I try to reassure myself that there is a way to fix this. Remind myself that hearts that get broken can mend. But maybe there are some truths we can never really outrun. The past is a stalker, following us throughout our lives, never completely out of sight, never far away enough to forget to fear. And guilt is a thief that will steal everything if you let it catch up with you.
I notice the suicide hotline poster and step back from the cliff edge. I’m an idiot for standing so close, I could have slipped and tumbled to my death. Maybe I’m a fool for coming here at all; how can I possibly trust Harri now? I must be crazy. We shouldn’t meet here. We should meet somewhere public. Somewheresafe.
I’m about to leave when I hear someone on the path behind me.
Soon after that I am falling through a waterfall. My body twists and turns and spins until it smashes onto the rocks at the bottom of the cliff. The pain is intense but lasts less than a second. If anyone saysShe didn’t feel a thingthey’re wrong.
I felt everything I have ever felt when I was dying.
The last thought I have before I die surprises me:
True love kills.
20HARRISON
October 31
Someone knocking on the door downstairs wakes me. It takes a few seconds to remember where I am—the London flat or the Cornish village we moved to a few weeks ago—I have never been a fan of change. It’s early, still dark, but my tired eyes adjust to the light and I recognize the bedroom my wife recently decorated. Spyglass was nevermyidea of a dream home—I always thought it looked old and creepy built into the cliff—but Edenlovesit. Sometimes I wonder if she loves this house more than she loves me.
Whoever is outside knocks again.
My head hurts the way it always does when I drink these days. Memories of the art gallery in Hope Falls and Eden’s exhibition flood my mind, and I think I might have had one too many glasses of malbec. I reach for the empty space on the bed next to me on autopilot, before clocking the pillow that has not been slept on.
The sound of knocking starts again, louder this time, more insistent.
Whoever it is clearly isn’t going to go away. I sit up, stand up, and the bedroom seems to tilt, then blur. It’s as though everything is out of focus. It feels like the mother of all hangovers and yet I didn’t drinkthatmuch.
I put on my glasses. They don’t help with the disorientation, but I can see that I’ve slept in my clothes. That’s strange. Now I think about it, I don’t actually remember going to bed last night. I must have been really out of it. When whoever is downstairs knocks again something inside me snaps and I stomp out of the room and down the stairs, ready to take my hangover out on whoever has woken me. I unlock the door and yank it open. All the angry words I rehearsed retreat when I see the young police officer from yesterday standing on my doorstep.
Sergeant Carter was here last night before my wife’s exhibition, and then again afterward when we discovered we had been burgled, but he looks different today. Almost as though he has aged overnight. He’s still just a boy and it’s hard to take someone so young and inexperienced seriously—he can only be a few years older than my daughter.
“May I come in?”
I step aside without answering, a silent invitation to enter our home.
“Is everything all right?” I ask, already knowing that it isn’t. If it were, he would not be here. I lead him through to the kitchen. The glass has been swept away but the back door is boarded up. A reminder that someone broke in and ransacked the place while we were at the gallery last night. Maybe that’s what this is about.
“Would you like some coffee? I’m making one for myself anyway—”
“No. Thank you,” he says. “When did you last see your wife?”
I stop and turn to face him. It is not a difficult question, but I hesitate before answering it. Mainly because my mind is working overtime to understandwhyhe is asking.
“Last night when you were here. I keep thinking that if we hadn’t stayed for a drink with the gallery owner after everyone else left we might have caught whoever did this in the act. We had a little nightcap after you left, then we went to bed. Or at least, I did. I thinkEden was still buzzing from the exhibition so she stayed up a while longer…”
Where is my wife?
I do not ask the question out loud, but I am increasingly desperate to know the answer. I keep expecting her to walk in the room.
“I confess I don’t know where Eden is now. You knocking on the door woke me up. She does disappear sometimes to go for a run—”
“There is no easy way to say this,” the boy cop interrupts, and my blood seems to turn cold in my veins. “I’m sorry to inform you that a woman matching your wife’s description was seen running up to the cliffs this morning by a man walking his dog. He said she looked distracted and upset, that it was clear she had been crying. When he walked back the way he came, he found some clothing abandoned near the waterfall.” He’s talking about the local suicide spot, but I’m still not sure why he is telling me this.
Or maybe I just don’t want to know.
“Do you recognize this?” he asks, showing me a picture on his phone of a pale gray sweater covered in stars.
“It’s Eden’s.” My reply is so quiet I’m surprised he hears it.
