Double Exposure
by Fiona Sinclair
Part 1 appears in this issue.
conclusion
But weeks watching cancer strip the flesh off the man she loved in spite of everything, meant that Bonnie’s reserves of energy were nearly bankrupt, too.
One afternoon she looked up from the lists that bred lists on her desk. She went over to the French windows. Loneliness overwhelmed her. Bonnie found herself missing the intrinsic Ned. The better qualities she loved him for. His wit, his optimism and above all his genius for getting himself out of scrapes.
And without any preamble, Bonnie suddenly knew he was standing behind her. There was no physical contact, no arms encircling her waist, or cheeky smoothing of her breasts, nevertheless she knew with absolute certainty he was there.
She was not alarmed, because he had died only weeks before, and his presence was still very familiar to her. All her anger at him was shed momentarily in the intense intimacy of the moment.
Then he was gone. She tried to conjure him back like a medium. But she felt the space beside her was entirely empty.
In bed that night, when worries kept her awake like noisy neighbours, she tried to make sense of the encounter. It had been uncanny without being unnerving. Like many people in her precarious position, she was inclined to invest it with psychic properties, hoping that it promised better days ahead.
But the farther away from the incident the fast current of her life carried her, the less she believed that. Bonnie certainly never shared it with anyone, not from tender feelings of a last intimate exchange between husband and wife, but rather she believed friends and relatives would either challenge her mental health or explain it away as the product of an exhausted brain.
Christmas Day 2014
Christmas that year was a muted affair. Bonnie went through the motions for her young daughter. A tree was erected, the familiar decorations hung. But all the family rituals without Ned lacked their usual zest.
A death so close to Christmas can render the day grotesque with its emphasis on family and universal joy. But Bonnie’s family navigated a way through. Her sister’s two kids, usually very vocal, had clearly been told to mute their exuberance.
At the dining table, they kept the conversation light but not frivolous. Initially her sister and brother-in-law tended to swerve away from any references to Ned until Bonnie told them: ‘It’s OK to talk about him.’ This permission, aided by the wine, allowed the group to relax visibly.
Later that evening, when her sister’s family had decamped to their own home, Bonnie and her mother flopped down into armchairs. Julia sipped at a large amber sherry whilst Bonnie had poured herself a generous treacle-hued brandy. Lit only by the sparkling lights of the Christmas tree, the semi-darkness of the room seemed to fold itself around them.
This was a rare moment in their relationship: the two women alone with nothing to do but sip their drinks. Conversation flitted between them. ‘I wonder what a collective noun for widows would be?’ Julia suddenly said and recalled that her daughter had once suggested a ‘wallow.’ They both giggled.
Quite naturally, they began to compare notes on the status they had in common, more specifically the experience of being a young widow. Elderly widows were plentiful, they agreed. These women found a camaraderie in outliving their men. Clusters of them meeting at the bingo or church functions.
But outside of war time, young widows were anomalous. Divorcees were commonplace and created a sisterhood against a common enemy: ‘men.’ But to state: ‘I’m a widow’ seemed too wrong-footed, drawing an uncomfortable ‘Oh sorry’ followed by an awkward silence. ‘It’s as if death is contagious,’ Bonnie remarked.
Of course, Julia had a head start on her daughter and could write a handbook on how to survive the hazards of being widowed prematurely. She now wanted to prepare Bonnie for the challenges this shift in status might present.
‘Have you noticed any changes in the way your married friends treat you?’ she began.
Thinking about it, Bonnie realised no help had been offered from friends or their husbands, and invitations had dried up. All of which she put down to their being tactful.
‘You’re a double threat now,’ warned her mother. ‘Young and attractive.’
Bonnie lifted her head up from where it was nestled on the back of the chair. ‘You mean I am suddenly the merry widow?’
‘Or black widow,’ the women said in concert and burst out laughing.
‘Mind you,’ Julia added, sloughing off her shoes and shifting herself to curl up like a cat in the ample chair, ‘girlfriends may have reason to be suspicious, not of us, but of their men.’ She swirled her sherry round in its glass as if weighing up whether she should expand more. ‘After your dad’s death, I had a fair few husbands generously offer to fulfil my “needs” as I now had no husband.’
Bonnie stared at her mother in horror. ‘Oh mum, you poor thing!’ she cried. ‘Bloody opportunists!’ Anger flared up inside her at the thought of her mother, usually so reticent about sex, having to fend off these predatory propositions.
Julia, with the distance of time, was able to shake her head, smile, and pour herself another sherry. ‘Sex was the last thing on my mind in those early months. And, later, well, it was difficult to find another man like Mike.’
An image of him popped into both their minds. Oblivious to his Clark Gable looks. Happy go lucky. First port of call for anyone in trouble.
‘Dad was a good man,’ Bonnie said softly.
Her mother looked across at her. ‘So was Ned, in his way.’
Bonnie remained silent; tears threatened to overflow her eyes. She blinked hard to contain them.
Witnessing her daughter struggle through the chaos in the wake of Ned’s demise, Julia found it hard to forgive him. He was chronically irresponsible, selfish, even. But observing his savage death, the theft of his life at 40, she was still able to pan his bad qualities for gold.
Now she carefully chose her words, so that it wouldn’t seem she was advocating on his behalf. ‘I know you have every reason to dislike him at the moment, but I can see that despite his many faults, he did love you.’
Her mother’s words served to engender a seedling hope in Bonnie that with time, when she had finally tidied up after her husband, she would find her way back to the best of Ned.
She recalled again that uncanny last encounter with him where there had been no recriminations, just the old feeling of intimacy. The atmosphere of this Christmas evening seemed to encourage revelations. Bonnie found herself wanting to share the strange experience with her mother.
‘Something odd happened not long after Ned died, a few weeks later, perhaps.’ She was unclear of dates since time had become so scrambled. Julia knew instantly what her daughter was struggling to reveal.
Having come to terms with her own experience, she now believed in the reality of the incident as faithfully as she believed in God. So, in a matter-of-fact fashion, Julia was able to provide the words for her: ‘Ned came back, just briefly.’ Silence as her daughter regarded her like an uncanny clairvoyant.
Her mother continued: ‘The same thing happened to me. I didn’t see him, just knew that, for a short while, Mike was there.’
Once again, her mother had unlocked secrets that caused her daughter to view with wonder this woman whom she would have sworn she knew thoroughly but who now displayed such a propensity for surprising.
Comparing notes, they found a mirrored experience. It was a certainty of their husband’s presence, a recognition of the familiar.
‘Why didn’t you say anything?’ Bonnie asked.
Her mother smiled. ‘For the same reason you didn’t tell me.’
They agreed that when it came to revealing the event to a wider circle of family and friends, fear of censure had silenced them both. However, the more they discussed the occurrence between themselves, the more it became clear that their interpretations differed.
‘What do you think it means?’ Bonnie asked her mother. Still unsure how to view the matter.
‘I think,’ Julia answered carefully, ‘we are meant to invest it with our own meaning.’ She gave a wry smile to her atheist daughter as she explained that for her it was proof of an afterlife.
‘You’re on your own there,’ Bonnie said with a grin.
But Julia had uttered her belief so emphatically, that her daughter envied her conviction.
Bonnie was different though. She was not a particularly spiritual person and believed that death was, if anything, a dead end. Yet the fact that each woman had experienced the same occurrence years apart certainly gave an afterlife credibility. Bonnie could not simply dismiss the event. Since she couldn’t believe it had a religious dimension, Bonnie found she could file it away in her mind as extra-mundane, simply one of life’s experiences that could not be explained.
Both women agreed instinctively to keep the occurrence between themselves. Shielding it from the daft interpretations of sceptical family members and friends, knowing it was beyond the comprehension of anyone who had not been touched by its strangeness. Handled by too many people, the event would be devalued, soiled until it was rendered inauthentic.
‘I do wonder, though,’ said Julia thoughtfully, as she stretched her legs, which had become cramped in the intensity of their discussion, ‘whether other women — and men, for that matter — have experienced something similar.’
Copyright © 2025 by Fiona Sinclair
