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Back Love and Other Lies Save as PDF
Chapters (61)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. Imagine a girl
  4. Prologue
  5. The Foreigner
  6. One
  7. Two
  8. Three
  9. Four
  10. Five
  11. The Skeptic
  12. Six
  13. Seven
  14. Eight
  15. Nine
  16. Ten
  17. Eleven
  18. Twelve
  19. Thirteen
  20. Fourteen
  21. Fifteen
  22. Sixteen
  23. Seventeen
  24. Eighteen
  25. Nineteen
  26. Twenty
  27. Twenty-One
  28. Twenty-Two
  29. Twenty-Three
  30. The Spectator
  31. Twenty-Four
  32. Twenty-Five
  33. Twenty-Six
  34. Twenty-Seven
  35. Twenty-Eight
  36. Twenty-Nine
  37. The Assassin
  38. Thirty
  39. Thirty-One
  40. Thirty-Two
  41. Thirty-Three
  42. Thirty-Four
  43. Thirty-Five
  44. Thirty-Six
  45. Thirty-Seven
  46. Thirty-Eight
  47. Thirty-Nine
  48. Forty
  49. Forty-One
  50. The Hunter
  51. Forty-Two
  52. Forty-Three
  53. Forty-Four
  54. Forty-Five
  55. Forty-Six
  56. Forty-Seven
  57. Imagine a girl
  58. Acknowledgments
  59. About the Author
  60. Also by Ben McPherson
  61. About the Publisher

In the depths of my soul I wanted him dead too. But I put the thought from my mind. Because we are not that kind of family and I am not that kind of man.

The Spectator

Twenty-Four

The spring months were the making of Franklin. Once a serious baby—old-mannish, heavy-jowled—with the coming of the spring he had lightened and lengthened, grown supple and strong. This June morning he had escaped the confines of his diaper, thrown it from his crib to the wooden floor beyond. He had climbed the bars that held him, lowered himself gently down, run naked through the apartment, all limbs and untamed hair.

“Wheee!”

Vee shouted back at him, “Wheee!”

Franklin skidded to a stop on the kitchen floor, arms high. He swayed, became serious, fixed his gaze upon his sister.

“Wheee?”

“Yeah, Franklin,” said Vee. “Wheee. Right, Dad?”

“Yeah, honey,” I said. “Wheee!”

“Wheee!” said Franklin.

We were a family again, no longer simply individuals adrift in our own grief.

These precious moments when Vee would allow herself to be young. Lately she had put aside childish things, had become so very adult.

“Wheee!” shouted Franklin.

“Yeah, guys. Wheee.” Elsa was standing in her nightgown, hair across her face, knife beside her, pressing oranges through the squeezer.

My eyes found hers. We had made it through the year. We had given each other space. Moving forward, I thought, separate, but together.

Faithful as ever.

“What?” she said.

We stared at each other, each surprised to find the other smiling. There was a lightness today, even in this god-awful place, an ease between us that could not be denied.

A bark.

A dog loped up, stood at the garden door looking in. An Irish setter, daft-faced, russet-coated, out of breath.

Franklin waved, shouted, “Do’!”

Another setter joined the first. The two dogs stared in, drool spilling from their pink-black gums, panting heavily, amazed to find four pairs of eyes staring back. They dipped down, inviting Franklin to join the chase.

“Vov!” shouted Franklin. “Vov!”

The dogs barked in reply, then sprang from the garden and out to the path. Franklin stood in the doorway, watching them go. In seconds you could see them in the parkland far beyond, leaping and tumbling over each other, dizzy in the gathering heat.

Licia was on the front page of Posten today, along with the ninety-one who had fallen on Garden Island. A tiny square image in a grid of faces. A memorial, on the first day of the trial. Her image was ringed in red; a note explained that she was missing, presumed drowned.

“Let me see that,” said Elsa.

I handed her the paper.

“They used the one from her Instagram,” I said.

“I always liked that picture.”