When we first moved to the country, I’d asked Nick what the road signs meant that said Passing Places. He showed me when we passed a car on the road and he reversed back to let it by, and the driver waved thanks to us. I thought it was nice. Later, I thought that was what Nick and I had lost – neither of us was prepared to move back and let the other one through, and so we were stuck there, beeping our horns and flashing our lights, all for nothing.

Elle

Elle

A woman. There’d been a woman in his car with him. Did that mean she’d been right, all those times? Every time he said, Darling, are you getting funny again? Are you taking the pills? You’re not going, you know, like your mother? Every time he’d denied it, made her think she was crazy – there really had been another woman?

She tried to keep busy after the funeral. Scrubbing the house from top to bottom, calling the bank and electricity company and graveyard, all the bewildering bits of admin you were supposed to somehow handle while going through the worst pain of your life. The meeting with the lawyer was scheduled for later that day, that gave her something to focus on. He would confirm that they had plenty of money. That her husband hadn’t been broke, or borrowed cash from unsavoury types. That everything she’d thought was true still was. But all the same a tiny hummingbird of panic was trapped in her chest, making it impossible to eat, or sleep, or sit still for more than two minutes in a row.

A woman in the car with him. Perhaps she would know what had happened to him. Perhaps she had even caused it, grabbing the wheel, making a scene of some kind. Maybe he was trying to end it with her, and she did this rather than lose him. Or maybe she told him something that shocked him, made him drive off the road. This woman, whoever she was, had perhaps caused his death. Left him there to die instead of getting help – Elle knew the ambulance had been called by an elderly couple, passing the accident spot some time afterwards. This woman, this faceless woman, had not only led Patrick astray, caused him to cheat – she was maybe responsible for Elle being a widow.

Elle stood in her living room, in which not a speck of dust remained, gripping the marble mantelpiece. Staring at the wedding photo, herself so young and slim, red lips, black hair. Him so handsome. Laughing. Had they been happy then, or was it all in her head? Had he ever been happy? Was it possible to love someone and still cheat on them? How could he do this to her?

As if anyone could ever love you.