Kavin smiled at Trish as she crumbled. His brown eyes reflected joy but her own leaked sorrow. He was silent and still while raucous sobs shook her whole body.
Her shaking arms reached out for him, missed. She tried again, swinging wildly. Her success was granted more by luck than coordination. The framed picture was flung from the bedside table, striking the wardrobe with a thump and the sharp crack of breaking glass.
The destruction of the last image of Kavin brought no respite, it only fuelled her grief. She rolled over onto his side of the bed – the empty side – and screamed, ‘Why!’ repeating the cry until her throat was raw.
The pinch of the night’s chill stirred her from a slumber she had not known had claimed her.
Lacking both the strength and the will to pull the covers over her, she lay still and let goosebumps claim her exposed flesh. The cold numbed her limbs but could not still her mind. Was this how Kavin felt now, wrapped in his grave? If she allowed her own body to cool down to match his corpse temperature, would she feel like she was in his embrace? Could they be together one more time?
The cold air leeched through her skin and gripped her bladder. Even in her exhausted state, she would not relieve herself here. Not in the matrimonial bed.
Forcing herself up, she plodded through the darkness to the bathroom. Dim moonlight reflected from the mirror of the bathroom cabinet, casting the room in a monochrome of silver and shadow.
Sitting on the toilet, her last thought rang in her head. Could they be together again? She would give the world to have Kavin back with her, to be reunited with him.
The room brightened as the moon freed itself from cloud cover, igniting the mirror with a phosphorescence as bright as a halo. Trish looked into the glare. Just as she had contemplated a reunion with her husband, a heavenly light illuminated the medicine cupboard. Was this a sign?
She stood up and opened the cabinet. Bright as it was in the bathroom, the contrast of light and dark prevented her from reading the labels. But she did not need to see to know what she wanted. She grabbed several boxes and returned to the bedroom.
On the bed, she pressed the pills from their blister packs into her cupped hand, poured them all into her mouth and began chewing. The polymer coating of the capsules tore apart, mixing with the rough particles of the crunched chalk tablets. She felt as though she were eating a sizeable lump of plastic peppered with gravel but she persevered, dissecting and swallowing determinedly until only a vile aftertaste remained in her mouth.
Laying back, she pulled the covers over her and closed her eyes.
A soft rustle of fabric disturbed her peace. Trish lifted her head and looked around.
Nighttime painted the room in varying degrees of blackness, transforming her everyday furniture into grotesque monsters. A chest of drawers squat in one corner as though preparing to pounce. Above her dressing table the mirror reflected what little light there was, creating a ghostly oasis in the surrounding darkness. A hooded coat hanging on the wardrobe door took the form of a looming figure.
I didn’t leave a coat there, Trish thought a moment before the figure approached. It glided toward her, a tall human shape wrapped in a cloak a deeper black then the night around it. It was the colour of sin, of lost love. The hue of grief.
‘You’ve come for me?’ she said. She was surprised to hear her words waver.
With his face hidden in the depths of his cowl, Death answered her. She expected his voice to be deep and cold, as though issued from the caverns of Hell many miles below. Instead, he spoke in a gentle, warm tone.
‘Do you wish to be taken by the Reaper?’
‘I cannot live this life any longer,’ she said. ‘I cannot be alone.’
‘And do you know what would come next?’
‘I will be with Kavin.’ Trish could not help but smile at the thought.
‘Are you certain?’
Trish floundered. Humankind was promised eternal paradise for enduring the troubles of life. Such an existence must include being with her soulmate.
But what proof was there of an afterlife? Were the stories from ancient religions and the accounts of modern-day clairvoyants to be believed? Or was it possible that the realm beyond this was ruled with similarly uncaring chaos?
‘I have to be with Kavin,’ she said softly. ‘I can’t live without him. We were married.’
‘Yes.’ The word was spoken as an acceptance of fact, nothing more.
‘We vowed our love,’ Trish added.
‘Can you recite your promises?’ Death asked.
Trish paused for only a fraction of a second. ‘For better, for worse,’ she said. ‘For richer, for poorer. In sickness and in health. To love and to cherish. Till death us-’ Her hand shot to her mouth as though trying to prevent the words being uttered.
‘And now, death has parted you.’
Her stomach lurched. She sought desperately for an argument, anything to appeal to the great leveller. ‘You cannot keep us apart,’ she tried. ‘It’s not fair.’
‘Life is not fair,’ Death said. ‘You must have learned that by now. So why would you expect death to be different?’
‘But…’ she started, then fell silent. She looked up at the figure towering over her, clad in black robes, hidden in shadow. When she had first laid eyes on the spectral sight, she had thought the Angel of Death had come to fulfil her desire to be free from this mortal world. Angels were beings of good, were they not?
Now she entertained the idea that this entity could dictate the path of her afterlife, and that he may choose to keep her from Kavin. To do this would be a cruel undertaking; one which would make the granter worthy of the title Grim Reaper. The thought knotted her stomach, pain clenching her abdomen.
‘You can’t stop me from seeing Kavin again,’ she said with a keening edge.
‘You do not know what I can do,’ Death said. His voice remained level and soft. ‘Nor can you fathom the complexities beyond this realm of yours.’
‘I don’t care. I need to be with Kavin. That is all that matters.’
‘But what is true,’ Death began, ‘is that you remain in the living world while Kavin dwells in the other. There is more to life than your broken heart will let you perceive, and there is more to death than your human mind would allow you to know.’
Resting her hands on her rolling belly, Trish said, ‘Stop talking in riddles. Just take me to Kavin. Let me see him again. Please.’ Her voice broke on that final word.
There was a moment’s silence before Death spoke again, as though he was choosing his next words carefully.
‘Are you certain Kavin would want to see you?’
A chill shot through her at the thought and she knew that this spectre before her was being intentionally cruel.
‘He would,’ she said, her tone defiant. ‘He loved me. He loves me.’
The cowl moved as the head inside nodded.
‘Perhaps with the same intensity with which you love him. And yet…’ Death paused.
‘What?’ Trish asked fighting the fear that lanced her stomach.
‘Would you ask him to give up his life had it been you who had passed over?’
‘No.’ There was no hesitation. ‘I would tell him to carry on. To remember me fondly and live his life.’
Death waited a moment before speaking. ‘So I ask again: do you wish the Reaper to take you?’
Tears stung the corners of Trish’s eyes. Though his demeanour was not threatening, Death’s words tore into her. She felt her stomach convulsing and her gorge rise.
She opened her mouth to answer, and-
-bile and undigested pills vomited onto the bedspread. Gasping heavily, Trish pushed herself from the bed and staggered to the bathroom. She wiped sticky remnants from her mouth and peered into the mirror. The only colour in her pallid face were the black circles under her eyes. She had never looked as haggard in her life. She drew a bath and laid back, letting the warmth envelop her, ease her body and soothe her mind.
Last night, she had hit an all-time low. Guilt flushed her face as she remembered the attempted overdose, and she thanked her lucky stars that she had woken this morning. Vague snatches of an odd dream evaporated from her mind, rising from her with the steam which rose from the bath.
Beyond the window, dawn’s light graced the new day with hope.
From his side of the veil, a robed figure watched. After bathing and stripping the bedding, Trish dressed and made herself breakfast of cereal and coffee. It wasn’t much, but it was a start.
Pulling the cowl from his head, Kavin smiled at Trish as she moved on.
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