Page 116 of The Interview
“H, shut down the sounds, would ya?” Marley calls, cutting Lu off. “Dad, before you get started on yet another of your epic and highly entertaining soliloquies, Joe’s got something he needs to tell you.”
My dad holds out his arm. “Go for it,” he says to Joe, not really meaning it because he hates to be thwarted from delivering one of his legendary speeches.
“Nan, Grandad, famalam. I’d like to introduce you all to Jake. My brother. Your, grandson, nephew, cousin.”
“What?” I gasp.
“What the fuck?” Jimmie, who’s apparently consumed even more alcohol than me, cries out.
“Jake,” my dad says. “Welcome to the family, boy.”
EPILOGUE
CAM
“Sometimes, some days, especially at the beginning when I first lost them, it was loud. The loss, it was so loud, it consumed me, and I had no tools to shut it down. The only way I could see forward was to end my own life. To go be with my husband and children.”
I watch as Georgia finishes brushing Iris and then covers her in a stable rug before stepping out of the stall and bolting the gate.
She’s still wearing the blue velvet riding helmet I had custom-made for her. It matches the colour of her eyes, which are shining from her makeup-free face, still flushed from her ride this morning. With her hair hanging in plaits on either side of her shoulders, she looks younger than her fifty-seven years.
“You’ve been honest about your suicide attempts and admitting that your family felt the safest way forward was to have you go to a facility to get the help they couldn’t give.”
Georgia gives Daniel the side-eye. “I was institutionalised, committed, sectioned, Daniel. Let’s not sugarcoat it. My family were already going through hell. I was just adding fear to theirmisery and grief,” Georgia tells him as they walk across the field towards our house.
“What brought about the change? What made you stop? Did the facility help you to quieten that noise, the sound of your grief?” he asks her.
“Not really, and no disrespect to the facility I was in, but it’s one of the reasons I wanted to get our own places up and running. There isn’t a one-size-fits-all for dealing with grief, and that’s how that place was run. I wanted to open somewhere that was tailored to the individual, not the process, if that makes sense?” Georgia explains.
Daniel nods, but I’m not sure he’s understanding what she’s saying.
“I didn’t want to be dragged out of my room every day and forced to discuss my feelings. I wanted to be left alone with them, to wallow in them. I needed that time. If they’d just given me that, I probably would’ve learned to quieten the noise a lot sooner.”
“So, how did you? What made the change?”
I watch my wife shrug. She and Daniel climb the steps up to our back deck and each take a seat on the chairs out there. Georgia lifts the top of the round table that sits between them and pulls out two bottles of water. After handing one to Daniel, she unscrews the cap on hers, then pauses.
“It was a combination of my family and my own mindset. Jimmie and Ash were so angry with me and did not hold back from telling me how selfish I was. Then, one day, not long after I’d been allowed home, Marley turned up with my old car—Hilda my Triumph Herald. My parents’ house has an in-and-out drive, and the first couple of days, I’d start her up and just pull forward and back in the drive. I soon realised that while I was doing that, the noise quietened. So, I drove down to the end of the drive, and eventually out of the drive, down to the roundabout, andback again. My dad had seen what I was doing and noticed I was more communicative, less inside my own head, so he had Iris transported over to their place, and I started riding. It was the same, but even better. When I ride, my head goes silent. It’s just her and me, focused on what we’re doing, how it feels…”
Georgia swigs from her bottle of water and stares out across the land surrounding our property.
“Is it the same now. Do you still have loud days? Does riding still help?”
I shift as I wait for her answer, crossing one leg over the other where they’re stretched out on the coffee table in front of me while I sit on the sofa and watch my wife up on the screen.
“Riding helps everything,” she says with a smile. “Whether I want to shut down the noise or solve a problem, riding’s the cure.”
“You do still have noise, then?” Daniel pushes.
“Very rarely. Thanks to Cam, my kids, and my extended family, it’s quieter now. Some days, barely a whisper. Some days, complete silence. But like I’ve said before, grief isn’t linear, and some days, for absolutely no reason, it’s roaring in my head again. But just a touch, a look, one conversation with Cam, my kids, or my family, and it’s quiet. A ride out on Iris, and it’s silence.”
The sound of tyres crunching on gravel comes from the screen.
“You expecting guests?” Daniel asks Georgia, as if the cameras weren’t following them.
“Yep,” she replies with a grin as she removes her riding helmet.
From around the side of the house, Marley appears with Jake Wright. Georgia stands as they climb the steps to the deck and approach her. They both get a big cuddle before they lean in and shake hands with Daniel.
