Cecelia Ahern - Cecelia Ahern Untitled Novel 1

Published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

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London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers 2019

Copyright © Cecelia Ahern 2019

Jacket design by Holly MacDonald © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2019

Jacket illustrations © Shutterstock.com

Cecelia Ahern asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008194871

Ebook Edition © September 2019 ISBN: 9780008194895

Version: 2019-07-18

For fans of PS, I Love You , all around the world, with heartfelt gratitude

Contents

Cover

Title Page POSTSCRIPT Cecelia Ahern

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

Keep Reading …

About the Author

Also by Cecelia Ahern

About the Publisher

Shoot for the moon and even if you miss you’ll land among the stars.

It’s engraved on my husband’s stone at the graveyard. It was a phrase he often used. His optimistic, cheery inflection oozed positive self-help phrases as though they were fuel for life. Positive words of reinforcement like that had no effect on me, not until he died. It was when he spoke them to me from his grave that I really heard them, I felt them, I believed them. I clung to them.

For a full year after his death, my husband Gerry continued his life by giving me the gift of his words in surprise monthly notes. His words were all I had; no more spoken words, but words , written from his thoughts, from his mind, from a brain that controlled a body with a beating heart. Words meant life. And I gripped them, hands clasped tightly around his letters until my knuckles went white and my nails dented my palms. I hung on to them like they were my lifeline.

It’s 7 p.m. on 1 April, and this fool is revelling in the new brightness. The evenings are stretching and the short, shocking, sharp sting of winter’s slap is being nursed by spring. I used to dread this time of year; I favoured winter when everywhere was a hiding place. The darkness made me feel that I was concealed behind gauze, that I was out of focus, almost invisible. I revelled in it, celebrating the shortness of the day, the length of the night; the darkening sky my countdown to acceptable hibernation. Now I face the light, I need it to prevent me from being sucked back.

My metamorphosis was similar to the instant shock the body experiences when dipped into cold water. On impact there’s the overwhelming urge to shriek and leap out, but the longer you remain submerged, the more you acclimatise. The cold, like the darkness, can become a deceptive comfort you never want to leave. But I did; feet kicking and arms sweeping, I pulled myself up to the surface. Emerging with blue lips and chattering teeth, I thawed and re-entered the world.

Transitioning day to night, in transitional winter to spring, in a transitional place. The graveyard, considered a final resting place, is less peaceful beneath the surface than above. Below the soil, hugged by wooden coffins, bodies are altering as nature earnestly breaks down the remains. Even when resting, the body is perpetually transforming. The giddy laughter of children nearby shatters the silence, unaware of or unaffected by the in-between world they stand on. Mourners are silent but their pain is not. The wound may be internal, but you can hear it, you can see it, you can feel it. Heartbreak is carried around bodies like an invisible cloak; it adds a load, it dims eyes, it slows strides.

In the days and months after my husband’s death, I searched for some elusive transcendental connection to him, desperate to feel whole again, like an insufferable thirst that needed to be quenched. On days when I was functioning, his presence would creep up behind me and tap me on the shoulder, and suddenly I’d feel an unbearable emptiness. A parched heart. Grief is endlessly uncontrollable.

He chose to be cremated. His ashes are in an urn slotted into a niche behind a Columbarium Wall. His parents reserved the space beside his. The empty space in the wall beside his urn is for me. I feel as though I’m staring death in the face, which is something I would have embraced when he died. Anything to join him. I would have gladly climbed into that niche, folded myself up like a contortionist and cradled my body around his ashes.