Fionnuala Kearney - The Day I Lost You - A heartfelt, emotion-packed, twist-filled read

Published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

The News Building

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London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers 2016

Copyright © Fionnuala Kearney 2016

Cover layout design © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2016

Cover photographs © Vaida Abdul/Arcangel Images (front); Shutterstock.com (back).

Fionnuala Kearney 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: 9780007593996

Ebook Edition © February 2016 ISBN: 9780007594009

Version 2016-03-11

For the strongest women I know – my daughters,

Kate and Jane, and my mother, Mary.

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Part One

Prologue

1. Jess

2. Anna

3. Theo

4. Jess

5. Anna

6. Theo

7. Jess

8. Anna

9. Theo

10. Jess

11. Anna

12. Theo

13. Jess

14. Anna

15. Theo

16. Jess

17. Anna

18. Theo

19. Jess

20. Anna

Part Two

21. Jess

22. Jess

23. Jess

24. Jess

25. Jess

26. Anna

27. Jess

28. Jess

29. Jess

30. Jess

31. Anna

32. Jess

33. Jess

Part Three

34. Anna

35. Theo

36. Jess

37. Anna

38. Theo

39. Jess

40. Anna

41. Theo

42. Jess

43. Anna

44. Theo

45. Jess

46. Anna

47. Theo

48. Jess

49. Anna

50. Theo

51. Jess

52. Anna

Epilogue

Keep Reading …

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Also by Fionnuala Kearney

About the Publisher

There are always before and after moments. Profound instants when, one second, life is a clear, high-pixel image and the next, it’s grainy, less focused.

The day it happened, the seventh of December 2014, had been a normal day – nothing unusual about it. A band of low Arctic pressure produced the sort of cold that froze my fingers through gloves and numbed my toes through sheepskin-lined boots. The winter sky – a perfect, crisp blue – was marred only by wispy white plane trails latticing through it.

Theo and I were on the Irish coffee stall at the Christmas fair all afternoon – the most dreadful baristas, unable to produce a straight line of cream along the top of the coffee and a little too liberal with the alcohol. It was the season of goodwill. Fairy lights flashed: home-made crackers with loo-roll centres were snapped; high-pitched carols were sung; crumbling, puff-pastry mince pies were trodden into the polished parquet floor of the school hall, and the heady scent of festive cinnamon and cloves filled the air.

I remember it being a fun-filled afternoon.

When I got home, I flicked the kettle on and turned the thermostat up. I sat a while, my hands wrapped around a cup of black tea, staring into the garden in the fading light, my feet tucked up underneath me. Much as I loved her, days without Rose were precious. I had so little time to myself that merely sitting, being , just the act of doing nothing was a joy. Right up until the moment the doorbell rang, it’s the ‘ordinary-ness’ of that day that I recall.

When the door pinged, I still didn’t stir – not until I heard Doug’s voice through the letterbox. Then I leapt from my seat.

‘Jess. It’s Doug. Can you open the door?’

I made my way to the hall, heard him moving about in the porch; foot to foot. Doug has not come to my door for a very long time .

From my jacket pocket, my mobile phone trilled. Seeing his number, I realized he would have heard it ring too.

‘Open the door, Jess. It’s important.’

I answered the phone and hung up immediately.

‘What do you want?’ I spoke through the four solid panels.

‘I need to speak to you. Please.’ His voice seemed to break on the last word and I opened the latch.

Doug, my ex-husband, the man whom I apparently ‘strangled with my love’ was standing there, shivering.

‘Can I come in?’

I looked over his shoulder, expecting to see Carol, his wife, there.

‘What do you want, Doug?’ I repeated.

‘Can I come in?’ he asked again.

And that was the moment. I made the mistake of looking in his eyes; the cobalt-blue eyes that Anna, our only child, had inherited from him. One generation later, Rose has those same eyes too. That was the split moment – between what was, and what would be. His next words tapped a slow, rhythmic beat in my head; each one etching itself on my brain like a permanent tattoo. And something happens when the body is forced to hear unwanted tidings; life-changing, cruel words. Adrenaline charges to the extremities, willing the frame to stay standing, despite the urge to fold; willing the heart to keep beating, despite the urge to snap into hundreds of tiny fragments.

My knees buckled at right angles – my entire body felled. An instant sweat oozed from my pores, seeping through to my fingertips. Fear choked me, as I fell into Doug’s arms, as his familiar scent washed over me. And, in an instant, the world, as I knew it, was different.

Ten Weeks Later – Friday, 13 February 2015

I wake to the taste of salt on my lips. My eyes take a moment to adjust to the early morning light; my mind takes a little longer to realize that I’ve been crying in my sleep. With a glance at the neon clock by my bedside, my damp lashes blink. It’s useless – I won’t fall asleep again.

My limbs stiff, I climb slowly out of bed before crossing the landing to check the room opposite. She’s there, fast asleep. I resist the urge to touch her, to rest the back of my fingers on her forehead. It’s a habit; a throwback, I think, to when she had pleurisy as a baby and we failed to spot the temperature early.

Her breathing is soft, regular and rhythmic as a slow beat on a metronome, her chest rising and falling under the duvet. She turns onto her stomach, faces away from me, one hand stretched in a curve above her head, the other falling over the side of the bed. I take her arm and tuck it in beside her.

Next along the landing is Anna’s room. I grab a pillow from her bed and, clutching it tight to me, take the stairs down slowly. Soon, the coffee machine clucks, promising my morning nectar.

I fill Rose’s lunch box. It’s the last day of school before the half-term break and something tells me she’ll wake early, excited at the fact that today means no lessons, lots of playtime fun, not to mention the holiday … School closes early, so it’s just a snack; just one slice of bread, lightly buttered and sliced in two, a piece of ham inside. Crusts removed. She hates crusts. A satsuma – the easy-peeling sort – and a bottle of water.