by Holly Miller
* * *
• • •
The weather grows somber while I wait, the countryside excreting moisture like tears. Cold is pinching my skin as the sky slowly marbles with cloud. On the opposite riverbank, bare-boned trees bow their heads.
For so many years I’ve been praying my dream got it wrong. That Callie won’t show. That I’ll stand here alone until darkness, growing more and more euphoric with every fading gradient of light.
Because even though we’re apart, I simply can’t imagine waking up tomorrow without the comfort of knowing she’s out there. Without knowing that somewhere she’s happy, living a life of a million colors. When I saw her on the train that day, I wanted to break down the window, climb inside the carriage. Tell her I’ll never stop loving her, that it’s impossible to picture a world without her in it.
I’m counting down the minutes on my watch. I want to stop the earth turning, hit the brakes on time.
Please let me be wrong. Please.
But now there comes a shift in the air, the dampened strike of footsteps. And my heart hollows out, because she is here.
She’s humming as she makes one last meander along the riverbank. Lost in the landscape, she’s burrowed beneath a coat and scarf, like she’s just another winter walker. Like this is any other November day.
But it’s not, of course. Because I can already hear the air ambulance from across the fen, helicopter blades whirring like dragonfly wings. I made the call a few minutes ago, so she wouldn’t lose a second. I needed to be sure I’d done everything I could.
Even as she pauses now, delighting in the dart of a kingfisher, I’m trembling with hope. That she’ll simply turn around, exhale, and walk on.
Turn around, Callie. There’s still time. But you need to do it now.
“Joel?” She has seen me.
My heart breaks open as we face each other. And for a moment that seems like an hour, I hang on to the sight of her and don’t let go.
But already her eyes are asking the question. So, as gently as I can, I nod. I’m sorry, Callie.
The softest of smiles, a whispered “Oh.”
Then she puts out a hand.
Seconds still as, for the final time, I close my fingers around hers, feel the warmth of her skin through the wool of her glove. I place my other arm across her back, draw her calmly to my chest. Without saying anything she rests her cheek against my shoulder, perhaps for comfort. And then I kiss the top of her head, tell her one last time I’ll always love her.
After that no words are left. But in another life, we are turning to walk off down the footpath together, hand in hand toward a sunset that sees us home.
And now, here it comes—the buckle in my arms, the faint gasp for air that feels more like a cough. As gently as I can, I lower her to the ground, brush the hair from her face. I loosen the scarf from around her neck, my tears falling into its folds.
After all this time, I’m still not ready to say good-bye.
Ten.
My heart is punching out the seconds.
Nine.
“Callie,” I whisper, “I’m still here. I’m not going anywhere, okay? Stay with me.”
Eight. Seven.
In desperation I take off her glove, rub her hand with mine like I think it might stop her slipping away.
Six.
Maybe it will. “Come on, Callie. Don’t let go. I’m still here, stay with me.”
Five.
And then. Perhaps I’m imagining it, but I swear I can feel her try to grip my hand. Like she’s fighting so hard to hang on.
Four.
My heart upturns and the tears get fiercer. But still I keep whispering, squeezing her hand. “Stay with me, Callie. The ambulance is coming. Don’t let go, okay?”
Three. Two. One.
But at last I know. She cannot answer me because she is gone. So I try with everything I’ve got to restart her heart as, somewhere nearby, an ambulance lands.
* * *
• • •
Minutes later, the helicopter becomes a bird soaring skyward above the trees, carrying her away.
I did everything I could. All that’s left now is to wait. Hoping so hard it hurts, praying she’ll pull through.
EPILOGUE
93.
Joel
Callie passed away that day from cardiac arrest. They couldn’t find any evidence of an underlying heart condition in the postmortem, so the cause of death was given as sudden arrhythmic death syndrome.
I didn’t leave a trace with my 999 call and failed to give the paramedics my name. So no one knew I was with Callie in her final moments. But it was noted in several news reports that she’d been found by a passerby. A few days later, Kieran sent me a link to an article in the local paper. Finn was imploring whoever had called the ambulance to come forward, so he could thank them personally for their efforts to help.
I stayed anonymous, of course. I didn’t want to give Finn any reason to suspect that Callie and I had been in contact while they’d been together. She’d been faithful to the last, of course she had. She loved him.
* * *
• • •
I’m not sure if anyone notices me slip into the church. Taking a last-minute seat in the rear pew, I end up sitting next to Ben and his wife, Mia. They’ve got a baby of their own now, run an advertising agency together in London. Ben and I end up man-hugging halfway through the first hymn, which is “All Things Bright and Beautiful.”
I do my best to avert my eyes from Finn. I couldn’t have imagined a nicer guy for the love of my life to end up with. He’s in bits, of course. Has been sat down the whole time, head in his hands. Callie’s parents are next to him, equally shattered.
Finn’s brought Murphy with him on a lead. He’s so old now, and slightly arthritic. His movements are stiff and he struggles to lie down, but his whiskered eyes are faithful as ever.
I have to look away from the dog, or I’ll break.
Eventually Finn comes to the front of the church to make his speech. It takes him a good minute or two to compose himself, once he gets up there. He chokes on his words, unable to speak at first. But when he finally does, he floods the church with light. He tells us the story of how he and Callie met. About the fun they had, their incredible life together. Their two amazing children. “They say there’s one person for everyone,” he concludes, his voice wobbling. “And for me, that person was Callie.”
I leave the church before the last hymn, in no doubt as to just how fully Callie lived her last eight years. How hugely she was loved.
* * *
• • •
While everyone filters off to the crematorium, I do a lap of the block. I want to avoid running into Callie’s parents, Dot, or any of her other friends. Then I head back between the yew trees, where Esther’s asked me to meet her.
She approaches alone. Her face is eclipsed by an enormous pair of bug-eye sunglasses. We hug.
“I’m really sorry” is the first thing I say. And then, “It was a lovely service.”
“Thanks. I think Cal would have liked it.”
I picture the flowers trailing the nave. They were woven into the wicker of her coffin, strewn across the top of it. The air was suffused with fragrance, sweetened by love.
“Not going to the crematorium?” I ask Esther.
“No. Cal would have understood. I’m a bit of a wreck with stuff like that.” A stiff ejection of breath. “First Grace, and now . . .”
“I know,” I say softly. “I’m sorry.”
I detect a brave smile beneath the scoop of her sunglasses.
“Actually, I’ve got something I need to give you.” She withdraws a thick envelope from her handbag, passes it to me. “Callie wrote you postcards, Joel. After you broke up. She . . . passed them to me, for safekeeping. Anyway, she asked
me to give them to you. If she died.”
My mouth makes soundless shapes. The envelope feels heavy as a house brick in my hands.
“She wanted you to know . . . how happy she was.”
I finger the envelope. There must be . . . what—twenty postcards in here? Thirty?
“I’d do it all again,” I say then. “Even if nothing could change. I’d love her again in a heartbeat.” And then my voice breaks, and I can’t say any more.
A long silence, punctuated only by birdsong.
“So that mystery passerby never came forward,” Esther says eventually.
I gather myself. “No.”
She pushes her sunglasses up on top of her head. “It’s nice to know someone was there with her, though. You know—in her final moments.”
I meet her dewy eyes, nod once. And that’s it.
“You coming to the wake?”
I shake my head. “I think this is where it ends, for me.”
“All right.” She pauses. “Thank you, Joel.”
“For what?”
She shrugs lightly, like she’d hoped I’d know. “For what you did.”
I remain in the graveyard for a few minutes after Esther walks away. The sky is in mourning, overcast. But just as I’m about to leave, a slant of sunlight breaks cover.
As the earth brightens at my feet, a robin lands on the gravestone next to me, tilts its head.
“I’ll always love you, Cal,” I whisper. Then I tuck the envelope into my jacket, turn and make for home.
94.
Callie
I was thinking this morning about the day I met you. Do you remember? That time you forgot to pay and I gave you a piece of cake, gabbled, went all weak at the knees.
Anyway. We have drømmekage all the time now, me and Finn and the twins—silly, I know, but I just like finding little ways to remember you.
You should know that Finn . . . he’s a wonderful person, Joel. It feels strange to tell you that. But please know I don’t say it to hurt you. I just want you to know I’m happy—that I’m sure we made the right decision eight years ago, heartbreaking though it was, and as wrong as it felt at the time.
Anyway, I’ve been in Eversford this weekend, and I’m just heading down to Waterfen now. I’ll be thinking of you, as I walk along the river.
Because I still love you, Joel. There’s a part of my heart that will always be yours. Even when I’m gone, whenever that may be.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I’d like to thank my brilliant agent, Rebecca Ritchie at AM Heath, for everything you’ve done on my behalf. Any writer would be lucky to have you in their corner. Thank you.
I’m hugely grateful to everyone at Hodder & Stoughton, for making me feel so welcome and for championing this book so passionately. In particular Kimberley Atkins, for your enthusiasm, for your wise editing, and for caring about my characters as much as I do. Sorry for the sobs! A big thank-you also to Madeleine Woodfield, as well as Natalie Chen, Alice Morley, Maddy Marshall, and Becca Mundy. And the incredible rights team, particularly Rebecca Folland, Melis Dagoglu, Grace McCrum, and Hannah Geranio—I’ve truly been blown away by all you’ve done to introduce The Sight of You to readers around the world. Also Carolyn Mays, Jamie Hodder-Williams, Lucy Hale, Catherine Worsley, Richard Peters, Sarah Clay, Rachel Southey, Ellie Wood, Ellen Tyrell, and Ellie Wheeldon. And Hazel Orme, for the eagle-eyed copyediting.
At Putnam, I’d like to thank Tara Singh Carlson and Helen O’Hare, for your meticulous and insightful edits—it’s been a complete pleasure to work with you both. Much appreciation too to Sally Kim, Ivan Held, Christine Ball, Alexis Welby, Ashley Hewlett, Ashley McClay, Brennin Cummings, Meredith Dros, Maija Baldauf, Anthony Ramondo, Monica Cordova, Amy Schneider, and Janice Kurzius.
I also owe an enormous thank-you to Michelle Kroes at CAA.
I’m very grateful as well to Emma Rous, for the speedy reading and expert advice on all things veterinary-related. Any mistakes are of course my own.
Finally, thanks to my friends and family, and especially to Mark.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Holly Miller works as a copywriter and lives in Norfolk, England. The Sight of You is her American debut.
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