No lie there. Mary would have wholeheartedly agreed. A born actress, full of mischief and laughter. I could almost picture her still sitting at the table, a cup of lukewarm tea in her hand.
“Oh, Peter,” she would have howled, “you absolute fool. Just do it, what are you hesitating for? We can’t live life in the shadows. It’s all dark and cold when you don’t let yourself bask in the sun. Go live a little. See where it leads you. And if it all crashes and burns? You’ll have learnt something along the way. Had a few laughs. Figured out some new truths.”
“This is not an acting role,” I said out loud, like I was still talking to her.
Mary. My wife of twenty-five years. Also, dead. Very much so. Ravaged by that horrific illness that had taken her far too early. Left the three of us rumbling around in a spiral of grief and despair, her ashes still sat on the top of the bookshelf, in the same place where I’d left them all those years ago. Twenty years married. Then five years living with her like this. In a small cardboard box.
I should have scattered her. The boys should have scattered her. There were so many things we should have done, taken the time to do and found the right moment for. Learnt to let go. We never had.
Yet here we were.
“Mum’s gone. You need someone in your life. She would hate to see you sit here on your own. Every evening, eating a whole packet of biscuits and drinking tea whilst you chat to her ashes. It’s no life, Dad.”
“It’s a better life than being a national fool. There will be no going back once I’ve opened my mouth on TV. Your mum always said…”
“You’re already a walking meme, Dad. All that’s missing is a flat cap and a paper under your arm, and you’re the perfect widowed pensioner.”
“Cal,” I barked.
“The Daily Mailstill does occasional features about you.The great Mary Felton’s husband looks worn down and depressed watering his tulips,” Cal mocked. “It’s like you’re already dead.”
“For heaven’s sake, Calvin.”
“We need to talk about it. It’s the truth!” Ed retaliated, defending his brother.
They still did. Had each other’s backs through thick and thin.
“You’re barely forty-five, Dad. Get a grip!”
“It’s my life!” I was losing this battle; I could feel it. And despite my strong reservations about this completely idiotic idea? The boys had done this for me. Put together applications and taped some stupid interview claiming it was for a college project. Tricked me into signing papers I hadn’t had the chance to read. Basics. Things that in my job would have seen me fired, but my children made me do. What a fool I was.
“You need someone in your corner,” Cal pushed.
“I’ve got the two of you,” I said weakly.
“And your pickleball mates, and the guy at the bike shop and Auntie Patel next door, but it’s not enough. You’re not going to marry Auntie Patel, however well she cooks.” Edward. Just as persuasive as his older brother. He was younger by two minutes. Still just as stubborn.
“Mr Patel would kill me,” I grumped. We had nice neighbours, and the occasional gifts of food from next door would always make me smile.
“Go on, Dad. Say yes. You can’t sit here and rot away. It’s an opportunity to get out there and get help from professionals. Find someone nice to keep you company. You could even go on holiday? These shows usually send the happy couples on honeymoons. I see beaches, tans…Piña Coladas and perhaps a beautiful lady by your side. It would be nice to see you happy!”
I made some weird noise at the back of my throat. This was all their doing. They’d put me in this awful situation with pushy production people ringing me day and night, where I’d had to sit through two days of selection, on the weekend, and had been poked and prodded about my preferences in people, my likes and dislikes, my ups and downs, until I barely knew myself anymore. Terrible people, all of them, far too brash and direct. The kind of people Mary had dealt with all her life.
She’d been strong. Successful. Honest.
Me? I couldn’t even stand up for myself anymore, instead I told people what they wanted to hear. Said yes even though my body was saying no.
“Boys.” I sighed.
“You’re this cutthroat professional during the day, dealing with those kids and their parents and nervous patients and drilling teeth left, right and centre. I know how you function. Then you come home and you fall apart, and that’s fine, Dad. But let someone else in for once. Have some fun. Get laid.”
“Cal!” I shouted as both boys snickered.
“It’s okay, Dad. Mum would have wanted you to. It’s been five years.”
It had. Five years of being a single dad, raising these boys to the men they now were. Putting everything into their future and never stopping to wonder where my own future lay.
Because those thoughts freaked me out. So I simply chose not to think them.
