It should have been difficult, it should have been insufferable.

I accepted Janey would never forgive me a long time ago. The day they took Jason, they took my wife, my marriage and my reason for living; only a naive hope stayed my hand.

For all the emotional distance and cocoon of solitude I’d wrapped around me over the years as a self imposed penance, Janey still picked up her phone to listen to me.

She accepted the hours of self loathing I laid upon myself whilst I recounted our lives together, following the same inevitable narrative with the same gut wrenching conclusion; our son was taken and that should have been the point I killed myself.

She would always listen to my words, my sobbing, my silence. Never interrupting or contributing, always with a radio turned low in the background to reaffirm she was there.

Always she would end the conversations with “I don’t forgive you, goodnight”

With stones in my stomach I called her.

The receiver clicked and I breathed in
“I know. He’s alive” she said