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It is the simple things that break you.
I managed to keep it together in the hospital, when I saw Mycroft, even at his funeral. But when I pulled his purple satin shirt out of the washing machine, crumpled and tangled up with my jeans, I sat on the kitchen floor in the dying evening light, held the damp fabric against my face and cried. As I sat there on the cold tile floor darkness filled the flat around me, curling into corners and settling there quietly.
It seems smaller without him here. His energy seemed to make the walls swell, expand. They close in on me now when I’m not looking, mocking me, accentuating my loneliness. It’s like the empty space is searching for him.
I knew I’d have to do it eventually, but a full month passes before I can even think about going through his possessions. This is only in part due to sentiment – he has so much stuff it will take me weeks to get through it all. I try to start with the simple things; the notes and case files and frantic scribblings that he filed away in his side of the bookshelf. I thought this would probably be the easiest place to begin, but seeing his confident, elegant lettering flowing across page after page, intricately detailing the cases that he will never be a part of again just sends waves of hopeless despair flowing through me and I end up sitting paralysed on the floor again.
Like I said, it’s the simple things.
In the end, I call Sarah and ask her if she’ll help. She is quietly comforting and calmly efficient. I tell her I want everything gone and she gets to it with a sympathetic look but without question, and, in less than a few hours, his entire life sits in three huge cardboard boxes, which Sarah carries out to her car one by one. I don’t ask where she takes them.
I don’t tell her about the shoe-box under my bed, filled with the things I couldn’t bear to lose. His purple shirt is in there, lining the box like the satin that lined his coffin. I ironed it for him. I don’t know why.
Sarah comes back in the afternoon and makes tea. She makes me sit down, and makes me talk. I realise that, apart from her I’ve hardly seen anyone, and I’ve barely left the flat since it happened. It’s been nearly 6 weeks. Shit.
We chat about normal things. Normal, boring, human things. But I like it – it feels therapeutic. I can feel my shoulders relaxing as her gentle voice fills the room, and my leg stops twitching. It’s been doing that a lot recently. We’re chatting and it’s all fine and going well until she makes a joke and I laugh and then I stop abruptly, startled by the sound of my own amusement. I feel like I should clap my hand across my mouth, chase the noise back in. It sounds far too loud in here, far too alien, and it’s far too soon.
Suddenly I am struck by the memory of the last time I laughed in this flat. He was doing something that I probably didn’t want to know about in the kitchen. All morning I’d been hearing the occasional bang and smash of glass, accompanied by his growls of frustration and heavy sighs. Then around lunchtime, just when I’d started to think that it would be nice to have the kitchen back so I could get something to eat, a colossal explosion shook the windows and made me jump out of my skin. I’d leaped out of my chair and ran to the kitchen with a panicked shout of his name – and found him flat on his back on the kitchen floor, plastic safety specs askew, hair all over the place and the most bewildered expression on his angular face that read “how the hell did I get down here?” Just the sheer look of confusion on his face was enough to send me into a fit of spluttering giggles. His expression changed to one of embarrassment and offence as he stood up stiffly and brushed himself off, but even though I felt a bit guilty once I had started I just couldn’t seem to stop. After a few seconds, he started to chuckle as well, his deep baritone harmonising with my childlike giggles and soon we were holding onto each other with tears in our eyes, laughing so hard we could barely stand.
It hurts to know I will never laugh like that with him again. It just hurts so fucking much.
Sarah sees the flicker of memory and pain in my eyes and covers my suddenly cold hand with her warm one. She asks me if I want her to stay. I glance at the clock and swear softly; I hadn’t even realised what time it was. I thank her for everything she’s done for me and tell her that I’ll be fine, really I will, and to go home. She hugs me before she leaves and as I feel her warm body against mine it strikes me that it’s been months since anyone gave me a proper hug. I cling to her, suddenly wishing I’d asked her to stay. I count her footsteps as she goes down the stairs, and close my eyes as the door bangs shut behind her.
As soon as she’s gone the flat is cold and dark and small again and I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe.
~
I hate seeing his name printed on the front of the envelopes that thud through the door every morning. Seeing it printed like that makes it seem like he’s still real, he still exists, of course he still exists, look, there’s post for him. I don’t know what to do with those letters. Some of them I open. Some of them I throw straight in the bin. Sometimes I just leave them on the mat downstairs, but they’re always gone the next morning. Mrs Hudson is dealing with this a lot better than I am, but then again, she’s had the practice. She’s been through this before. I don’t know what to do.
The letters for me are rare and mostly just bills. He used to pay the bills. That was the deal we had. I paid the rent, he paid the bills. I didn’t realise what it cost to live here – not nearly as much as I thought. He never needed a flat mate. Well, not financially anyway.
The day the letter comes is my birthday. Rather than sorting through what’s mine and what’s his at the front door, I just scoop all the post up when it crashed through the letterbox and carry it upstairs with me, flicking through the envelopes as I go. The two tops ones are for me, one from Harry and one from my parents. Sarah had given me her card yesterday when she came over for coffee. She does that quite often now. I enjoy her company, in the few hours a week I spend with her I can just forget, forget the pain, the loss and in forgetting that, I start feeling alive again. But she always has to go eventually, and I am always left alone in that flat.
I set the two new cards next to hers on the mantelpiece. They cover the empty space where the skull once sat. The next two envelopes are for him, and I stuff them into the bin quickly before his name starts ringing in my head. That happens sometimes, when I see his name written down. It starts multiplying in my head, swimming around and around until I can’t think straight.
The last letter is upside down in my hand. The paper is thicker than a typical envelope. I turn it over.
His handwriting looks up at me.
John Watson
221B Baker Street
London NW1
Confident, elegant lettering, flowing across the page.
I am frozen where I stand.
For minutes I just stand there, staring at what I am holding, before my legs start to buckle underneath me and I fall backwards, my free hand clutching at the arm of the sofa as I collapse onto it.
I am shaking and I feel sick and I don’t understand. What is this? Is he alive, is he writing to me? Look at the date, its date stamped yesterday and I don’t understand, I don’t understand.
With trembling fingers, I tear at the seal and open the flap. There is a single, folded sheet of paper inside. I pull it out, I unfold it, and I take a deep breath.
And then I read it.
John,
I hope this letter has found you safe.
I wanted to thank you, John. Thank you for the honour of being my friend. Before you, I had no experience of what it was to have a friend, and you were the best friend a man could ever hope for, John Watson. For everything I am forever grateful, and eternally sorry that I left you like this.
I am sorry for what I have done to you, and for what I will continue to do to you by sending you these letters from beyond the grave. I’ve never had a friend before and wasn’t ready for us to say goodbye just yet. Don’t wait for these letters – they will find you at the right times.
Please believe me to be, my dear John,
Very sincerely yours,
Sherlock Holmes
I don’t even register the tears as they form silent patterns down my cheeks as I sit alone in the flat and read his words. But then, for the first time in what feels like forever, I smile. The tears come faster as my grin gets wider, my lips cracking and my cheek muscles aching as I start to laugh out loud.
Oh, Sherlock.
How could I have thought that you would simply depart this world quietly, like any other normal person? How boring! And you always so despised being boring.
This is my miracle. One more miracle, just for me.