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Dedication

For my family

OCTOBER 2014 London, UK

I became a different person only because I walked around a corner I hadn’t intended to.

Until that moment, I hadn’t ever considered doing what we did that day, and neither had Dad. It was a spontaneous decision, a spur-of-the-moment thing, simply because the van happened to be parked there, around the corner next to the card shop.

‘I forgot – I told Patrick I’d pick up a birthday card for his nephew.’ I tugged Dad’s arm away from the entrance to the tube, just steps from the museum where we’d spent the afternoon. ‘I think there’s a place nearby. I’ll only be a minute.’

He frowned. A fine drizzle was settling on his glasses. My feet burned from inching past Aztec artefacts, the cafe’s cake selection hadn’t been up to scratch; we were definitely done for the day, but the shop wasn’t far. Two minutes, grab something colourful with a number five on it, then back to the tube. Dad would get the train to Chichester, I’d go home to Peckham, and we’d both get through another Saturday night, another twenty-four hours in this strange new life without Mum.

Dad rolled his eyes. ‘Go on then, Jessie, be quick.’

Countless times I’ve wondered if I would have ever found out if not for turning the corner that day. If I’d bought a card somewhere else, the day before, like I’d said I would. If Patrick had been more organised and done it himself. If the van hadn’t been on that particular street on that particular day.

It’s perfectly likely I’d have gone my whole life never knowing.

Maybe Patrick and I would still be married. Maybe I’d be head of department at St Mary’s Comprehensive. Maybe we’d have a baby on the way. There’d still be that hole in my life, yes. But it would be my life, at least. My life.

Instead we took a left turn and saw the van. And that’s the moment, right there. That’s the moment I became someone else.

PART ONE