EPILOGUE
93.
Joel
Callie passed away that day from cardiac arrest. They couldn’t find any evidence of an underlying heart condition in the postmortem, so the cause of death was given as sudden arrhythmic death syndrome.
I didn’t leave a trace with my 999 call and failed to give the paramedics my name. So no one knew I was with Callie in her final moments. But it was noted in several news reports that she’d been found by a passerby. A few days later, Kieran sent me a link to an article in the local paper. Finn was imploring whoever had called the ambulance to come forward, so he could thank them personally for their efforts to help.
I stayed anonymous, of course. I didn’t want to give Finn any reason to suspect that Callie and I had been in contact while they’d been together. She’d been faithful to the last, of course she had. She loved him.
•••
I’m not sure if anyone notices me slip into the church. Taking a last-minute seat in the rear pew, I end up sitting next to Ben and his wife, Mia. They’ve got a baby of their own now, run an advertising agency together in London. Ben and I end up man-hugging halfway through the first hymn, which is “All Things Bright and Beautiful.”
I do my best to avert my eyes from Finn. I couldn’t have imagined a nicer guy for the love of my life to end up with. He’s in bits, of course. Hasbeen sat down the whole time, head in his hands. Callie’s parents are next to him, equally shattered.
Finn’s brought Murphy with him on a lead. He’s so old now, and slightly arthritic. His movements are stiff and he struggles to lie down, but his whiskered eyes are faithful as ever.
I have to look away from the dog, or I’ll break.
Eventually Finn comes to the front of the church to make his speech. It takes him a good minute or two to compose himself, once he gets up there. He chokes on his words, unable to speak at first. But when he finally does, he floods the church with light. He tells us the story of how he and Callie met. About the fun they had, their incredible life together. Their two amazing children. “They say there’s one person for everyone,” he concludes, his voice wobbling. “And for me, that person was Callie.”
I leave the church before the last hymn, in no doubt as to just how fully Callie lived her last eight years. How hugely she was loved.
•••
While everyone filters off to the crematorium, I do a lap of the block. I want to avoid running into Callie’s parents, Dot, or any of her other friends. Then I head back between the yew trees, where Esther’s asked me to meet her.
She approaches alone. Her face is eclipsed by an enormous pair of bug-eye sunglasses. We hug.
“I’m really sorry” is the first thing I say. And then, “It was a lovely service.”
“Thanks. I think Cal would have liked it.”
I picture the flowers trailing the nave. They were woven into the wicker of her coffin, strewn across the top of it. The air was suffused with fragrance, sweetened by love.
“Not going to the crematorium?” I ask Esther.
“No. Cal would have understood. I’m a bit of a wreck with stuff like that.” A stiff ejection of breath. “First Grace, and now...”
“I know,” I say softly. “I’m sorry.”
I detect a brave smile beneath the scoop of her sunglasses.
“Actually, I’ve got something I need to give you.” She withdraws a thick envelope from her handbag, passes it to me. “Callie wrote you postcards, Joel. After you broke up. She... passed them to me, for safekeeping. Anyway, she asked me to give them to you. If she died.”
My mouth makes soundless shapes. The envelope feels heavy as a house brick in my hands.
“She wanted you to know... how happy she was.”
I finger the envelope. There must be... what—twenty postcards in here? Thirty?
“I’d do it all again,” I say then. “Even if nothing could change. I’d love her again in a heartbeat.” And then my voice breaks, and I can’t say any more.
A long silence, punctuated only by birdsong.
“So that mystery passerby never came forward,” Esther says eventually.
