The temptation is too great. I touch the name and hold the phone to my ear. Perhaps it will shift something about this huge cosmic mistake the universe appears to have made and bring him back?
Voicemail clicks in. “You’ve reached Oliver Roche. Leave a message.”
It’s a deep, no-nonsense,manlyvoice and I’m horrified to think I was married to it. Tohim. I’m also a tiny bit disappointed that I chose a partner with such an unimaginative recording. My own is an effervescent triumph! I rehearsed it at least seventeen times until it sounded spontaneous. That gives me the idea to listen to my own recording now and check what theatrical feat I pulled off more than a decade later.
“You’ve reached Evelyn Roche. Leave a message.”
Evelyn?I never call myself that. And Roche? Not Hudson?
Not to mention the wording is oddly identical to Oliver’s bland script. I play it again. “You’ve reached Evelyn Roche …” On its third play, I’m wishing Icouldreach Evelyn Roche and ask her why her voice is so flat and her message so formal. I thought I’d sound more excited by life at twenty-nine.
I go back to my contacts and scroll toMfor Mum. Justseeing her name on the screen triggers an avalanche of relief and comfort. I tap the number, fast. Maybe she’s already on her way to Sydney from Newcastle. Surely they called my parents as next of kin since my so-called husband is … well, I can’t even bring myself to say it.
“Evelyn,” says an unfamiliar voice as the call connects.
“Hello?”
“You’re awake,” the woman states.
“Sorry, who is this?” I pull the phone away from my ear quickly to check that I really dialed Mum’s number.
“It’s Gwendolyn. We’re on our way.”
The line goes dead and I’m left staring at the screen, which informs me that the conversation took exactly eight seconds. More than adequate time to tumble into an abyss. Whowasthat?
“Who is Gwendolyn?” I ask Liz, hoping she has an intimate knowledge of my family tree, but she’s triple-checking my pain relief dosage with the psych. “She’s on her way in,” I explain, my voice shaking when they look up. “With someone else.”
Maybe it’s the medication they’ve got me on, but I’m woozy, and that’s before I scroll to find that Dad doesn’t appear in the list at all! Instead, the only person at that end of the alphabet other than Cleaner and Car Service Place is someone called Chloe, whom I’ve never heard of.
Oh, here’s Bree! ThankGod. I touch her name and hit the speaker button. “Your call could not be connected. Please check the number and try again.”
Liz, clearly well practiced, notices me signaling for the sick bag in a cardboard dispenser on the wall beside her and passes it to me just in time, making the psychiatrist, still buried in his notebook, look up and flinch.
Everything is wrong here.
Every single thing.
No father. An imposter mother. No best friend. Boring voicemail. Even the giant phone is all wrong, as if I’ve woken up in some horrible, unrecognizableFreaky Fridayreality that I can’t bear!
My shaking finger taps something called Uber by accident and the phone asks,Where to?
Liz, who has fetched a warm facecloth, sees the open app, smiles sympathetically, and says, “No, Evie, you can’t escape just yet.”
“Escape?”
“In an Uber. It’s like a private taxi service. You can order cars to pick you up from anywhere and take you wherever you want.”
From where I’m lying, this Uber soundsmagical. I wipe my face and try not to cry about the alarming fact that I seem to have been abandoned in a big, bustling, unfamiliar world where strangers aren’t even dangerous anymore and we simply get into cars with them.
“Would they take me to Newcastle?” I ask, my voice small. “The Uber people?”
She smiles. “For a huge fee! Look, I know it’s scary. But the chances are your memory will return.”
“But what then?” If I’m truly almost thirty and my husband just died, I’ll plunge straight from this hellish time warp into an equally horrific black hole of grief.
“Go easy on yourself. You’ve had a huge shock,” Liz reminds me. “You were in a traumatic car accident. You’ve had a deep loss.”
But the shock is not that Oliver died, it’s that he existed. And the loss isn’t about him—it’s about everything else.
