The Lost Wife: An uplifting page-turner about grief, love and friendship by Mansell Anna

Author:Mansell, Anna
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-78681-233-9
Publisher: Bookouture
Published: 2017-07-27T16:00:00+00:00

Twenty-Eight

Ed

One heavy foot in front of the other, the stairs are mountainous, the whole house overwhelming. It’s too large and too full to be so empty and cold, but it’s just that. Without Ellie, it’s empty. Cold. It’s not home.

I push open our bedroom door.

I make my way to our bed and drop into it; duck-down cushions my fall. I don’t change. I don’t wash. I’ve no energy to think. I’m done. This is the turning point. I can't fool myself into thinking that clarity can ever come. Rachel’s right about acceptance.

I lift myself enough to climb under the covers, wrapping up on Ellie’s side of the bed. Her perfume sits on the bedside table, residue on her pillow from the last time I sprayed it. I lie there, eyes closed.

And then I realise: I never close our bedroom door.

Because of Oli.

I haven’t closed it in months.

I open my eyes. There’s a dress, trapped in the wardrobe door.

If I was cold before, I’m colder now. And breathless, because I wouldn’t do that, I’d notice. I make sure Ellie’s clothes aren’t trapped when I shut those doors. Just as she always, meticulously, did. I search the room for signs of anything out of place. Nothing obvious, except the dress. And the door.

Her box is still there, on the floor beside the wardrobe. Have any papers moved? I jump out of bed, kneeling, packing everything back in with no thought to order or form. I check the wardrobe and the floor for more papers strewn and, as I do, I see Ellie’s diaries: things I never knew she kept until the day I came to find a dress, something perfect for her rest in peace. That’s when I found them. I knelt before them, running a finger along each spine, but the pain of reading Ellie’s words, by her hand, was too much. And, besides, they’re private. Each time since, when I’ve reached out to them, yearning to be drunk on her, on her memories, I’ve always stopped, my hand hovering just above them, as if they’re surrounded by some kind of opposite magnetic force field that stops me from making a connection.

So why are they out of order?

Why does 2012 sit before 2011?

I move it back. Because she’d have hated that more than the idea of my touching them. She liked order, form, conformity, albeit on her terms. I check the rest, chronologically packed right back to 2006. The year we met. I inhale deeply as, against everything I’ve believed in before, I open it up to read.

10th January 2006

Dear Diary,

Today I met my future husband. I don’t know his surname. We haven't been on a date. And if it turns out he has annoying habits like mouth-open-chewing or not-really-snoring snoring, I reserve the right to revoke my proclamation. But all things considered thus far, he’s the one.

It’s also the day I bought the most incredible pair of boots. Literally the best you’ve ever seen. Delicious, pillar-box red, suede wedges and

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