Prologue
An acupuncturist once told me grief settles in the chest, pressing on the heart and lungs, squeezing around the ribs like a whalebone corset. This is why acute grief feels something like panic. But I’m also convinced now—miracle that the body is—that there’s still heart-space for joy, flickering at the strangest times.
For instance, right now, in King’s Cross Station, I’m excited as my train lurches forward, northbound toward Leeds and onward to Keighley, where a bus will take me to my next destination. I love this station not only because there’s Platform 9¾ and my pockets are full of Bertie Bott’s jelly beans, but because railways delight me. It’s all a webwork of tracks and sleepers and fasteners, iron, steel, wood, the old and new—nineteenth-century engineering evolved into the sleek beast transporting me. Over the next few hours, I can settle back and take in the surrounding farmlands bordered by elms and hawthorns, the towns, the rising church spires. I can nap to the engine’s rhythms.
When Philip passed away and I decided to adapt certain Victorian mourning rituals, I thought it would make me a better widow. I thought I would learn how to grieve and honor him as I walked a prescribed path to closure. I didn’t know the path is ongoing, the journey never really over. I didn’t know I would unravel layers of myself in this process and rekindle love and relationships in new ways.
I didn’t know that I would feel this happiness and peace and yet still have the bittersweet urge to tell Philip all about it. I know now that all these feelings are perfectly fine and will coexist for the rest of my (hopefully) long life.
Because there’s space for it all.
1
One Month Earlier
OUT OF OFFICE REPLY—
Thank you for contacting me. However, for an undetermined time period, I will only be corresponding through letters. (Yes, the kind with paper.) Thank you for understanding.
Dr. Lizzie Wells
Professor of Victorian Literature—Willoughby College
Author ofThe Heathcliff Saga
she/her
After typing the message, I drum my fingers on my desk, contemplating the elegant stack of black-and-gold-rimmed stationery pages and envelopes in front of me. They seem appropriate for a recent widow like me, and I’m grateful for the niche Etsy shop specializing in antique stationery.
No more emails.
The thought of not reading or answering campus emails from hateful asshats like Bill Rhodes, chair of philosophy, feels like a giant fucking albatross has slid from my shoulders, feathers cluttering the floor of my coffee-stained office carpet.
Since Philip’s sudden death last month, I’ve learned I don’t have much headspace other than to parent and grieve. And I’vebarelytime to parent. Heathcliff ate a Pop-Tart for breakfast this morning. AchocolatePop-Tart, not even a fruit one.I couldn’t summon the energy to cook his regular oatmeal.
What am I going to do?
I look up at the signedHeathcliff Sagamovie poster on the wall behind my desk and stare into the glassy blue eyes of teen heartthrob Everett Dane. He sneers rakishly, dark hair tousled over his forehead, rumpled shirtsleeves open to reveal the top of his Greek-god chest. He played the role well.
When Hollywood optioned film rights for myTwilight-yyoung adult version ofWuthering Heights—written during sleepless nights breastfeeding Heathcliff—Philip had been so proud. He took me out to a too-expensive restaurant, the kind where the servers wear crisp, ironed white dress shirts and say ridiculous things like the wine has “hints of leather and tobacco.”We split a bottle of Cabernet over a large platter of roasted duck and asparagus. We even splurged on the overpriced cranberry tartlets; the cranberries, of course, were “raised in organic, sun-kissed hills near Asheville.” After dinner, we walked through a nearby pocket park. The evening sky glowed rose-hued beyond the sprawling Carolina oaks; Philip skillfully skipped rocks across a tiny, landscaped pond as we talked about a future where we could pay off student loans and take our long-postponed trip to Paris.
My email dings, and I jump, blinking away tears.
Against my better judgment, I check the message.
Ugh.
Brad McGregor.
Hey Miss Wells,
I’m really struggling with P and P. I mean I thought this chick lit was like more straightforward. But geez... why do they have to write so many letters? Can I like have extra credit or something if I don’t pass the Final?
Thks
B
My blood pressure rises a little bit every time I have to deal with Brad McGregor. The dean’s son needs one more English credit to graduate on time, so he enrolled in my spring Jane Austen seminar because it was the only literature class over before his “epic” Cancún vacation funded by his dad’s bloated administrative salary. His sense of entitlement has no end. He makes little effort to disguise his distaste for my class. He addresses me as “Miss” instead of “Dr.” And last, but not least, he’s Willoughby College’s most notorious man-slut; last year he cheated on one of my brightest students, Kayla, with her dorm RA. (Kayla sobbed during my office hours after she found out.)
