He Walks Past My House by Valentine & Hopewell

Author:Valentine & Hopewell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tiger Diamond Press
Published: 2023-09-30T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 40

GARRIE

I let myself into the house where I’m now holding Emily hostage; the home I used to share with Annabel, my beautiful wife. Even though she’s dead, her spirit resides here and fills every corner. It’s the one place I can be at peace, because Annabel’s presence somehow finds the temporary pause button in my brain and the images that play on a continuous loop go into freeze frame. For a while, at least, I can pretend it’s still our home so that the noise in my head stops and I can think without interference from it. It’s Annabel’s birthday today so I don’t venture into the room where Emily’s tied up because I won’t allow her negative energy to interfere with this moment and the beautiful memory of my wife.

Instead, I look at the birthday flowers I’ve arranged. White lilies, Annabel’s favourite; symbols of love, purity, and rebirth. I bend down to touch their petals and breathe their scent, and instantly feel the calm, gentle serenity that always surrounded her. She enveloped me in it when she was alive, and she still does. My finger traces her face across the photograph I always carry with me, lingering over her beauty, absorbing her as if I was trailing my fingers across her body, remembering all the intimate moments we shared together. Before she was cruelly snatched away because of the actions of Emily; the woman who deserves to suffer for what she did to my family.

My fingers continue their slow journey across the photograph, caressing my wife’s features.

‘I love you, Annabel. You will always be my first love and I will never stop loving you. Even though I’ve found Sandie.’

I’ve told her about Sandie, and I hope she approves. I hope she’s watching all of this and can finally rest in peace now that Emily has been made to pay. If Emily hadn’t got involved with our lives, I could have saved our marriage and prevented Annabel’s death. I remember the day she told me to find someone else if anything ever happened to her. She whispered it to me as we held each other close and watched dawn break.

‘Garrie, life is so uncertain; we never know what the future may hold. But I want you to promise me something. That you’ll always take care of Katie. She’s special and she needs you. And...

She’d paused to catch her breath. ‘And she’s always going to need a mother. Someone special. If anything happens to me, promise me you’ll find someone. For Katie...and for you.’

I’d pulled her tighter to me, kissed her head and told her I wasn’t ever letting her go anywhere. But I didn’t fulfil my promise. Four weeks later, my daughter was motherless, and I’d lost my soulmate.

Annabel was dead.

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