In Life We Are in Death - Part One — The Man

In Life We Are in Death

This is a story about a man and a woman, two strangers whose lives have been touched by death, and what becomes of their future when their paths unexpectedly cross.

Part One — The Man

Simon Atkinson

The story begins in a solicitor's office on a quiet Friday afternoon in late September.

Simon Atkinson sat behind his desk, surrounded by neatly arranged files and legal papers. At forty-seven, he was a tall, well-built man whose appearance reflected the order and discipline with which he approached almost every aspect of his life. His dark brown hair, once almost black, was beginning to show grey around the temples. He was clean-shaven, with sharp features and dark, observant eyes that rarely betrayed what he was thinking.

Simon dressed conservatively and immaculately. His dark suits were well tailored, his shirts crisp and his ties understated. Even after a long working day, there was rarely anything untidy about him.

The same could be said of his office.

Everything had its place.

Simon was a partner in the firm of Atkinson and Carmichael, having joined the practice twenty years earlier after completing his law degree with first-class honours. He had begun his career at the bottom and steadily worked his way through the various positions within the firm.

Over the years, Simon had established an impressive professional reputation. He was intelligent, methodical and exceptionally good at his job. His success attracted clients from considerable distances, some specifically asking whether Simon Atkinson would be willing to represent them.

Years as a solicitor had taught him how to control his emotions. He listened carefully, spoke only when necessary and rarely allowed anger, uncertainty or frustration to show.

To those who knew him only professionally, Simon could appear distant, perhaps even cold. Those who worked closely with him knew that he was courteous and dependable, but even they knew remarkably little about his private life.

Simon preferred it that way.

Lucy

Unlike many of his friends, Simon had married relatively late. Five years earlier, following the easing of the restrictions imposed during the Covid pandemic, he had married Lucy Simons.

Lucy worked in the finance department of her family's business. After their marriage, much of her attention had turned towards creating their family home—a place where she and Simon hoped that, one day, they might raise children.

With Lucy, Simon had been different.

She had seen the man beneath the carefully controlled exterior: warmer, more relaxed and occasionally humorous. But even Lucy understood that Simon found it difficult to express his deepest emotions.

Their future together had seemed secure.

Until two months ago.

Lucy had begun feeling unwell.

At first, neither of them believed there was any reason for serious concern. When her symptoms persisted, however, she visited her local doctor.

They could find nothing obviously wrong.

Her condition continued to deteriorate until eventually she was admitted to hospital.

Simon did not visit her.

He told himself there were reasons.

He had important cases. Clients depended upon him. There were meetings he could not cancel and deadlines that could not simply be ignored. Lucy had family members visiting her, people who could sit beside her bed and speak to the doctors.

But beneath those excuses was a truth Simon refused to confront.

He was frightened.

He could deal with contracts, disputes and difficult clients. He could argue a case with complete confidence.

But he could not bring himself to sit beside his seriously ill wife.

His colleagues at Atkinson and Carmichael knew nothing about Lucy's illness. As far as they were concerned, Simon's life remained exactly as it had always been.

The Telephone Call

That Friday afternoon, Simon was finalising a case that had occupied most of his week.

The office was unusually quiet. Most of the staff were finishing their work for the day, and beyond Simon's closed door the sounds of the working week were gradually fading away.

His telephone rang.

Simon picked it up.

“Simon Atkinson.”

It was Jane, his personal assistant.

“Sorry to disturb you, Simon. I've just taken a telephone call for you.”

Simon continued looking through the document on his desk.

“Who from?”

“Someone from the hospital.”

Simon stopped reading.

“The hospital?”

“Yes. They asked if you could call them back as soon as possible.”

Simon put down his pen.

“Did they say what it was about?”

“No. I asked if they wanted to leave a message, but they said they needed to speak to you personally.”

Jane had no reason to attach any particular significance to the call. She did not know that Lucy was in hospital. As far as Jane and everyone else at Atkinson and Carmichael knew, there was nothing unusual happening in Simon's private life.

“They've given me a name and a direct number,” Jane continued.

“Give them to me.”

Jane read out the details while Simon wrote them on a piece of paper.

“Thank you, Jane.”

“Do you want me to put the call through for you?”

“No. I'll deal with it.”

“All right.”

Simon ended the call.

For several seconds, he stared at the telephone number he had written down.

He knew immediately what the call must concern.

Lucy.

Nobody at the office knew she had been admitted to hospital. Simon had deliberately kept it that way. His wife's illness belonged to his private life, and he had no intention of bringing it into the office.

He picked up the telephone and dialled the number.

It rang twice before someone answered.

“Good afternoon.”

“Good afternoon. My name is Simon Atkinson. My personal assistant has just received a telephone call from the hospital asking me to call this number.”

“One moment, please, Mr Atkinson.”

Simon waited.

After a short silence, another voice came onto the line.

“Mr Atkinson?”

“Yes.”

“My name is Dr Harris. I'm one of the doctors who has been looking after your wife, Lucy.”

“Yes, Doctor.”

“Before I continue, I just need to confirm a few details with you.”

The doctor asked Simon several questions to establish his identity. Simon answered them calmly.

Then came a pause.

“Mr Atkinson, I'm very sorry to have to tell you this over the telephone.”

Simon tightened his grip on the receiver.

“Lucy's condition deteriorated very suddenly this afternoon. The medical team did everything they could for her, but unfortunately she didn't respond to treatment.”

Simon said nothing.

The doctor paused before continuing.

“I'm very sorry, Mr Atkinson. Lucy died this afternoon.”

For several seconds, Simon remained completely still.

“Died?”

“Yes. I'm very sorry.”

Simon stared across his office.

Outside his closed door, life continued as normal.

Somebody was talking further down the corridor. A telephone rang in another office. He heard the faint sound of laughter, followed by a door closing.

Nobody out there knew.

Nobody even knew Lucy had been ill.

“I don't understand,” Simon eventually said. “I was told she was getting better.”

“She had been showing signs of improvement,” the doctor replied. “Unfortunately, her condition changed very quickly.”

“But she was supposed to be coming home.”

“I understand, Mr Atkinson.”

Simon looked down at the papers spread across his desk.

Only minutes earlier, the case in front of him had seemed important.

Now the words on the pages meant nothing.

“When did she die?” he asked.

The doctor told him the time.

Simon automatically looked towards the clock on his office wall.

Lucy had died while he had been sitting at this desk.

Working.

“Was anyone with her?”

“Yes. A member of the nursing staff was with her.”

Simon swallowed.

There was another question he wanted to ask.

Did she ask for me?

The words came into his mind.

But he could not bring himself to say them.

Instead, he asked, “What happens now?”

The doctor quietly explained what would happen next and the arrangements Simon would need to make.

Simon listened, although afterwards he would remember very little of what had been said.

Before ending the call, the doctor asked, “Mr Atkinson, is there someone with you?”

Simon looked towards his closed office door.

“No.”

“Would you like us to contact a family member for you?”

“No. That won't be necessary.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

There was a short silence.

“I'm very sorry for your loss, Mr Atkinson.”

“Thank you.”

Simon ended the call.

He remained sitting behind his desk.

Outside, the office continued towards the end of an ordinary Friday afternoon.

Jane knew only that someone from the hospital had telephoned.

His colleagues knew nothing.

And Simon intended to keep it that way.

He looked down at the unfinished case in front of him.

Lucy was dead.

Only that morning she had existed somewhere in the world.

Now she didn't.

And Simon had not been there.

The Days After

In the days that followed, Simon continued working.

Nobody at the firm knew his wife was dead.

He dealt with the necessary formalities quietly. He obtained the death certificate and made the funeral arrangements himself.

There would be no large service, no gathering of friends, relatives or colleagues. No speeches and no hymns chosen because Lucy had once loved them.

Simon wanted none of it.

There would simply be a burial at the local cemetery, attended only by Simon, the vicar, the funeral director and his assistant.

The Funeral

On the morning of the funeral, it rained.

Simon drove alone to the cemetery.

He wore a black suit, white shirt and black tie beneath a dark overcoat. He carried an umbrella, although the wind occasionally drove the rain beneath it.

The cemetery seemed deserted.

Rows of wet headstones disappeared into the grey distance, while the branches of the surrounding trees moved gently in the wind.

Simon stood beside the open grave and waited.

Then the hearse appeared.

It moved slowly along the cemetery road before stopping nearby.

There were no following cars.

No mourners.

No flowers from colleagues who did not know Lucy had died.

The funeral director approached Simon and quietly offered his condolences.

Simon thanked him.

The coffin was removed from the hearse and carried towards the grave.

For the first time that morning, Simon found himself unable to look away.

Lucy was inside it.

The thought seemed impossible.

Only weeks earlier she had been walking around their home, talking about ordinary things and making plans for a future they had both assumed would come.

Now four men were carrying her towards a hole in the ground.

The coffin was placed above the grave.

The vicar took his position at its head.

He wore a black cassock beneath a white surplice and held a small prayer book in both hands. Rain gathered on its dark cover and ran slowly down his fingers.

He looked towards Simon before beginning.

“We have come here today to lay Lucy to rest. Though our gathering is small, the loss that brings us here is not. A human life is not measured by the number of people standing beside a grave, but by the love given and received during the years granted to it.”

Simon stared at the coffin.

The vicar lowered his eyes to his prayer book.

“In life we are in death. We know neither the day nor the hour when our earthly journey will end. We make our plans and look towards tomorrow, believing there will always be another morning, another conversation, another opportunity to say the things that remain unsaid.”

The words caught Simon's attention.

The things that remain unsaid.

There were many of those.

The vicar continued.

“We remember before God Lucy: a wife, a daughter, a member of a family, and a woman whose life touched the lives of others. We give thanks for the years she was given, for the happiness she brought, for the kindness she showed, and for every memory that those who loved her will carry from this place.”

Simon swallowed.

Memories came unexpectedly.

Their wedding day.

Lucy laughing in the kitchen.

Sunday mornings when neither of them had anywhere they needed to be.

Her asking him about some complicated case she did not entirely understand but wanted to hear about simply because it mattered to him.

Then he remembered the spare bedroom.

Lucy had once stood in its doorway, looking around the empty room.

“This would make a lovely nursery,” she had said.

Simon had smiled.

“One day.”

One day.

Those words seemed cruel now.

The vicar's voice brought him back to the cemetery.

“We pray especially for those who mourn. Give them strength when grief seems too great to carry. Give them comfort in their loneliness and courage when the familiar places of home seem empty. Help them remember not only the manner of death, but the fullness of the life that came before it.”

Simon lowered his head.

Home.

He had hardly thought about going home.

The vicar paused as the rain grew momentarily heavier.

“Where there is regret, may there one day be forgiveness. Where words were left unspoken, may there be peace. Where there are questions that can no longer be answered, may those who remain learn to live without those answers.”

Simon looked up.

For the first time since the service had begun, he looked directly at the vicar.

The words felt uncomfortably personal.

Where there is regret.

He thought of the hospital.

He had not gone.

Not once.

There had always been a reason.

An urgent meeting.

A client who needed him.

A case requiring his attention.

Lucy's family were already there.

He would visit tomorrow.

Tomorrow had always seemed available.

Until suddenly there were no tomorrows left.

The vicar continued.

“Human life is fragile. We enter this world knowing neither how long our journey will be nor what may await us upon the road. We build homes, make promises, form friendships and imagine futures that may never come to pass.”

Simon closed his eyes.

“We therefore give thanks for the ordinary moments that, when they are gone, reveal themselves to have been extraordinary: a familiar voice, a shared meal, laughter from another room, a hand held without thought, and the simple comfort of knowing that someone we love is there.”

Something tightened in Simon's chest.

He could almost hear Lucy moving around their house.

The sound of a cupboard closing.

Her footsteps on the stairs.

Her voice calling his name from another room.

All the insignificant sounds he had barely noticed while she was alive.

Now he would have given almost anything to hear one of them again.

The Burial

The vicar stepped closer to the grave.

The funeral director and his assistant prepared the ropes beneath the coffin.

“We now come to the moment of farewell.”

Simon watched as the coffin began to move.

Slowly, carefully, it descended.

The vicar spoke over the grave.

“Lucy, your earthly journey is ended. We commit your body to the earth from which all earthly life comes and to which, in time, all earthly life returns.”

The coffin descended further.

“Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”

Simon stared down.

The coffin reached the bottom.

Until that moment, some part of him had been able to pretend that Lucy was merely somewhere else.

In hospital.

At her parents' house.

Perhaps even at home, waiting for him.

But now there was no possibility of pretending.

She was there.

Beneath him.

Inside a coffin at the bottom of an open grave.

The vicar allowed a few moments of silence before continuing.

“May she rest in peace, free from pain and suffering. May those who loved her remember her with gratitude rather than sorrow alone. And when grief returns, as grief surely will, may they find comfort in knowing that love does not cease simply because a life has ended.”

Simon tightened his grip around the handle of his umbrella.

“May the memories of Lucy remain in the hearts of those who knew her. May the good she brought into this world continue through them. And may those who must now continue without her find the courage to take each day as it comes.”

The vicar looked towards Simon.

“For death changes those who remain. It divides life into what came before and what must come afterwards. We cannot return to yesterday, however greatly we may wish to do so. We can only carry those we have lost with us into whatever tomorrow may bring.”

Simon looked down at Lucy's coffin.

Tomorrow.

He had spent his entire professional life planning for tomorrow.

Court dates.

Meetings.

Appointments.

Deadlines.

There had always been another date in his diary.

But Lucy had no tomorrow.

The vicar bowed his head.

“Grant peace to Lucy and comfort to all who mourn her. Give them strength for the days ahead, patience with their grief, and, when the time is right, permission to live again without believing that living means forgetting.”

There was another silence.

Only the rain could be heard.

Then the vicar said softly:

“May Lucy rest in peace.”

Simon hesitated.

“Amen.”

The word was barely audible.

The vicar closed his prayer book.

But Simon continued staring into the grave.

For the first time, one thought pushed aside everything else.

I should have gone to see her.

He should have sat beside her hospital bed.

He should have held her hand.

He should have told her that he loved her.

And, more than anything, he should have been there when she needed him.

Had Lucy asked for him?

Had she watched the hospital door, expecting him to walk through it?

Had she wondered why he had stayed away?

Simon did not know.

Now he never would.

There was no argument he could construct to change what had happened. No evidence he could introduce. No judgment he could appeal.

For twenty years, Simon Atkinson had made his living finding answers to other people's problems.

Standing beside his wife's grave, he discovered that some questions had no answers at all.

The vicar approached him.

“I am very sorry for your loss, Mr Atkinson.”

Simon looked at him.

“Thank you.”

“If you ever feel you would like to talk—”

“That's very kind of you.”

His answer was polite but final.

The vicar understood.

Simon remained beside the grave for several more minutes.

There were hundreds of things he could have said to Lucy.

But even now, with nobody there to hear him, he could not find the words.

Eventually, he turned away.

“Thank you, Vicar.”

He thanked the funeral director as well, walked back through the rain to his car and drove home.

Wednesday Afternoons

The following morning, Simon returned to work.

Life continued.

Or at least Simon behaved as though it did.

Over the following weeks, he filled every available moment with work. There were old cases to finish and new ones to begin. Clients to meet. Letters to write. Documents to examine. Telephone calls to make.

To everyone around him, nothing appeared unusual.

But grief was beginning to leave its mark.

Simon slept badly. His face became slightly thinner, and the grey around his temples seemed more noticeable. Sometimes he arrived at the office earlier than usual simply because there was no reason to remain at home.

The house he and Lucy had created together had become unbearably quiet.

There was, however, one change in Simon's routine.

Wednesday afternoons.

Every Wednesday, Simon told his colleagues that he would spend the afternoon working from home.

It was something he had rarely done before, except during the Covid restrictions.

But Simon wasn't working from home.

He was going to the cemetery.

Every Wednesday afternoon, he stood beside Lucy's grave.

And there, where nobody from the office could hear him, Simon talked to his wife.

He told her about his week.

He spoke about the people he had met, the clients who had irritated him and the cases that had interested him. Sometimes he told her about problems at the firm or conversations he thought she would have found amusing.

Lucy had always been interested in his working life.

So Simon continued telling her about it.

Week after week, he returned.

At first, he was usually alone.

Then he began noticing a woman walking her dog through the cemetery.

He paid little attention to her. Cemeteries were public places, after all, and people often used the paths for walking.

But the following Wednesday, she was there again.

And the Wednesday after that.

Weeks passed.

Almost without realising it, Simon became accustomed to seeing the same woman and her dog during his visits.

They never spoke.

Occasionally, their eyes met and one of them gave the other a polite nod, but nothing more.

Winter came and went.

Then spring.

The Headstone

The following May, a stonemason erected Lucy's headstone.

Simon had chosen black granite. It was simple and dignified, bearing Lucy's name and the dates of her birth and death.

He stood looking at it for a long time.

Seeing her name permanently carved into stone somehow made everything different.

Final.

The woman was still visiting the cemetery.

Recently, however, Simon had noticed something had changed.

She no longer brought the dog.

He wondered why but never asked.

They were strangers.

Louise

Then, one Wednesday afternoon in June, the weather was pleasantly warm.

Simon had finished his usual visit to Lucy's grave and was making his way back towards his car when he saw the woman.

She was sitting alone on a bench.

She was crying.

Simon hesitated.

For months, they had occupied the same place at roughly the same time without ever properly acknowledging one another.

He knew nothing about her.

Not even her name.

He could simply continue walking.

Perhaps he should.

Instead, Simon stopped.

He approached the bench.

“Hello,” he said gently. “Are you all right?”

The woman quickly wiped her eyes.

Simon gestured towards the empty space beside her.

“Would you mind if I joined you?”

She looked up at him.

“Yes,” she said quietly.

Then, realising what she had said, she gave the faintest smile.

“I mean, no, I don't mind. Please sit.”

Simon sat beside her.

For a few moments, neither of them spoke.

Then the woman broke the silence.

“I'm Louise.”

“Simon.”

“I know.”

Simon turned towards her in surprise.

Louise gave another small smile.

“I've noticed you coming here,” she explained. “Every Wednesday.”

Simon glanced towards Lucy's grave.

Louise followed his gaze.

“You come to visit your wife, don't you?”

Simon was taken aback.

For months, his Wednesday afternoons had seemed private—a small part of his life belonging only to himself and Lucy.

Yet this stranger had noticed him.

“Yes,” he replied eventually. “I do.”

Louise looked towards the rows of graves.

“I thought so.”

Simon studied her for a moment.

“And you?” he asked.

The smile disappeared from Louise's face.

She lowered her eyes.

For several seconds, she said nothing.

Then she took a slow breath.

“I suppose,” she said, “that's a rather long story.”

Simon looked towards Lucy's grave once more.

For the first time since his wife's death, he realised that he wanted to hear somebody else's story.

He turned back to Louise.

“I've got time.”