Give Me A Sign

So much had changed for Robina that it was hard right now to see a way through . . .

MORNINGS were the worst, in Robina’s experience. First came that delicious half-moment of wooziness, under the duvet, when the world felt a warm and fuzzy place.

Then the memory burst through, asserting itself – Dickie was dead, still dead, never coming back.

Twenty-seven years of marriage, most of which she’d taken for granted, ended without warning.

“Oh, how differently I’d do things, if I had the chance to go back,” she often murmured to herself.

She’d tell Dickie every day just how much she loved him, for a start.

“We don’t need to say it – we just know,” was the excuse she’d regularly given, when her husband asked if she thought they should tell each other more.

“But I did love you, Dickie,” she whispered into the sheets now. “And I always will.”

People had been kind to her since she’d lost him.

The neighbours had rallied round, bringing casseroles and tins of shortbread to her door.

The folk at work had kept on top of her duties until she was fit to return, and had consoled her in the first, difficult days of trying to pick up the reins of her life and continue.

She couldn’t say enough good things about the kids – they’d asked her what she wanted and honoured it to the letter, not just the funeral arrangements, but also by all three returning to their universities.

“Your dad would hate to think of you falling behind in your studies over him,” Robina insisted.

She thought everyone had done their very best, but it didn’t make her feel an awful lot better.

After a year, she was as lonely and desolate as ever.

It was Friday night. The weekend. Time to put your feet up in front of the telly, open a bottle of Chardonnay and eat a bar of chocolate.

But it just wasn’t the same without Dickie beside her on the sofa.

“Will I ever feel any better?” Robina murmured, as she flicked on the television.

“Feel good, feel better, feel best!”

Robina almost jumped out of her seat.

It was only the TV, playing an advertising jingle for a vitamin supplement, but just for a second, it had seemed to be speaking to her.

“As if a vitamin boost could cure what ails me,” she muttered.

She lifted her television guide. There it was again – a full-page advertisement for the same effervescent vitamin supplement.

Get your fizz back – feel good, feel better, feel best!

“If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were trying to make a point, Dickie,” Robina murmured.

The idea of it made her smile – Dickie watching out for her from a better place.

She watched a detective drama, texted the kids to say goodnight, then slipped off to bed, where she switched on the radio for company.

Her head had barely hit the pillow when the music programme went to a commercial break.

“A new way to enjoy multi-vitamins – feel good, feel better, feel best!”

“All right, all right, Dickie! I’ll pick some up when I’m in town in the morning!”

It was the first night in a whole year that Robina had gone to sleep with a smile on her face.

Shopping for one could be depressing. All the pre-packed goods seemed to assume everyone lived in families of four or five.

Even in the butcher’s, where Robina could buy loose items, it felt a bit tragic to ask for two sausages, one burger, a single chicken breast.

Still, it got her out of the house, and she always treated herself to a coffee.

She’d adopted a new coffee shop, tucked inside the bookshop.

Her old haunts had too many memories – the empty chair on the other side of the table was where Dickie used to sit.

Before coffee, though, she must make that promised call at the pharmacy for the new multi-vitamin – even though she knew perfectly well that it was an ad campaign and not really Dickie urging her to do so.

“Hello. Can I help you find something?”

It was a nice man in a well-pressed open-necked shirt. His badge said he was the pharmacist.

“Ehm . . . yes. I’ve heard of this new multi-vitamin.”

“We have a large range of supplements. Is it for you?”

“Yes.”

“Do you mind me