She began an anonymous blog, Wife of Brian. Her username is brianswife. It is a place to log her loneliness. Ask advice. Crack bleakly funny jokes. What she used to share with Finlay, she shares with the internet. A growing band of commiserators follow her posts and leave their comments. They cheer her on, commend her strength. Sometimes they urge her to leave him.

Yet when she drills down, under the hurt and tears, she finds love for her husband. She is married to Brian, but somewhere inside him is Finlay. Though her husband feels utterly gone, dead as his daughter, that is the trick of grief. Finlay is buried alive, and his coffin is Brian. He is rattling around in his own monstrous craw like a pea. She glimpses him from the corner of her eye. He flicks out of existence under her focus, but faith is restored: her husband exists! But is trapped inside Brian. She forces herself to remember the difference: there’s Brian and there’s Finlay; one is not the other, the monster is not the husband, even when the monster has swallowed the husband whole. Even when, eyes aside, they look almost identical.

When her husband is swallowed by a monster, the good wife waits. There is an old folk tale, Tam Lin. A beloved husband is cursed by a witch. The curse can be broken only by love. The husband’s first disguise is a tree. So the wife hugs her wooden, unyielding husband, declaring her love. But it is easy to love a tree, and no test of your trueness. The tree will not love you back, but it’s harmless. The witch’s curse tests love more completely. The husband will keep changing form, and the wife must hold on no matter what form he takes. If she drops him, he’s lost, stuck forever in the shape that his wife couldn’t tolerate. Whether she finds in her hands a poisonous snake or a razor-sharp blade, a slippery eel or a white-hot poker, and though she cannot know what terrifying transformation will follow, the wife must grip fast, keep faith that this is her husband. Only when her love has been tested to its end will her husband be restored.

It has been eighteen months since her stepdaughter fell from the sky and demolished their marriage. She strengthens her resolve by remembering the man she fell in love with. Before Fin, every love was a sham. Before Fin, she was all front and hiding. All lipstick and capability to her man, but privately punctured, spilling secretly in the darkness like a packet of rice at the back of a cupboard. Somewhere in her adolescence she had swallowed the cultural pill that led girls to mould themselves into what men desired. Whereas every cell of Fin whispered,

I want YOU.

Who are YOU?

Give me YOU.