The River Home : A Novel (2020) by Richell Hannah

Author:Richell, Hannah [Richell, Hannah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

THURSDAY

16

Kit wakes early, pulled from sleep by a disturbing dream in which she has stood by, watching helplessly as Windfalls and everyone she loves is razed to the ground in a terrible inferno. It’s a nightmare she hasn’t had for a while, but last night it revisited her in full Technicolor. Pushing herself wearily from the bed, it’s almost as if she can still smell the acrid smoke, can still hear the echo of her cries: What have you done? What on earth have you done?

The lingering fragments of the dream are enough to drive her from her bedroom and send her up to the turret room. She settles into the chair, presses the power button on the computer and listens to the whirr of the machine starting up.

There is a stillness to the house, an emptiness that seems to expand with every moment that she sits there in Ted’s worn leather chair, the one she had commandeered from his study the day after he left, the one she had refused to give up to the men who came with the van to claim his possessions. The seat still carries the memory of him, worn into the cushion from all those hours he occupied it while labouring over his writing. It offers comfort. The physicality of him is still present in this one small way, even though most days she is the only inhabitant of this draughty old house, bar Pinter, the sole survivor from Ted’s kitten rescue all those years ago.

She stares at the blank screen in front of her. Just write, she tells herself. Write something. Anything. She reaches out to the keyboard, fingers hovering, diverted suddenly by the sight of her hands. It’s the back of them that stuns her. When did those lines form, the creases gathering around her knuckles and wrists, the shadows of those first age spots? She is not a young woman any more. She knows this intellectually, of course. She is neither mad nor delusional, thank goodness. Yet, sitting there, staring at her hands, at her blunt fingernails and her lined skin, and yes, the lack of jewels or adornment – the lack of wedding ring – she feels every one of her fifty-three years. With the ache of loneliness expanding in her chest, Kit lowers her head to her arms and weeps.

She cries until the sleeve of her silk dressing gown is soaked through, then lifts her head and rubs her face. She lets out a loud groan. She hates herself for this self-pity. If only she could do what she once did and disappear inside an imaginary world – fictional characters feeling fictional emotions – but she can’t seem to conjure herself away from her current pitiful state. Single. Spinsterly. Alone.

Last week, before Lucy had announced her madcap wedding plan, two plumbers had arrived at Windfalls to replace an old enamel bath and fix a broken cistern. Their cheerful presence in the house, the sound of their radio and the

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