When my time comes around / Lay me gently in the cold dark earth / No grave can hold my body down / I’ll crawl home to her
—Hozier, ‘Work Song’
She can see the cold and quiet street behind him as he stands in her doorway, this man who cannot be here. The sky is clear after the rain, and the stars shine brightly in the icy blackness. He steps over the threshold and back into her house and her life as if nothing has changed, as if she had not watched them bury his body in the cold ground earlier that day.
Her tea, long forgotten and now cold, sits on the small table between their separate couches, and she wonders whether there ought to be a more substantial barrier between them. His body has not yet begun to show signs of decomposition that must surely have already begun. Does she need to sit further away from him? Perhaps she should go to the cabinet and get one of the face masks she keeps stored there.
But she stares at him instead, and it seems, for just a moment in the dim light, that nothing has changed, that everything is as it was. He sits in his usual spot on the couch, hands in his lap in his usual way, looking at her as if inviting her to speak.
It’s not possible, she thinks. You can’t be here.
The faint smile on his face seems to say, Oh, but I am.
She remembers the way he had loved her. It had been so overwhelming that love, like she was at the bottom of a well and he just kept pouring it down to her, ignorant of the way she spluttered and choked on it. The intensity of it unsettled her because she hadn’t felt the same way about him.
At times, she felt inadequate, undeserving of his affection and the devoted manner in which he would do things for her, acts both large and small. It wasn’t uncommon for her to wake up to the sound of him cooking her breakfast, a cup of coffee already waiting on her bedside table.
Sometimes, that feeling of inadequacy slipped into resentment for the way he loved her, freely and without question, giving to her what she was incapable of giving in return. Almost as though he was taunting her with each confession of love, each loving act. When she had finally been awarded her PhD, he organised a party for her to celebrate and took care of the guest list, the food and drinks, and the venue. It was a large affair, with almost a hundred family, friends, and colleagues gathered together at the rooftop function room of an expensive hotel. Everyone kept talking about how lucky she was to have a guy like him, that he was a real catch, and every time they said it he had laughed and touched her lower back and said No, it was nothing, that she deserved all of it and more. It felt like the event was more about him than it had been about her.
She had kissed someone else that night. A coworker she had barely known but who had just happened to be there. She had done it in a small, dark room down the hallway and close to where the bathrooms were. A kiss in the dark that would have become more had someone not walked in on them. Her face had been hidden in shadow, so they hadn’t known it was her, but the light from the open door was like a flash of lighting on a stormy night. The moment was gone; all that was left was the guilt. And the resentment, somehow stronger than ever.
More than once, she had tried ending things. She had known it was unfair to both of them if she let things continue as if there was anything to salvage, but he’d refused each time. Simply acted as though she hadn’t said anything. The first time it happened, she thought he hadn’t heard her, and she had repeated herself. But he had just looked at her and smiled, then said, ’No,’ and went back to what he’d been doing. After the third attempt a few weeks later produced the same result, she had considered getting the locks changed, but knew it was legally complicated given the time they had been together. Eventually, she’d tried convincing herself that she should be flattered by his dedication to her. After all, everyone kept telling her what a catch he was.
But then he had died.
A short, sharp decline and suddenly she was free from the suffocating presence that had seeped into every part of her life. It made her feel awful, that relief, and what it said about her, but she couldn’t deny the truth of it.
He’s still staring at her intently, as if waiting for her to speak first.
‘Why are you here?’ Her voice shakes, sounds too loud to her ears.
‘For you, Delilah. I came back for you.’
The sound of his voice freezes the air she breathes. He speaks as if his mouth is clogged with dirt, his words slurred and obstructed. Up until this point, she hasn’t really believed he is here, instead believing on some level that she is just dreaming. But the sound of his voice breaks that fragile belief, and she is faced with the truth of the man sitting in her lounge room.
‘Why?’ she asks. It’s all she can think to say.
‘I need you, Delilah. I can’t face the end without you with me.’
‘You always needed me too much.’
‘And you never wanted me enough, Delilah.’
She shivers. ‘Please stop saying my name.’ It sounds so wrong coming from his pale lips.
‘I’m not wrong though, am I?’
She doesn’t say anything to this, and his dead face curls into a rueful grin.
‘You had my heart, Delilah. I gave it to you, but you crushed it and tossed it away.’
‘I never asked for it.’
‘You knew what this was.’
‘I tried to tell you, but you wouldn’t listen. And if I kept pushing, what then? I’m still a bitch, only this time it’s because I’m not giving you a chance when everyone can see you’re just so fucking good to me.’
He looks at her, head tilted to the side like a confused dog. It makes her angry, this false puzzlement.
‘You can’t stay here’, she tells him suddenly. ‘You need to go.’
‘I’m not staying, Delilah. I can’t.’
A pause while she considers this.
‘Then why are you here?’ she asks. ‘Isn’t that why you came back? To be with me?’
His smile is far bigger than it should be.
‘I didn’t come back to you. I came back for you, Delilah.’
He reaches for her, and the dead night is rent by the sound of her terror.
davidhinder.com 