The Things We Bury

Content Advisory
My books and stories are written for an adult audience and do not shy away from darker subject matter. Themes within my work may include violence, murder, abuse, and references to suicide.

These elements are part of the world and the characters within it, and are not presented lightly. However, they may be distressing for some readers. If you are sensitive to these topics or have personal triggers, please consider this before choosing to read.

If you prefer something gentler, my Light Stories collection may be more your cup of tea.

The church smelled faintly of damp stone and expensive candle wax, a cool, hollow sanctuary filled with mourners who believed they were grieving an upright pillar of the community. Margaret sat in the front pew with her gloved hands folded neatly in her lap, listening to a vicar in immaculate vestments construct an elaborate fiction out of a man she barely recognised. He spoke of devotion, of quiet generosity, of a loyal husband and a steadfast friend whose place could never truly be filled, and it took every ounce of her self-control not to let a laugh escape into the vaulted ceiling. Instead, she allowed her chin to sink towards her chest, offering the appearance of a woman overcome by sorrow, which prompted her sister Susan to lean across the polished oak and squeeze her fingers.
Susan whispered that it was entirely natural to weep, but Margaret simply nodded, well aware that her eyes remained stubbornly, embarrassingly dry. Over fifteen years of marriage to the older man who had once been her college lecturer, a man whose intelligence and attention had made her feel extraordinarily special as a young student, her tears had already been spent in private instalments, running beneath cold taps in downstairs cloakrooms, behind the wheel in supermarket car parks whilst the windscreen misted over, or in the stillness of a shared bedroom beside a husband who slept peacefully after insisting she was growing paranoid. The first betrayal had broken her into pieces, accompanied by his theatrical weeping and sworn promises of reform, but the second had merely chilled her, and by the third, she had stopped asking where the extra hours had gone. Eventually, even the ache had withered away, replaced by an insidious guilt that had nothing to do with falling out of love. It was the guilt of staying, paired with the quiet, shameful wish that he might one day cease to exist without any fuss.
She had pictured it often enough whilst washing up, hearing his laughter drift from the study in that warm, affectionate tone he no longer spared for her, wondering how much simpler everything would be if he simply failed to wake up. When his heart began to fail, suddenly and without warning, the doctors did everything they could, but by the time Margaret reached the hospital there was little hope of recovery. She had sat beside his bed as the machines quietly recorded the last of his failing heartbeat, waiting for the anguish everyone assured her would come. Instead, she had felt the weight of an iron band dissolving from around her ribs. Even the floral arrangement atop his oak coffin was a petty act of rebellion, smothered in white lilies whose cloying fragrance he had despised all his life.
At the wake, surrounded by murmuring neighbours balancing saucers of lukewarm tea, Margaret endured the usual hollow platitudes with an agreeable nod. When an immaculate, twenty-something blonde approached with trembling lips and an apology that lingered too heavily in the air, Margaret recognised her immediately. She had seen the woman once before, emerging from a restaurant with her husband, his hand resting possessively against the small of her back. Yet now, confronted with one of the women who had helped dismantle her marriage, Margaret felt none of the jealousy that once would have devoured her. She merely looked at the woman and registered a profound, liberating indifference.
Retreating to the drawing-room window, Margaret finally confessed the truth to Susan, admitting that she had not loved him for the past few years and that his passing had brought her nothing but relief. She had expected disapproval, perhaps a gentle reminder that death should soften old grievances, but Susan simply took her hand and listened. When Margaret whispered that she felt wicked, her sister told her there was a difference between celebrating a death and being relieved that her suffering had ended. Something in those words broke through the careful composure Margaret had maintained all day, releasing tears she had been unable to shed in church. They were not for the man lying in his coffin, but for the bright, promising girl she had once been, and for the woman she might have become had she not spent so much of her adult life making herself smaller to accommodate him.
Night arrived, leaving the house in an extraordinary stillness where no television roared and no heavy footsteps made the floorboards groan. She dragged six black bin bags of his clothes to the bedroom door, poured herself a cup of tea, and sat deliberately in the leather armchair he had always claimed as his exclusive territory, watching the streetlamps flicker through the heavy curtains he insisted on keeping closed. She thought about the easel packed away in the attic, the paints she had abandoned because he complained about the smell, and the friends she had gradually stopped visiting because he disliked being left alone. There was no reason she couldn’t paint again. No reason she couldn’t travel, or eat her supper at midnight, or spend an entire afternoon reading without being accused of wasting her time. The possibilities were almost frightening in their abundance.
For the first time in fifteen years, she slept stretched across the centre of the mattress, waking to pale morning light with a buoyant, forgotten sensation rising in her chest. She lay perfectly still, trying to identify it, until she realised with a faint, incredulous smile that she was happy. Not merely relieved or temporarily content, but genuinely happy, and for once she refused to feel guilty about it.
The shrill ringing of the landline broke the quiet spell, drawing her downstairs in her dressing gown to find Susan on the other end, checking in with her usual tenderness. They talked about the funeral, the flowers and the astonishing number of people who had come to pay their respects, before Susan casually enquired whether Margaret had cleared his prescription medication from the kitchen cupboard. She explained that it was probably best to dispose of such things rather than have them lying about as unpleasant reminders. Margaret agreed that she would deal with it eventually, although she was mildly surprised by her sister’s insistence that it ought to be done sooner rather than later.
After replacing the receiver, Margaret made herself a cup of tea and stood looking out at the garden. She was considering whether to have breakfast outside when the conversation returned to her, bringing with it a memory from the evening before her husband’s collapse.
Susan had joined them for supper that night. She had been unusually cheerful, laughing at Margaret’s little jokes and refusing to be irritated when her brother-in-law complained about the food. She had insisted on preparing the coffee herself, disappearing into the kitchen whilst Margaret cleared the plates, and had remained remarkably composed when he later complained of feeling unwell. Margaret remembered how her sister had persuaded him to go upstairs and lie down, assuring him that he was probably suffering from indigestion after eating too much.
There was nothing particularly remarkable about any of it. Susan had always been practical in a crisis, and her husband had frequently complained of indigestion.
Yet Margaret found herself thinking about the hospital.
About Susan arriving shortly after the doctor had explained that there was nothing more they could do.
About the way her sister had taken her hand and held it so tightly that her wedding ring had pressed painfully against her finger.
And about the words she had whispered.
It’s over now.
Margaret set down her untouched cup of tea.
At the time, she had thought Susan was referring to the terrible business of watching someone die, but now, standing in the bright kitchen with the morning sunshine warming her bare feet, she remembered something else.
Susan had not seemed surprised.
Not when Margaret telephoned to say the ambulance had taken him away. Not when the doctors explained how serious his condition was. Not even when they told her he was dead.
She had simply held Margaret’s hand and told her it was over.
A small, unpleasant chill travelled down Margaret’s spine.
She crossed to the cupboard and opened it, looking at the collection of amber prescription bottles beside the aspirin and indigestion remedies. Everything appeared perfectly ordinary, exactly as it had been before the funeral, and she felt rather foolish for standing there staring at them.
Nevertheless, she returned to the telephone and dialled her sister’s number.
Susan answered almost immediately.
“Margaret, darling. Is everything all right?”
Margaret hesitated, suddenly unsure how to begin. She could hear a radio playing softly in the background, and the familiar sounds of her sister moving about her kitchen.
“Susan, there’s something I need to ask you.”
“Of course.”
“Did you know he was going to die?”
The silence that followed was brief, but unmistakable.
“Whatever do you mean?”
“Before the ambulance came. Before any of it. Did you know?”
Susan said nothing.
Margaret felt her stomach tighten.
“I keep remembering things. The evening you came for supper. The coffee. What you said at the hospital.” Her voice faltered. “And now you’re asking me to throw away his medicine.”
“Margaret.”
There was something in the way Susan spoke her name that made her grip the receiver more tightly.
“Please tell me I’m being ridiculous.”
For a long moment, all Margaret could hear was the faint music playing in her sister’s kitchen.
Then Susan sighed. “Oh, darling. I did hope you wouldn’t work it out.”
Margaret lowered herself slowly into the nearest chair. “You didn’t.”
“I watched him destroy you,” Susan said quietly. “For years, I watched you become someone I barely recognised. Every time I tried to help, you defended him. Every time I begged you to leave, you told me he wasn’t really so bad.”
Margaret stared at the chequered kitchen floor. “You killed him?”
“He was never going to let you go. You know that as well as I do.”
“But you killed him.”
Susan’s voice remained perfectly steady.
“He was supposed to be teaching you, Maggie, not taking over your life. You were such a bright young woman, with everything ahead of you, and I watched him slowly take it all away. You’ve spent fifteen years looking after that man. I thought it was about time somebody looked after you.”
Margaret closed her eyes, remembering her sister’s cheerful expression across the supper table, the way she had carried the coffee into the dining room, and how patiently she had listened to his complaints. She remembered the hospital, the funeral, the comforting hand that had held hers whilst she wept for a life she thought she had wasted.
“You could go to prison,” she whispered.
“Yes,” Susan replied. “I suppose I could.”
There was no self-pity in her voice, no pleading for forgiveness, and somehow that made it worse.
Margaret struggled to find something to say, but her sister spoke again before she could.
“Get rid of those bottles, darling. And don’t worry about me.”
The line went dead.
Margaret sat motionless, the receiver still pressed against her ear, listening to the empty hum. The proper course of action was obvious. She should telephone the police, tell them everything, and allow them to decide what had happened. She should be horrified that her own sister had deliberately taken a life, regardless of whose life it had been.
And she was horrified.
But beneath the shock, beneath the fear of what might happen to Susan, something else was beginning to stir.
It was the same terrible warmth she had felt beside the hospital bed, only now it was mingled with an affection so fierce that it brought fresh tears to her eyes. Susan had watched her suffer for years, had seen every humiliation and every disappointment, and had finally done something so dreadful, so irreversible, that Margaret could scarcely bear to think about it.
She replaced the receiver and looked towards the cupboard.
For several minutes she remained where she was, wrestling with what she knew she ought to do and what she feared she would actually do.
Then she stood, crossed the kitchen and opened the cupboard door.
The little amber bottles stood in their usual place, neat and innocent amongst the everyday remedies.
Margaret looked at them for a long time.
Finally, she closed the cupboard.
Not yet.
She would think about it later.
Instead, she went to the window and drew back the heavy floral curtains, allowing the morning sunshine to flood the kitchen for the first time in years. Outside, the garden was untidy, the flowerbeds neglected and the lawn badly in need of attention, but she found herself looking forward to putting it right.
She filled the kettle and took two cups from the dresser.
Susan would undoubtedly come round later. She always did when Margaret was upset, usually bringing a packet of biscuits and insisting they sit together until things seemed more manageable.
There would be difficult questions to ask and decisions neither of them could avoid forever.
But for now, Margaret placed the cups on the table, took out the good biscuits and waited for the water to boil.
After all, Susan had already helped her bury one terrible truth for her.
And Margaret was beginning to understand that some things were better left buried.