Chapter 27 27. Harold and another letter

Dear Gas Station Girl: I owe you a full story.Twenty years ago I buried my son with my own hands.This is not what a father should do.I want to see what kind of man he will be when he grows up.I still want to. I don't understand to this day why he did that.He suffers from depression and is addicted to alcohol and drugs.He can't find a job.But I wished with all my heart that he would have come to me to have a talk then. He was hanged from a garden trellis.He used some string and tied it to the iron hooks I used to hang my garden tools.With so much alcohol and drugs in his system, the coroner said it must have taken him a long time to tie the knot.The final conclusion was suicide.

I found him.I can hardly write anymore.That's when I go to pray, though I'm not religious, like I told you at the gas station.I said, dear God, please make him well, I would do anything.I put him down, but there was nothing left. I am too late. I wish they hadn't told me it took him so long to tie that knot.My wife was hit hard.She didn't want to go out of the house and hung up the curtains because she didn't want neighbors to visit.Gradually, those people all moved away, and no one knew us, and no one knew what had happened.But every time Maureen looked at me, I knew she was seeing dead David again.

She started talking to him.He was with her, she said, she had been waiting for him.Maureen made David's room exactly as it was the day he died.Sometimes it makes me hurt all over again, but it's what my wife wants.She couldn't let him die, and I know that's cruel to a mother. Queenie knew everything about David, but she said nothing.She takes good care of me.She would hand me a cup of tea with sugar and talk to me about the weather.Only once, she said, maybe you've had enough, Mr. Fry.Because that's another issue, I was drinking heavily. Just a small shot at first to get me through while I waited for the coroner's report.But then I started hiding paper bags under my desk with wine bottles in them.God knows how I drove home.I guess if you get drunk enough, you can feel nothing.

I really lost control one night and tore down the whole garden trellis.But still not enough.So I broke into the winery and did something really bad.Queenie took the blame for me. She was fired on the spot and disappeared.I heard she was warned to get the hell out of the South West of England, if she knew what was going on.I also heard from a secretary who was very close to Queenie's landlord that she left without leaving a new address.I just let her go, let her take the blame for me.But I have since quit drinking. Maureen and I fought every day for a long time.Gradually we stopped talking.She moved out of our room.don't love me anymore.Many times I thought she would leave me, but she didn't.I didn't get a good night's sleep.

Everyone thought I was hiking because we had a romance many years ago.But that's not true.I went this way because she saved me and I never said thank you.That is why I am writing to you.I think you know how much you helped me a few weeks ago, though I'm afraid I'll never have your courage. My best wishes and humble thanks.Harold Fry.And: I'm sorry I didn't know your name.