I always thought the problem would be my disappearances.
Now, it seems they are the solution.
The biggest events that crash into our lives seem so insurmountably huge: lightning and fireworks, so loud and bright we think we’ll be deafened and blinded. It seems impossible that we didn’t know they were on their way to us. It seems that if we’d listened harder, stayed still for a moment, we might have heard the distant rumble of the approaching storm, felt that something was off kilter somehow, that life was about to split into two.
So many Befores and Afters seemed to be important before that day. Before my parents divorced. After, when we moved to Blackpool. Before Mike ended things with me and I met Daniel, and After. Before we bought the house and got married, and After.
Now, they are all mangled, crushed into the bigger Before, the only one that seems to matter.
I stab at a slice of dry cake with a fork before lifting it to my lips, but then drop it back down with a clatter. An autumn chill snakes its way through the air and I pull my cardigan around me. I frown as I look across at the broken window.
I can’t help but feel like part of the problem is the house.
They all said it wasn’t the house. They said it was unexplained. Unascertained.
But what if there was something we could have done to stop it? What if there was some way of explaining it?
What if we had never bought the house? What if we had never stayed?
What if, what if, what if.
What if I don’t meet him in Luigi’s? What then?