She’s lying on the kitchen floor the next morning.
There was a crash that I heard all the way up in my attic room, and I stumbled out of bed, nearly tripping down the stairs, a hot, horrible certainty bristling through me.
‘Frances? Frances? Speak to me.’
George is on his knees. Frances’ hand is clasped between his, pressed to his cheek, but she doesn’t move. Her chest doesn’t move.
There’s breakfast everywhere. She was cooking when it happened and a frying pan is tipped over beside her, baked beans splattered on the linoleum, the hob still burning. The heat’s unbearable and I can’t escape it. I’m rooted to the spot. I can see George’s mouth moving but no sound reaches my ears.
All I see is her face. The trickle of blood on her top lip. Her eyes staring at me.
An aneurysm, we find out after the autopsy. It was only a matter of time.
They would say that. How do you explain the unexplainable?
I stay until she’s buried. I owe her that much.
The next day, I pack my bag, leave George a note and spend my first night on the street.
In the nights that follow, when the summer heat starts to boil off and the autumn winds make it almost impossible to sleep, I sometimes feel Frances nearby. Like she’s watching over me. Or judging me. Wishing I’d never come into her life, because if I hadn’t, it would never have happened.
She was happy before me, and I was happy being miserable before I knew what it was like to be loved.