Chapters (55)
- Cover
- ANNA WHARTON
- Dedication page
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- THIRTY-NINE
- FORTY
- FORTY-ONE
- FORTY-TWO
- FORTY-THREE
- FORTY-FOUR
- FORTY-FIVE
- FORTY-SIX
- FORTY-SEVEN
- FORTY-EIGHT
- FORTY-NINE
- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
- Praise
- THE IMPOSTER
‘When we moved here, we had to take everything down,’ Maureen continues. ‘Patrick said it needed to be a new start in every sense. He knows I want to make her bedroom up again but he doesn’t . . . well, he doesn’t think it’s good for me to live in the past. That’s why he put that padlock on the door. I’ve got the key but he hopes it’ll make me stop before I come in here, to think about him and his pain. That’s why I sneak in at night while he’s asleep. Sometimes just being among her things . . . it makes me feel closer to her, you know?’
Chloe nods, she knows a grave is not a marker for the one you love, not when they have already scored their name inside the skin and bones of you. How could Patrick deny his wife her grief? It’s not like she’s hurting anyone. It seems cruel, harsh, just because she grieves differently to him. But then, how does he grieve? Apart from the photographs in the newspapers, what grief has he ever shown Chloe inside Elm House?
‘I’ve done these pieces in the newspaper every year,’ Maureen says. ‘Interviews, you know, because I wanted the world to keep talking about Angie. I don’t want anyone to forget that she could be out there, that there’s still a chance . . . so when would it be the right time to let go of all this? Surely if I did let go, I would be admitting that she’s never coming back, and I’ll never do that as long as I live. Never. That’s what Patrick doesn’t understand.’
Maureen’s eyes fill with tears, the pain so obviously always sitting just beneath her skin.
‘You know you can talk to me, Maureen – if you want to, I mean,’ Chloe says. ‘We can talk about Angie if Patrick won’t.’
Maureen’s face softens and Chloe feels sure that being granted permission to grieve so openly has ironed out some of the lines that the same pain created.
‘Thank you, Chloe.’
Maureen reaches for a tendril of Chloe’s hair, twisting it between finger and thumb. Chloe stands perfectly still.
‘Angie’s hair was so much like yours,’ Maureen says. ‘Almost jet black, just the same . . . I’m sure of it.’ She whispers that last bit.
Chloe is silent, she dare not even exhale, as if this moment itself is made of fragile glass and even her breath might shatter it.