1
3rd December 2007
Dear Emma,
If it were up to me we’d celebrate our anniversary on the day of our first date. But of course, you want to mark it today. You love telling people this story.
Did you know I actually spotted you first on that crammed tube? I remember seeing you in your black turtleneck, the now-familiar red lipstick, your raven hair tied up into that twisty thing you do. But I glanced away because a) I didn’t want to be Creepy Tube Guy and b) I was dressed as an extra in The Sound of Music.
I was so aware of you as the tube rumbled on. Jules said something funny and you did this incredible soft laugh. I couldn’t help peeking up again. When you met my look, I remember the shock of feeling that ran down my spine.
I tried to concentrate on something else, cursing work’s Fancy Dress Friday and feeling so wrong-footed in my lederhosen and Tyrolean hat. Not that I’d have been brave enough to do anything. And anyway I was sure you’d be with someone already. A man equally chic—who’d wear perfectly cut suits, speak three languages, be great with kids, love animals, and have a massive knob.
But fate intervened when the train jerked and I stumbled, missing the pole with my hand. My Tyrolean hat fell off and rolled to a stop by your shiny, brown laced boots. I was gushing sorry and kneeling in front of you in lederhosen with Jules laughing and saying, “Guten tag,” when you gave me that first smile: pity obviously, because I was a man who couldn’t even stand normally in a tube. Your boyfriend would stand really straight and still in a tube.
“It’s a nice hat.” The first words you said to me. Your voice was confident, smooth, and I found myself worrying if my hair was flat as I placed it back on my head. I’d never worried if my hair was flat before. Speak, man, I thought. Speak. I wished I’d plumped for something other than “Thanks”.
I remember feeling sad I’d missed my chance, that my exit was two stops away and now I would leave and you’d disappear on the Central Line out of my life. I’d never know what you were like, whether this electric feeling I had was a real one. But then you looked across at me and asked if I knew any good German markets. If I could write one down. The woman two seats down from you smiled into her book.
And I thought YES—I think this intriguing woman wants my number (or she thinks I’m actually German and genuinely wants to know about German markets). I felt flustered as I patted my pockets for my pen and my A6 notebook (and, no, I don’t think it’s that weird a thing to carry around—but I do wish Hattie hadn’t told you I used to record bird species in it. Thanks for that, sis). But I didn’t have it, only a pen, a 50p piece, a crumpled receipt, and my house keys.
I smoothed out the back of the receipt from Boots and quickly scrawled my number. Then I went over it twice which I worried made me look a bit psycho but I thought I’d made the seven look like a one.
The row of pastel-colored terraced houses that signaled we’d soon be slowing to a stop at my station flashed past the window behind you. I went a fraction too early, clumsily thrusting the Boots receipt in front of you. “If you want to go to a market,” I said. Your mouth broke into a smile and I felt a glow in my chest. I was about to return the smile when I froze, suddenly remembering the last time I’d been to Boots.
But it was too late. You’d taken it. It was now in your hand. You were still smiling like it was a Good Thing. Jules was smiling like it was a Good Thing. The woman two seats down was smiling like it was a Good Thing.
Holy shit.
I wanted to snatch it straight back. Your purple nail varnish swam in front of me as I panicked. My mum had asked me to pick up some more Anusol for her piles. Oh my God. I’d written my number on the back of a receipt for Anusol.
Numbness spread down my body as I wondered whether to say something about the Anusol, that it wasn’t for me.
I was frantically casting about for something to say, anything to distract. Your boots. I’d liked your lace-up boots. THAT WAS WHAT I WANTED TO SAY, your BOOTS. I OBVIOUSLY DIDN’T MEAN TO SAY ALOUD “I LIKE YOUR BOOBS.”
Oh God, the sheer fucking horror of that moment. The little widening of your eyes before I started stammering “YOUR BOOTS, YOUR BOOTS,” like I had shoe-based Tourette’s. I’d never blushed in my life but I could feel my face burning up like I had LAVA inside of me. And you were amazing when you laughed and tried to defuse my embarrassment.
BUT OF COURSE the tube decided THAT was the moment to squeal to a random halt. I could literally SEE the end of the platform out of the window. Freedom from this nightmare I was stuck in.
“My stop,” I squeaked. An actual squeak. A sound I wasn’t even sure I could make. “Home,” I said. Because apparently I didn’t talk in sentences anymore. Maybe I could smash my way out with the little hammer?
Jules and the woman two seats down were openly laughing at me.
My face reflected in the glass was a wide-eyed ghost even as you were thanking me for the receipt.
I just nodded, so grateful to you for trying to be nice, trying to be normal: it made me like you even more. Not that I said that because I was mute now: it was unlikely I would ever be able to speak to a woman again.
The tube juddered and the next moment it had stopped at the platform, the doors slid open, and I practically dived through them.
As the carriage moved away, I glanced back and, just before you were lost to my sight, you craned your neck round and grinned at me.
God, I remember that whole evening being torturous, pretending to Dave I was cool if you didn’t call but constantly checking my phone like I was fourteen years old again, checking my pager. That smile, that amused sparkle in your eyes. And you did message me, late, just before bed, the screen lighting up my bedroom, hope a shade of ghostly blue.
“How normal are you compared to today? 1 being completely normal, BORINGLY so; 10 being, well, like you were today?”
I laughed, and we swapped messages and, when you’d established I might not want to pickle you and keep you in a jar, we arranged to meet and God you were sensational and I literally haven’t looked back.
It’s completely typical of you that you want to force me to remember that day. Hattie said she peed herself a little when you recounted it to her a few months later.
So, despite regular winking and sheep-throwing on Facebook, you wanted us to be romantic and the idea for these letters was born. I can’t wait to read yours.
Right, what has been awesome about the year and being with you?
Our nights out in Camden, obviously—comedy nights, plays, dancing, sawdust, sweat, red wine.
The way you continue to thrust books on me because you don’t trust people that don’t read.
The way my friends love you too (and my parents—although my mum told me after you’d first met that she liked you more than me which is Too Far).
The surprise Eurostar picnic.
That Suffolk coastal walk in torrential rain (we were so brave).
I keep waiting for it to go wrong. For you to expose yourself as a closet racist or a hoarder of weird junk. But, although you surprise me all the time (who knew you loved darts and collected shitloads of shells?), I’m always hit over the head again by my sheer luck in meeting you.
You said I love you on 17th August (See? We could make THAT our Dateversary) and I still attest I said it first and you didn’t hear me. Your hearing is actually one of the things I’d criticize about you. Sometimes it’s like you’re dragging yourself back from another place entirely.
I do love you though, Emma, you’re amazing. I’ve never been more glad of a decision in my whole life, horrifying though the memory is. Thank God for that Boots receipt.
Here’s to one year together.
Dan x x
P.S. OK, this was a really cool idea.
2
Monday, 3rd December 2021—10 p.m.
Dan noticed it immediately. “That was not there before.”
“Hmm . . . ?”
Dan pointed at the folded piece of paper on the kitchen countertop, his name hastily printed on the front. Without a word he crossed the room, put on his reading glasses, and unfolded the sheet. Not a flicker on his face betrayed his emotions as he scanned it. He lowered his hand slowly. “You just wrote this when you went to the loo.”
I put a hand to my chest. “I can’t believe you’d say that!” (OK, I had, I totally had.)
“Admit it!”
“I had it in my bag all day. So, I just put it there while you were gone.”
“I don’t believe you, Emma.”
“I’m your wife, Daniel,” I said, which didn’t really make sense and I’d only added his name because he’d added mine.
He waved the paper. “You misspelled affection.”
“It’s a tricky word,” I stuttered.
“And it’s three lines long.”
I scoffed, “I don’t always have to write really long letters. I thought this year I’d—”
“Emma.” He cut me off, his voice stern; Dan rarely sounded stern. If it had been a lighter moment I might have commented that it was quite sexy. “Just admit it, you forgot . . . again.”
Oh God. I licked my lips, wanting to buy myself time. Last year he’d been so gutted. And it had shocked me into action. I had promised—promised—I’d do better. It had been my idea all those years ago and my early letters had often been six pages long, “front and back” as he used to tease. Why hadn’t I put a reminder in my phone? Or asked Hattie to remind me? Or one of the kids? Or just remembered like a nice, decent, thoughtful human? Like Dan had . . .
His brown eyes were sad: magnified by the new reading glasses he loathed (“Reading glasses! I’m forty-two, Emma!”): he was hurt. Again.
I wasn’t sure why I chose to go on the attack instead. “Why are you making such a big deal about this?”
He curled his fists, crumpling the hastily written note in his hand. “Because it is a big deal. Or . . .” he paused. “I thought it was. Maybe you don’t . . .” He raised his head and I was shocked to see tears film his eyes.
“Dan, don’t be like that.”
“I’m not being like anything. I’m allowed to be bloody sad.”
“Mum? Dad?” A small voice from the top of the stairs. Both of us swiveling toward the sound.
“God, you’ve woken the kids.” Guilt made me lash out. I moved to the kitchen door, saw Miles at the top, clutching his favorite Tigger to his chest—even at eight years old he couldn’t really sleep without him. “Hi darling, go back to bed. I’ll pop up and tuck you in in a minute.”
“Were you fighting?”
I shook my head, pain stabbing my chest. Memories of my own childhood fears when I’d heard the regular rows between my parents late at night floored me for a moment. “No, darling,” I choked and forced a smile. “It was the telly. Night, night . . .”
I returned to find Dan in his coat and shoes, forcing a leash on a reluctant, whining Gus.
“He’s been a bit off,” I said, hoping to divert from the row.
“Come on, Gus,” Dan snapped, standing up.
Definitely still angry. Normally he would have asked what Miles wanted, offered to pop up and see him, but instead he couldn’t meet my eye, had wrapped the leash around his fist, knuckles white.
It felt strange. Dan never got angry. I got angry, I was the one to swear when I scalded myself or flew off the handle over the fact I’d forgotten recycling day or some company had put me on hold, or when my parents made another excuse as to why they couldn’t visit. Dan was a pretty placid guy but tonight his jaw was rigid, his muscles tense as if he was about to explode.
Gus, crouched low, his nose almost touching the floor, resisted Dan’s tug on the leash with a whimper.
“Don’t pull on him like that . . .”
“I’m not pulling on him. Gus, come on.”
Dan scooped up a barking Gus and carried him out of the house anyway. The door slammed.
Cradling my head in my hands, I stood there. Christ. This was all my fault. I should have just apologized.
I needed to fix this.
“Mum,” Miles’s sleepy voice called from the landing.
Shit.
“Hey darling,” I half-whispered. “Sorry, Dad went out with Gus, I’ll come up and tuck you in, in a sec.”
He returned to his room.
I looked around the kitchen at the detritus of our meal. Dan had cooked chicken thighs in tarragon sauce, the envelope that had started this whole thing was by my place setting—my name written in black ink, a little heart just above the “a.” I was nervous of that letter too. Dan’s could be funny, loving, but they were always honest. And this year I was scared of honest. I was about to go upstairs when I heard it.
My skin broke into goosebumps as my head turned toward the door.
What was that?
Oh my God.
3
15 hours earlier . . .
I was on my side, facing the window.
The sound of a bicycle bell.
I opened my eyes and winced. A slight crack in the curtains, a shaft of sunlight crossing my face.
I turned over.
“Hey,” he said.
I was about to smile, about to say “hey” back. But the digital clock blinked behind him and I sat up so suddenly I felt dizzy.
“Shit.”
Dan sat up too. “What?”
“Hold on,” I said. “Headrush. I thought I set an alarm for earlier.”
Dan scooched back down, watching me as I crossed the room, “Come back to bed, Emma. The kids aren’t even up yet.”
“I can’t.”
Something unreadable crossed Dan’s face as I glanced over at him. “You’ve got time.”
“I really don—Ow.” My hip knocked into the post of our bed.
“Are you all right?” Dan reached for me.
“I’m fine.” Rubbing my hip, I moved across to our chest of drawers to unplug my mobile from its charge. I was already scrolling as I stepped inside our en suite.
“Oh for . . .”
“What is it?” Dan called.
“No loo roll.”
He didn’t reply. I rolled my eyes and stood up, turning on the shower. Placing my mobile on the side of the sink, I frowned at the dusting of orange in the basin. What was that from? I peered closer, brushing at the tiny dots with a hand.
A Facebook message pinged. I groaned inwardly as I saw the name. A woman who was meant to be picking up my practically unused fold-up bike—a fortieth birthday present I’d used about once in two years—wanted to rearrange the time of pickup. Again. This woman had canceled on me almost every day for what felt like my whole life. The entire family had been squeezing past it in the hall for the last two weeks. I wondered if it was all worth the £50 I’d sold it for on the local Facebook mums’ group. I sent a thumbs-up back.
The mirror was steaming up by the time I put down the mobile and pulled off my pajamas. I needed to book another hair appointment; as I tied my shoulder-length hair back, fine gray hairs emerged among the black, and it was less than a month since I’d last dyed it. Catching sight of my face before it disappeared in the fog, I frowned—was that a new line? Did I need Botox? My client, Scarlet, had told me about a Viscoderm filler that was better. And what was the vitamin that was good for skin? D? B? Was B the one for hair?
“Ow,” I twisted and turned down the shower. Oh my God, why did Dan have to scald himself every time he washed?
Moments later I emerged, the sound of a child thundering past our bedroom door. It had to be Miles—eight years old but already the same size as Poppy. Rifling through the pile of clothes on a chair I pulled out a rumpled white shirt and burgundy corduroy high-waisted skirt. But who had time to iron? Boots? Heels? I sat on the edge of the bed, rolling up tights, leaning back to glimpse the weather out of the window. No rain, so I reached for the heels.
Some weird music, a few words, were coming from Poppy’s bedroom and I glanced up, about to call to her. She needed to eat breakfast before school. Beach photos on Instagram pulled my eyes back to the screen—God, wasn’t Amelia’s book due tomorrow? This week certainly. There she was in a hammock with a bright red cocktail, then jumping in the air on a white sand shore. Hashtag blessed.
I switched to Twitter—zipping down the endless angry political tweets to see if there was any book news. Christ, the Arthur tweet was up to over 1.2k likes and 391 retweets. My insides lurched in panic; what would this mean for today?
I drifted to the door, still scrolling. An editor I knew was moving publishing houses; I should take her for lunch and see what she might be looking for.
“Poppy,” I shouted, voice half-hearted as my eyes froze on an article from The Bookseller. An announcement about a new book from a big-name author that sounded scarily like something I’d been excited about last week in my submission pile.
Clattering into the kitchen I opened the fridge, glancing down at Gus who was lying in his fleece bed. “All right for some,” I said. He didn’t raise his head of springy curls, his bowl of food untouched at his head.
A cough at the table and I noticed Miles in his school uniform staring at a dry bowl of cornflakes. “You all right?”
“Dad left for milk.”
The door opened as he spoke and Dan emerged, unshaven, cheeks flushed, thick brown hair sticking up at every angle, holding a carrier bag. “Here you go,” he slid the milk bottle over to Miles who barely smiled in acknowledgment.
My phone pinged again before I could finish my thought. “Oh my God, did I tell you that bike woman has canceled again?”
Dan slid a hand around my waist, his chin brushing the side of my head as he handed me a brown paper bag. “Cinnamon swirl.”
“Thanks . . . and the Arthur stuff has got worse overnight. Some big-name authors in the US have been retweeting it. Christ. Oh, and also Amelia is in the Maldives, look.” I twisted, waving the phone in his face. “Some resort where dolphins bring you breakfast or something,” the screen was a flash of turquoise. Dan quite enjoyed my Amelia stories—a celebrity from a popular show about London socialites—she had over a million followers and the publisher who’d bought her vegan cookbook was waiting on her first novel. “I hope Claire doesn’t see this; she’s already given her two extensions.”
Momentarily wondering why Dan seemed so quiet, I turned to Miles. “Oh, and Miles . . . TEDDIES.”
Both Dan and Miles jumped.
“Sorry,” I adjusted the volume, my brain flying off in five different directions. “Have you got any old soft toys for the Teddy Bear Raffle? Dan—did we put them all in the loft or chuck them?”
Where I would hoard, Dan would organize. He had box files in assorted colors, used those tiny sticky circles so that paper never ripped. I mean, the man had a special box for missing buttons and a laminated dumpster permit.
Dan slumped into a kitchen chair opposite Miles. “Why are you organizing that again? They left playgroup years ago.”
“I know but, well, I’ve promised now.” I glanced down, the playgroup thread on WhatsApp already had thirty-seven notifications. Dan was right, of course, I’d told him I would step down, but no one had offered to take my place. It had been such a lifeline for me in those crazy early years. Respite from the chucking meals on the floor, endless nighttime visits for a pacifier/bad dream/water/cuddle/pee, Peppa Pig on a hideous loop so you found yourself humming the theme tune at any given moment. It was about the only affordable option in our area with flexible hours: they needed volunteers.
I avoided his eye and collected up my things for work, not forgetting the vital papers printed off late last night. My stomach rolled as I thought of the morning ahead. I looked at my mobile again, still no text from the taxi company. I saw another message though, “Oh, you remember Jacob, Miles? He went to playgroup with you. His mum says they’re moving to Surrey. I said we should have them over before they go.”
Miles lifted dull eyes to me.
“Are you feeling all right, buddy?” Dan asked, reaching across the table to place a hand on his forehead. Miles shrugged him off with a huff. I met Dan’s eyes; Miles was never irritable. It was bad enough having one child who seemed to already be acting like a teen despite being a few months off turning eleven.
Dan bent down to pat Gus as I grabbed at my wallet, checked my handbag. “You all right, boy? Off your food?”
“Oh for . . .” Checking the clock as I picked up my keys, I moaned, “I have to go to the office before the meeting. Poppy needs to get down here or she won’t have time to eat.”
Dan straightened. “I’ll sort them, you can go. I’m starting later this morning, remember? I’ve just got to be in by eleven for that meeting with the new client.” He paused after he said it, as if he was leaving a gap for something.
“Great.” I blew him a kiss, his expression strange as he sat back down. I reached down to ruffle Miles’s mop of hair.
“Love you both,” I called from the hallway. “Ask Poppy about the teddies, OK?” I heard her thundering down the stairs, “POPPY,” I yelled, “ASK DAD TO TALK TO YOU ABOUT TEDDIES, OK . . .”
Poppy appeared on the landing above me, long hair uncombed, white shirt loose, skinny legs in a tartan school skirt. “Where’s my blazer?” she asked.
“Hey, ask Dad,” I called, stretching to get my coat from its hook; the handlebars of my bike dug into my side. “For fuc—” God, why didn’t that woman pick it up already? I could put it back in the loft, or do that Freecycle thing. “DAN. Poppy needs her blazer, and I’ll text you later about food for the kids’ tea, all right? I could make toad-in-the-hole?” I shouted, already opening the door to the street, mobile stuffed into my coat pocket, mind already on the commute. I could read that submission I’d started yesterday on the tube.
A voice called back, “You forgot your cinnam—” but I’d already slammed the door.
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