PROLOGUE
Have you ever heard that seventy per cent of lottery winners end up bankrupt?
It’s a common enough statistic, cited in most corners of the internet – but the fact is, it’s just not true. Actually, studies repeatedly show jackpot winners have much improved life satisfaction and overall happiness.
Let’s consider Edwin Castro, a man who, on 7 November 2022, bought a ticket at a petrol station in California. He won $2.04 billion, the largest lottery jackpot to date. What about the group a year later in October 2023, who took home $1.765 billion? Do we think their lives got better or worse?
Winning makes you one of the luckiest people on earth. It makes you rare; it makes you special; it makes you incredibly unique. The odds of winning the Lotto jackpot are one in 45,057,474. With the Powerball and Mega Millions lottery, it’s around one inthree hundredmillion.
So what would you do if you became a member of that blessed, tiny club? What if you woke up tomorrow having won that life-changing, mind-bending sum of money? And would you want to share it with someone undeserving?
I didn’t.
1
Honestly, Paula really thought by the time she was sixty-one, she’d have learned a thing or two about having a normal conversation. But – standing here in her outdated, beige-coloured kitchen – she’s realising now that she doesn’t have a clue. How does one evenbeginto handle something like this?
She’s on the phone – the landline – and staring at a suspicious patch on the ceiling in the corner. Is it a new leak coming through from the upstairs bathroom, or is it a shadow? She can’t tell.
‘. . . we know it must be a shock . . .’ the man is saying down the line and his voice sounds awfully far away. ‘. . . it’s been registered with the local authorities here, and we’ll arrange for the paperwork, including a death certificate to be sent to you, of course . . .’
She wants to turn on the overhead light so she can have a proper look at that corner – the lamp isn’t any use at all – but the phone cord doesn’t stretch to the switch by the door. Tilly was probably right all those years ago, when she said they should get a cordless phone, but they were so expensive at the time. These days, of course, her daughter thinks it’s absurd she and John even have a landline at all. But look here, isn’t she using it right now?
‘. . . repatriation of the body is expensive, I’m afraid, but of course we’ll make arrangements, if you’d like. It’s possible his travel insurance may cover it.’ The man pauses. ‘Do you happen to know if he had any?’
Paula feels a familiar stab of fear at the mention of money. She shakes her head, then remembers he can’t see her. ‘I don’t know,’ she says simply.
‘Sorry to ask this . . .’ The man sounds awkward, and it is somehow more endearing in his light Austrian accent. ‘But do you know if John had a . . . er, preference about his . . . remains? It is sometimes a more straightforward option to have the body – um, your loved one – cremated at a local crematorium and then transported back.’
This is, at last, something Paula can help with. She knows the answer to this one because John was always terribly clear. ‘Hedidwant to be cremated, yes!’ she relays eagerly. ‘He told me he didn’t like the idea of his body being eaten by worms. He said that several times.’
There is a shuffling noise at the other end of the line and Paula wonders if she’s said the wrong thing. Do people whose husbands have just died not talk about the body being eaten by worms? Has she messed up again?
‘. . . and of course, there will be more documents for you . . .’ The man has resumed talking, and Paula returns her gaze to the ceiling stain – or shadow, who knows? ‘. . . and I’ll get that over to you as soon as possible, so you can apply for a Consular Death Registration in England. You can also contact the British Consulate if you would prefer a UK death certificate . . .’
‘Gosh,’ says Paula, because the idea of contacting the British Consulate sounds so grand. So unlike anything she’sever had to do before. But then,thishas never happened before. Obviously.
‘. . . and again, Mrs Sheldon, our most sincere condolences, as well as our deepest apologies it took us a few days to identify him and locate you . . .’
‘Don’t worry!’ she says nicely, because it makes her uncomfortable when people apologise.
They say their goodbyes and hang up. Paula stares at the ceiling. Then back down at the phone in her hand.
Her husband of more than thirty years is dead. That’s what the nice man with the nice accent said. John was in an accident; his car went off the road; it would’ve been very quick for him.
For John, she means, not for the nice man.
Paula wonders if she should’ve known something had happened. You hear about wives who somehow, intuitivelyknewsomething terrible had befallen their loved ones. Paula read something recently on Facebook about a woman who’d fainted at precisely 3.46 p.m., later discovering her husband had collapsed at his desk and died from a coronary at exactly that time.
Should she have known?
It had been a few days since Paula had heard from her husband. But that wasn’t particularly unusual when he went to one of these work conferences abroad. The signal was often unreliable; he was busy with colleagues; he liked his space. She hadn’t been worried at all, never mind sensing anything amiss.
It’s true, shehadtried to call him several times in the last few days, but only because of that thing she’d found out on Monday. The big, mad, incomprehensible thing she urgently needed to tell him about. But she hadn’t been too concerned when he hadn’t returned her missed calls.
Paula turns now in her kitchen to explain to John what’s happened, and then remembers that she can’t tell John that John is dead. Because he’s dead.
Instead, she backs up, across the kitchen, letting the phone handset clatter noisily onto the faded orange floor tiles. She finds cupboards at her back and leans there for a few minutes, feeling the cool surfaces through her thin jumper. It’s the cupboard with all the plates in it. Notallthe plates, of course. The nice crockery is in the cupboard above the oven. John’s always too worried they’ll get broken, so they never use them.
