Off Limits

He expels an angry sigh and now his fingers are pushing my zip down almost dispassionately.

‘There’s no textbook on grief.’

‘Of course there’s not.’

‘But I expected to cope better than I did.’

His eyes sweep shut. He’s shielding himself from me, but at least he keeps talking. That’s enough. It has to be enough.

‘We had months to prepare. To brace ourselves. She was ready. Her life at the end was...’ He changes direction, as though he’s somehow betraying Lucy. ‘She was ready to go. My therapist tells me I spent so long being strong for Lucy that I had nothing left to give myself.’

‘You have a therapist?’

‘I did. Until he spouted that piece of pretty bullshit. As if there’s a finite amount of support to give. As if I should have ignored Lucy’s needs in favour of my own.’

‘I don’t think he meant that. Lucy’s sickness must have been draining on you. I can imagine that you spent so much of your energy focussing on what she needed that you had no idea what to do with yourself once she passed.’

‘It shook my world,’ he said simply.

I’m so sorry for him. But I don’t say that because I’ve said it before. My dress is loose around my waist. I’m not wearing a bra and his hands run up my sides and cup my breasts as though holding them is his only form of salvation.

‘It still does,’ I say softly.

‘It’s different now.’

He runs his thumb over my nipple, his eyes drawn downwards, his attention focussed on the physicality of my body, rather than me.

‘Different how?’ I need to know. I want to understand.

‘I grieve for her, but I can function. The hardest days aren’t the ones that fill me with sadness.’

‘No?’

‘No, Gemma.’

He lifts me up, off the bench, wrapping me around him as he walks through the apartment, towards his bedroom. But I don’t want him to close this conversation down.

‘What are the hardest days?’ I push as he shoulders the door inwards.

He lays me down on the bed and I scramble into a sitting position, not caring that my dress is simply a belt at my hips and my body is exposed to him completely.

‘Days like this. Days when I am happy and distracted. Days when I forget to remember her. The worst days now are the days when I realise I haven’t thought of her at all. Days like today, when all I’ve had room for on my mind is you.’

My heart turns over and, God, I am the worst kind of human because I delight in his admittance even as I realise I am triumphing over a dead woman.

Telling myself Lucy would want him to be happy, I stand up onto the tips of my toes so I can kiss him, and then pull him backwards onto the bed.

‘Being happy doesn’t mean you loved her any less,’ I promise him softly as I flick his buttons open and run my fingertips over his chest. ‘It just means you’re human and that time is moving on. It’s no

rmal. It’s natural.’

He doesn’t answer, but his kiss is all the response I need. It is sweet and it is gentle and it is a promise from his body that I know he’s not yet ready to make with his words.

* * *

The first week Gemma came to work for me I pushed her like a demon. I was so sick of the string of quitters before her that I’d developed a foolproof way to flush them out. I started them at six o’clock each morning, demanding different sets of information in advance and then what I actually required. This was to see how they thought on their feet.

She was amazing.