. “It helps me too, you know.”
“Are we ever going to… be okay again?”
“I suppose that depends what you mean by okay.” He caught her hand and wove his fingers between hers. “I don’t think it’ll ever stop hurting. I think it’ll just… hurt differently. Or at least, we’ll get better at living with it. It’s getting a little better already, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. It's only... most of my brain. Instead of all of it.”
“We’re doing this together. Always together.”
“Yeah.” Together. Like they hadn’t really been for the past two months. “I love you.”
“I love you.” He murmured it back to her, running his hand down her side to rest on her waist, his thumb tracing circles through the thin fabric of her t-shirt.
She sat up. “Who’s getting Mika?”
“Up to you. Or we can both go.”
“You go, it’s your day.” She leant over and kissed him lightly on the cheek, then stood up quickly. “I should make sure we’ve got stuff for dinner. We’re not expecting Mars, he’s at the cricket again.”
“Healthy social life he has!”
“Oh, I know.”
He stood up too. “We’ll definitely make that trip. Before we leave. Kids too or just us?”
She was walking towards the door, but stopped for a moment. “I suppose it would be good to take them. All of us, as a family.”
“Yeah. It’s a family thing. So some time soon, when Mars is home.”
“If he wants to. Yeah.”
“And then new place. New start.”
“Just the memories.”
“Yup.”
Just the memories, and the hole in her heart.
On Saturday Morning they managed to get the whole family together, piled into the car for the short drive out. A short, sober, silent drive, as the newly risen sun dazzled off the road, blinding on every bend, and Megan kept her fingers on the bouquet which drooped onto the floor at her feet. Cornflowers and lily-of-the-valley. Why she’d bothered bringing it, she didn’t really know, it just seemed the done thing.
And then Tom was turning in, through an open barrier between two unassuming houses, and she gritted her teeth to hold back tears as they followed the winding road. On each side, row upon row of stones stretching out, thousands upon thousands of reminders, of memories.
Tom found a space in a car park and she got out slowly to stand, lost, beside the car. Still more slowly, Tom was opening his own door, setting his foot down with a grimace and pulling himself to his feet. Mika, waiting quietly with Mars behind the car, scuffed her foot against the ground and watched them wide-eyed.
“This way.” Megan took Mika’s hand and struck out, following a faint memory etched forever in her mind. In front of them, a hearse pulling in beside the chapel. She turned off to follow a smaller path, amongst trees and gravestones, passing the flowers to Mika and holding out her other hand for Tom. Anything to be less alone.
Here the graves were too small, the dates on the stones too close together. Here and there, markers shaped like teddy bears and cherubs, graves strewn with brightly coloured toys, with flowers, with plastic windmills stuck into the soil, with messages on laminated cards. And there, the little mounds, beginning to grass over, some with stones and some without, and the one that drew her eyes, a wooden cross bearing a small metal plaque.
Megan knelt on the hard ground, Tom beside her, and there were no tears. No tears, just emptiness, because what was this, really? A mound of soil, beneath which lay the remnant of that broken vessel, the perfectly formed and yet empty body which had for a while been cradled in her womb, which she had laid eyes on only once, for a few minutes. A form which had been alive until that day it had been thrust out into the world.
If only she could have stayed hidden. If only she could have stayed there, safe within Megan’s womb, an entire life in a safe cocoon of warmth. Megan held a hand against her stomach, felt the ghost of a kick, gave a ghost of a smile quickly wiped away. There was no weight there, no movement, no life, nothing. That safe cocoon of warmth had failed to hold its precious charge, and now the earth did the job instead.
She sat on the grass, let her shoulders sag, let her eyes read the name again and again until the image of the plaque was seared forever in her brain. Just the one date.
“She should have had a middle name.” Tom said it softly, his only words. What other words had he thought before he’d reached these?
“She should.”
“She should. It’s too small.”
“Yeah.” Grace Carter. Grace Carter. Grace Carter. Like there was any grace here. Any gift to be found, in this.
She took the flowers from Mika and laid them down, and then Tom took something from his pocket, a glint of silver on a chain of light. A tiny cross, which he hung on the wooden marker.
“I was going to give it to her for her baptism.”
“Ah.” She reached out to touch it, to lift and hold it a second and then let it rest back against the wood. Then she took Tom’s hand and reached up to draw the children closer. “So, as you know, this is where your sister is buried.”
A long silence. And then, in the end, Mika voicing the question. “Why doesn’t she have a stone?”
Tom pulled her in against his side. “She will. Next year, once the soil has settled, we’ll come back.”
“Ah.” A long reflective pause. “Can we bring her toys? Like other people round here do?”
Tom and Megan looked at each other. “We’ll see,” said Tom in the end. “If we can find something nice. Nothing tacky, nothing that’ll get grubby or ruined by the rain.”
“No. But something that’ll make it look less sad – though I suppose it is sad.” She edged away, shy and awkward, and Megan stood up in sympathy.
“We’ll see. It's a lovely idea.”
“It’s a shame it’s so far away. There are graveyards nearer us, church ones. But obviously she’s here now. Why isn’t she in a church one, though?”
“Because the one outside our church is full.” Tom’s answer was brief.
“And this is nice. Big and open and quiet, out of the city centre.” Megan turned to look at the view. Big and open and far from anyone who might look at them with sympathy. “We won’t be in the Nottingham house much longer anyway, then the bit of extra distance won’t make much difference.”
“It’s so big.” Mika took Megan’s hand, and Megan could see her lips moving as she silently counted. “There must be… hundreds. Or thousands. Or millions. How do people know where to go?”
“There are maps. But most people just remember.”
“Are there more people here or in the entire city?”
“I don’t know.” Megan looked back at Grace’s grave, already fading into its surroundings, to anyone else just another grave. Especially as the years passed, and the cross was replaced by a stone, and the stone was worn away by the passage of time. The years would pass, and Grace would never grow up, would never be more than a child in the womb, never more than a heartbeat and a kick. And perhaps even Mars and Mika would forget, though she and Tom never would. The most pointless of deaths, no reason for it at all, saying goodbye without the chance to say hello. It just sucked, that was all that could really be said.