“You need to focus on your health. Now, Evelyn, we don’t do drama,” he says, as if he’s rattling off a family slogan. “Don’t offer comment to the media. Not for any price.”
I can’t imagine why the media would be remotely intrigued. Gwendolyn must read my surprise. “With all this interest in the accident, it’s just a little reminder about discretion.”
Sweat beads on my forehead. I wipe it with the back of my hand and try not to panic. I don’t understand anything that’s going on here. Just that, despite the heat prickling through my body, this room is icy, my in-laws don’t trust me, and my voice is getting smaller by the second.
It’s two in the morning, three days later, and I’m rifling through every cupboard and drawer in my bedroom in an increasingly frenetic search for myself. I’ve already exhausted the hunt for my parents, but stillnothing. Just Mum’s dormant Facebook account, a mention of Dad in some charity fundraising walk six years ago, and wide-open, terrifying silence. I’m trying to fill that silence with pep talks that I am an adult now. That almost-thirty-year-old me has got this. That any minute, my memory will return, and I’ll remember exactly where I left my life.
I arrived home yesterday to the pristine residence I’ve evidently curated with Oliver, in the company of a private nurse my in-laws booked. It’s unclear to me if she is here for myhealth or to stop me from going rogue on my podcast, and whether this paranoia relates to my current situation or is just part of who I’ve become. Either way, Sister Maxwell-Smyth won’t let me out of her sight during daylight hours, forcing me into these nocturnal shenanigans.
So now I’m nose-deep in Oliver’s business shirts. Apparently, scent is one of the most powerful memory triggers, although all I can detect here is dry-cleaning chemicals. Anderson bragged that Oliver was the youngest partner in his law firm’s history, and his expensive-looking wardrobe fits the part. My hand travels along the rail, sifting through his clothes until it lands on a three-piece suit. I imagine the man from the photos wearing these gray trousers and this vest, with one of those crisp white shirts and a tie. No, a cravat. I go a little weak at the knees at the thought. And once I locate his jeans and sweaters and mentally dress him in those, maybe with a knitted scarf if we’re in the mountains, I’ve begun a little crush.
It’s a pointless exercise, of course. But there’s no denying I seem to be widowed to one of Sydney’s hottest young professionals. Hopefully there was more between us than physical attraction. Surely midtwenties me would never have relaxed my No Marriage rule for someone who didn’t knock it out of the park in every important category.
Our bedroom is immaculate. No books. No photos. Nothing sentimental. On one of the bedside tables, a pair of black-rimmed Hugo Boss reading glasses lends an academic flair to my imaginary husband fantasy. I try them on, but the room is awash. You’re not supposed to wear other people’s glasses. Particularly dead people—it’s weird. So I put them back exactly as I found them and hope his ghost is not observing my every move and questioning why he married me in the first place.
I creep down the hallway. The first room along this corridor is locked, but I flick on the light in the second, remembering that little girl in my camera reel, praying I won’t discover a pink, sparkly child’s bedroom crammed with soft toys and princess paraphernalia. Relief washes over when I see a recording studio, padded soundproofing covering the walls. There’s a large computer screen and microphone on the desk. I sit in the swivel chair and spin. Perhaps I’ll shake some sense into my brain and remember all of this.
Beside the keyboard is a notebook, which I flip open. It’s full of handwriting. My own.Sostrange to see this window into thoughts I can’t recall having. It’s all crime stuff. Podcast titles. Topics. Names of people and dates I’ve scheduled interviews—the last one several months ago. Cases I’ve researched. Lists of questions. There’s a heavy emphasis on forensic linguistics—always my special fascination. I look down the list and see scattered words and phrases, likeforced confessions,lie detection,forensic voice comparison, andlinguistic-phonetic studies. I’m clearly still a total nerd for this stuff.
I pick up a printed production spreadsheet and blow dust off it. The lettersEandOare initialed down the columns besiderecordedandedited. Did Oliver and I produce this together? One phrase on the notepad stands out, because I’ve circled it three times, but then crossed it out so hard the words are completely hidden. The pen has pressed through the paper and, if I lift a page or two and shine the desk light at a certain angle, I can read the faintly visible words on the page underneath:ADJECTIVE ORDER???
It’s such a disappointment. I was hoping for some sort of startling, pre-amnesiac clue that might help me crack the caseof who I am now and what possessed me to end up in this lavish, sterile world. But I hug the notebook to my chest. Much-needed proof that I’m still passionate about something other than a man.
I find myself face-planted on top of the quilt on my bed the next morning. Oliver’s and my bed, to be precise, although I don’t even want tothinkabout the activities that have occurred in this very location! All my knowledge about romance comes from books and movies. And whatever I’ve learned right here, with handsome Oliver in his studious spectacles and dashing suits …
“Mrs. Roche is downstairs,” Sister Maxwell-Smyth an-nounces, startling me from my X-rated imaginings as she bustles in and pulls back the curtains, bombarding the room with light. I sit bolt upright, contemplating how bad I must look after my nighttime scavenger hunt and hoping she can’t read minds.
Minutes later, I find Gwendolyn ensconced on the overstuffed cream sofa, blending into it in layered ivory, flicking through a coffee-table book on art and design from the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. The décor in this room says “styled for open inspection” and I wonder again how my preferences could have changed so dramatically.
“How are you feeling, Evelyn? You look dreadful.”
Wow.
“Listen, I won’t keep you long. I’ve come about the funeral.”
Last I knew, we were organizing our school formal. The idea of putting me in charge of arranging a proper grown-up,media-attracting funeral for the Lane Cove Roches will only result in utter social catastrophe. I’d likely lace it with a montage of Taylor Swift ballads.
“We’ll take care of everything,” she says, and I exhale in a rush. “But I wanted to give you the chance to be included. Is there some small idea you’d like to share?”
A school science assignment springs to mind, when I researched the environmental impact of various types of burials and cremation.
“You can get biodegradable cardboard coffins,” I venture, perhaps more enthusiastically than I should, but I’ve been overtaken by a sense of having something useful to contribute, at last. “Maybe we could have an ecological bushland burial?”
I might not remember Oliver, but I know the person I used to be. Surely I married the kind of man who wouldn’t want to release several hundred excess kilograms of CO2 into the atmosphere through non-environmentally sound burial choices.
“Goodness, Evelyn, we arenotburying Oliver in a cardboard box!” She shivers at the concept. “Why don’t you plant a memorial tree. We have an estate in the Hunter Valley. A boutique vineyard. Perhaps when you’re well, we could put you in touch with our head gardener.”
They own a whole vineyard?The only wine I remember consuming came out of a cask someone snuck into Milly Donoghue’s sixteenth before it was shut down by the police. I try to imagine myself strolling elegantly between the vines, tasting wine straight from barrels and talking about “fruity undertones” or “velvety textures,” as if I have any idea what I’m sampling.
“I like native plants,” I suggest.
Gwendolyn’s face drops, communicating that a memorial tree for their son should not interrupt the Roche family’s carefully cultivated horticultural aesthetic. “Is there anything else you need?” she asks, in an obvious attempt to change the subject.
Yes. Despite all my attempts to act twenty-nine, I need an enormous group hug with my parents. The kind where they won’t let go until I do. The sort of hug I didn’t always make time for, because I was always checking some vacuous thing on my phone or dashing out the door, taking them completely for granted. I need my best friend, the girl who rescued me in Year Seven from friendship oblivion when we were paired together for an assignment. The one who became my person from that moment on and saw me through first periods. First crushes. Picked me up off the floor after that one time I failed a math test. She’s meant to be picking me up off the floornow.
I’m so upset about Mum and Dad and Bree I can’t even say their names, even though I’m longing to ask Gwendolyn about the gaps in my contacts list. Instead, I focus on what’s around me—or what’s not there. “Where are my books?” I’m shocked that I no longer own my battered copies ofNorthanger AbbeyorAnne of Green Gables.
“You’ve come to love audiobooks,” she says, trying to pacify me. “You told me once they’d become your friends.”
