Dear Lucy,

Sam here. How are you keeping? I’d imagine pretty well these days. I’m not exactly sure how to start one of these things, considering that this is the first penpal letter I’ve ever written, and by hand, so please forgive the awkward rambling. These days the idea of being penpals, and old fashioned handwritten letters is so quaint, it’s practically rustic, so much so that I feel I should be writing this by quill and parchment. Still, emails and messenger apps can’t quite convey something which is written out by hand. Writing by hand makes the words more deliberate; more meaningful, I guess. That said, the idea of being an old fashioned penpal with you is a strange experience. I’m missing autocorrect already, and my brain doesn’t underline typo’s, so please forgive the spelling/grammar mistakes. So, what are things like where you are? Is the local bus service as shit as it is here? To be fair, bus services are universally shit, so why should it be any different for you? Do me a favour – amaze me and let me know you got this, OK?

How are your mum and dad? Tell them I’m asking after them, and tell your mum that I still think she is Satan in disguise hope that she’s still baking those god-awful marvellous chocolate brownies, and that I hope she has forgiven me by now for spiking one of her batches with my own special ingredient. I’m sure that her local Women’s Institute meeting was much more ‘groovy’ and ‘chill’ than normal. After a while I did feel bad about it, but at the time I figured that some opportunities are just too good to pass up. Seriously, she held that grudge for six years, and still wouldn’t let me back into her kitchen. I remember that when we were visiting, she asked me if I was a drug dealer. I was sorely tempted to say ‘yes’, but I refrained from giving the old bat the woman a heart attack.

Anyway, I’ve been keeping myself busy. After the time I took off for health reasons (which I’m sure you will remember), I’m back at work, and getting my head down. John is still the boss from Hell, so not much has changed there, although he was unusually kind enough to allow me time to find my feet before dumping a backlogged pile of work on my desk. His brief display of pleasantness and sympathy was welcome and unnerving at the same time. John asked me how I was keeping, and actually called me ‘pal’. It was the creepiest thing I’ve ever heard. Work-wise, I feel relatively back to normal already. Which reminds me, I must put in for some annual leave ASAP! You know what it’s like; you long for some time off, and after you finally get an unexpected break from work, when you return you long to be away again!

I think the work has been doing me some good, although I’ve found myself sitting in the canteen on my own lately. People don’t seem to want to approach me any more. To be honest, that’s fine by me. When you’re down, you find out who your friends are, and it turns out that each one of them barely deserves to be called ‘colleagues’, never mind ‘friends’. Fuck them.

Mark and Chloe send their love. They are back at primary school and doing well. Mrs Swanson states that Chloe’s writing is progressing well, and that she is writing at Primary Seven level, a full three years ahead of her age! I’m so proud of her; she has the writing skills I always wanted but never had the brains for. I’m sure she’ll be a poet laureate some day. Mrs Swanson says that Chloe is becoming more withdrawn, and I don’t know what to do about it. Mark is doing well, especially in sports. He has decided that he doesn’t want to be an astronaut anymore, and instead, wants to be a footballer. He assures me that he is the best player in his class and with each journey home, he regales me with tales of his goal-scoring during the lunchtime game of football with his friends. By that standard I’m sure he is well on his way to scoring the winning goal in the World Cup Final.

I told him that he shouldn’t necessarily give up on his ambition of being an astronaut. When he asked why, I told him that by the time he is old enough to be playing in the World Cup, it’ll probably be hosted on the Moon, so he would have an advantage in knowing about reduced gravity and physics. When he asked how a football match on the Moon would work, I told him that each game would need to be eight or nine hours long, due to gravitational concerns. When a goalkeeper kicked the ball down the pitch, they may not see it for a couple of hours, if at all. In response he told me that my dad jokes were terrible. A fair comment, I suppose. I remember when my banter was at genius levels. What the hell happened? It’s like overnight all my wit was surgically removed. I hope you didn’t have anything to do with it before you left.

I wanted to say I can’t bel I caught myself looking in the mirror yesterday and I really seemed alone to have not aged very well. Perhaps it was the first-thing-in-the-morning affect, but I look much more haggard than you will remember. I actually think that I found a grey hair on my temple. It wasn’t just grey, it was pure white. I guess that means my body is preparing to let itself go in a big way, but I’m not going to stress until I find a grey hair further down! I would have taken a selfie, printed it off and included it in this letter, but if you do get to read this (and I haven’t got the address wrong) then I don’t think you would be able to handle my sexy crow’s feet. Also, if I get the wrong address, I don’t want to be sending some random stranger a selfie of a depressed grumpy man whose better days are now behind him, for all manner of reasons.

I find myself thinking more about you these days. I’m not sure how healthy that is, since you’re so far away, but I can’t help miss you remembering what we had together. A couple of times when I’ve been at the train station, waiting for my train to work, I find myself thinking of you. Sometimes I think I can just let my usual train pass, and instead, travel to you to see you again, and stay with you for good. After all, it’s been far too long and the journey would be quick. Then I think of the kids and how they need me right now. The real world interrupts my half-baked daydreams and I realise that my other responsibilities must come first. It would be not only selfish, but also cruel to leave the kids with their grandparents in miserable old rainy Scotland, when I’m off living it up in the sun with you, pleasing myself. And so I get on my usual train and sit in a miserable slump next to the people with halitosis and BO. All of us, just passive zombies, going through the daily grind so we don’t end up sleeping in a shop doorway.

Oh, I forgot to say, Tom from H.R. has accepted my application for restricted part time hours, so that means that I can work in between dropping the kids off and pick them up from school. I don’t know how the reduced income is going to affect the household budget, but I’ll swallow my bloody pride and investigate whether there is any government assistance I‘m entitled to. It reminds me of when we were young together, and setting out. Do you remember that time we both lost our jobs in the same week, and we had to rely on the food bank to fill our kitchen shelf and put something in the fridge. I remember how humbling and thoroughly how galling that was. Funny how things end up.

Do you remember Jennifer from my work? The woman who had been giving me the alluring eye for the best part of six months? Well she finally decided to make her move! Talk about poor timing, but she came over all concerned that I had been off work, asking if I was OK and if I needed anything. She also tried to set up a play date between her daughter and Chloe. Perhaps I do her a disservice, and perhaps her intentions are purely innocent, and she simply wants to be platonic friends. After all who wants a husk a miserable sod like me? I always thought you were mad to have been interested in me in the first place. I guess that was my exceptionally good luck and your exceptionally poor life choices.

I miss you so much sometimes I can’t breathe. I wonder how often you think of me, and the family. Perhaps you don’t think at all. I’d like to think that if you do, and you are still ‘there’, that you think constantly, and occasionally of me. That’s just my fragile male ego talking, so ignore that part. So long as you still think of Mark and Chloe, that’s all that matters. After all, they think of their mum all the time.

Mark asked me if you didn’t love them, and if that’s why you left. It was easy enough explaining to him what happened, but I’m not sure if he understands, I mean how much can a six year old understand? All he seems to be able to understand is that you’re not here anymore. I told him that it was because you had an accident, and that you still love them both very much but inside my heart was breaking. That explanation has had unintended consequences however, namely that I can’t use the word ‘sick’ around him anymore because he immediately starts to panic. I think that in his mind he equates ‘sick’ with dying, and loved ones leaving him. Even though you weren’t sick, and didn’t get sick, it seems to be a word which he has latched onto.

I realised this one day when I came down with a bad virus and spent the day in bed in between the usual tasks of making food for them, dishes, laundry etc. He asked if I was OK and told him that I was fine, and that I was just sick. The poor lad started panicking and crying. In between sobs he begged me not to leave him, and that I shouldn’t go for walks (understandable, seeing as how those were your last words to him). I can’t put into words how that felt, all I had were raw emotions swirling inside. Lets just say that after reassuring him that I wasn’t going anywhere, I hugged him for ten minutes straight. In that moment nothing on this earth could have made me let him go. Thanks to my carelessness I caused him to cry, and afterwards I felt like throttling myself.

His worries seem to have spread. At first I had to deal with questions from both Mark and Chloe about how if you could have an accident, then who’s to say that it wouldn’t happen to me, and then they would be all alone. I tried my best to reassure them, but I know that words can only have so much of an effect. I’m looking into getting them some kind of therapy from a children’s counsellor. I don’t know if or how I’ll afford it, but now Mark is scared to walk down the pavement of a busy road in case what happened to you happens to him. He feels safe enough riding in the car with me however, I think it’s walking on the pavement he has the fear of, and I can’t let the phobia of walking along a busy street set in. I swear, I know that he is in jail now (though for not long enough), but sometimes I wish I could get my hands on the fucker that mounted the pavement; I’d wring his fucking neck. As far as I’m concerned he’s a fucking murderer. If you have a drink and get into your car, then you are responsible for anything bad that happens, and it should be considered premeditated. I just don’t know how I’m going to feel, or what I’m going to do when he gets out.

Sorry, I tend to go into a rant when I think of him.

I think that Mark is taking it worse than Chloe. She seems very quiet now, but she doesn’t cry as much. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. Sometimes I feel like a failure, and useless bad father because I don’t know what’s going on in their heads. That’s when I miss you the most, because you are were such an amazing mother. Knowing how good a writer Chloe is, I bought her an extra-large diary. I figured that she could find the words to put into the diary, what she can’t say out loud. I gave it to her and she sullenly accepted it. That was the last I’ve seen of it, and that was two weeks ago. I don’t know if she has squirrelled it away safely, or if she just binned it. I could go rummaging in her room, but I don’t think I would want to read it even if I found it. As much as it would let me know what’s going on in her mind, it would also be a real violation, I feel.

I took the kids to visit your grave. It was an experience I wasn’t prepared for. I wasn’t sure if it was a good thing, but I figured that it would be ‘healthy’. Christ knows what put that thought in my head. The kids didn’t speak. Not a single word, the whole time we were there. I tried to prompt them about their feelings, but the most I got was a shrug from Mark. It was like they just couldn’t wait to be away from the place. I tried the whole ‘Mummy isn’t here’ stuff, but Chloe just looked at me as if to say ‘then why the fuck are we here?’. It’s just as well she didn’t say that, because I wouldn’t have had an answer for her. I’m kinda worried that I might have done more harm than good with that visit.

I’m not coping Lucy. I can’t do this all alone. I see the looks the other parents give me when I’m picking the kids up from school; a mixture of pity and awkwardness. Normally it doesn’t bother me, but sometimes I just want to scream at the top of my lungs and truly give them something to stare at.

Doctor Richardson referred me to a counsellor by the name of Pettigrew, who was the one to suggest the whole pen pal thing. I honestly don’t know what he expects from me. Writing this won’t bring you back, and this whole self-introspection thing I find cringeworthy. I told him that I’m fine and that I just want to get on with things, but he insists that writing my thoughts out in letters like this will do me good. What’s the point of writing them when there is nowhere to post them? What’s the point of writing when there won’t be an reply?

The good news is that I don’t feel like coming to stay with you as much. Perhaps that’s progress, but it doesn’t feel like it. At least the train tracks will remain clear of remains. Anyway, I best get going because the dishes need done and I need to iron their uniforms while they watch some Netflix. Once again, excuse any spelling mistakes and the scribbled out words, but you know how bad my handwriting is. It hasn’t progressed since Primary One. I love you Lucy, and I don’t wan

I love you every moment of every day, just as much as I ever did. Every morning I kiss the photo of you in the silver frame that I placed on my bedside table. That way you are still the first thing I see in the morning and the last thing I see before I sleep. That’s the way it should be. I don’t think I’ll ever stop kissing it. I hope that the hurting will stop soon, because it’s at times too much to bear. Anyway, enough of my moaning, because that’s not getting the dishes done. Give my Uncle Robert a hug for me.

Love, always,

Sam xxx

© M.T. O’Neill

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