The Woman Who Came Back to Life: An utterly heartbreaking, feel-good novel about life, loss and second chances by Beth Miller

Author:Beth Miller [Miller, Beth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bookouture

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I made my way back through the wood, going the new way the ranger showed me this morning, cutting in and out of the trees. Rather to my surprise, I found myself back at my canopy in record time. I sat against the tree, watching the sunlight dappling on my arms while I worked up my nerve. Then I took out my phone. Two difficult conversations with two people I had hung up on.

I looked through my recent calls, and once again, my finger hovered over a certain number. But my heart immediately started racing unpleasantly. I thought about Mme Remard saying, ‘We walked every day for a month, hoping to see his face,’ and promised myself that I would not put it off for too much longer. But for now…

‘Pearl! Thank goodness.’

‘Sorry I hung up before, Greg. It’s all a bit…’

‘No need to apologise. I’ll tell you anything you want to know.’

‘There’s only one thing I want to know. Why?’

‘Why was I in touch with him?’

‘Duh, yeah, and why didn’t you, I don’t know, mention it, maybe?’

‘OK. That’s two questions.’ As ever, the pedantic big brother. ‘The why is easy. I loved him, Pearl. I had a great relationship with him. When he left, you and Benjy were still kids…’

‘I was fifteen! I had a great relationship with him too.’

‘But I was eighteen, and we were kind of starting to be grown-ups together, you know?’

I heard him put his hand over the phone, presumably to talk to Eleanor, but that never worked on mobile phones, and I could hear him say, ‘Fuck. Cancel them.’

‘Sorry,’ he said, less muffled. ‘I’m back.’

‘Who are you cancelling?’

‘Oh, some random couple who were coming over to buy Gracie’s old toddler trampoline.’ He laughed. ‘Eleanor’s being such a told-you-so.’

‘About the trampoline?’

‘She always said I should try to tell you again.’

‘Tell me what, again?’

‘That I kept in touch with Dad.’

‘What? You didn’t tell me at all.’ I shook my head, furious that Greg would lie to me even now. ‘You never said a word.’

‘I did, Pearl. I only told you once, and that’s on me. Ellie always said it wasn’t enough, but I did tell you.’

‘The hell? When did this alleged revelation take place?’

‘Long time ago. Twenty-five years, a little more, perhaps. Where does the time go? At Ben and Alice’s wedding.’

At the words ‘Ben and Alice’s wedding’, something stirred at the back of my brain. Damn it to hell, I think he was telling the truth. I couldn’t remember what happened, not exactly, but I could feel a tiny edge of something, an image of a glass of wine and then, like silk, it slipped through my fingers. The entire wedding day was fragmented in my mind; it was an awful day and I was certainly drunk enough to have missed something important. It was probably the most drunk I had been in my life.

‘Pearl, give me a second, my boss is on the landline. I’m meant to be working at home,’ Greg said.

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