by Rachel Ryan
There were many gaps in the narrative of how the skinny girl with the freckles and mischievous smile had become the woman whose bloated body was dragged from the sea. But perhaps the most important part of the story was the beginning. The part where she ended up in a foreign country, a teenager, traumatized, destitute, alone.
And the ending, of course. They could piece that together easily enough.
They knew she had returned to Ireland and been lucid enough to look up her estranged brothers. Billy had been in a home for several years by then. But Jimmy, her big brother, her long-ago best friend, who’d walked away from her back then and never tried to make amends—he had a good life. A big house. A loving family.
It did not take much imagination to picture Anne staring hungrily across the road at the life that should have been hers.
A warm bed instead of a car to sleep in. Companionship and cozy family Christmases instead of loneliness, hospital rooms, nobody to list as an emergency contact. A grandson like Cody instead of a ragged wound in her heart.
Georgina could picture it. Anne lurking around their house, staring in the windows, making sure she left no signs of her presence. Until the day she smashed Georgina’s flowerpots in a flash of petty rage so strong she forgot herself.
As time passed, Cody filled his parents in on all the parts they’d missed. They heard the story in bits and pieces until they could picture the chain of events clearly.
Cody hadn’t known to be wary of Anne’s erratic behavior. He’d been happy to meet the woman who surprised him in the park with a lollipop and promised to be his new grandmother. She was loving and kind. Anne would call the house phone, and they would play the yes-or-no game. She asked questions, and Cody had to answer without using the words “yes” or “no.”
“Are you a boy?”
“I am.”
“Are you a cat?”
“I am not!”
“What’s your name?”
“Cody.”
“How do you spell that?”
“C-O-D-Y.”
“And is that your real name?”
“Yes—I mean, it is! It is!”
It was a surprisingly hard game, but Cody liked it. If he managed to answer without saying “yes” or “no” for a full minute, his new granny would leave sweets hidden for him in the garden. It sometimes took him many attempts to complete a full minute, but Anne always let him keep trying until he did.
When Anne explained that his parents didn’t like her and that he had to pretend she existed only in his imagination—well, Cody was a mischievous child, just as Anne herself had once been. He was used to keeping secrets from adults. When he explained that his mom was getting suspicious, Anne coached him through the process of fibbing to the police if they showed up. She made it seem almost fun.
And when his new granny said she’d take him for a special day out, Cody was happy to play along. All he had to do was tell a little lie to Patrick’s parents. It broke Georgina’s heart to think of Cody climbing into the back of the Volvo—so innocent, so excited to be getting away with it. Not knowing that by the end of the night that car would be sinking to the seafloor.
The day was fun, Cody said. Until Georgina appeared and Anne hurt her. Then it all went bad. When Anne reversed the car and went speeding up the hill, she had been shouting things and driving too fast. It was scary. Cody was frightened. He told New Granny he didn’t want to go to Kerry anymore. He wanted to go back. He wanted his mom.
Anne had stopped the car so hard that Cody, who had taken off his seat belt, flew forward and bumped his forehead. She turned around, told him to stop his screaming, and slapped him across the face. Cody, who had never been struck by an adult, was momentarily stunned into silence. Then, at the same moment, he and Anne both burst into tears.
“I’m sorry, Cody,” she told him, over and over. “I’m sorry.” She tried to hug him, but he pulled away. She cried harder. “I’m a bad grandmother. I’ve ruined everything.”
She reached for him again, and he kicked at her.
“I don’t want you! I want Mom!”
Anne looked sad at first, but when he lashed out a second time, she got angry.
“You don’t want me? Fine. Fine!” And she leaned into the back, reached over him, and opened the car door. “Get out, then,” she said, crying. “Go.”
Cody had clambered out onto the side of a road he didn’t know. He was even more scared then, being in this strange place. “Don’t leave me here,” he begged.
But Anne had driven away and left him alone.
As Cody told his parents later, all he could think to do was to walk back in the direction they had come. It was very dark, and he kept imagining he saw shapes moving in the gardens he passed. He walked as fast as he could.
Eventually, the road led him to a village and the top of the hill. At the bottom of the hill, there were a lot of police cars and people shouting. Scared and disorientated, he had walked doggedly in the direction of those blue lights, sure that one of the grown-ups would help him find his mom. “And then all these people started running at me and saying my name… and then I saw you, Mom! And Dad too. And then we got to go in the Guards’ car.”
It was in the police car home from Howth that Cody, squeezed between his shell-shocked parents, had turned to Georgina and said: “Mom? Where’s New Granny?”
Epilogue
What little of the sky Georgina could see through the curtains was bright blue. The house smelled of toast and coffee. She could hear Bren and Cody talking downstairs.
She sat up in bed and stretched. She must have fallen asleep again. She’d woken at seven a.m. and rolled into Bren’s arms as the dawn light filtered through the curtains. They’d had morning sex, quiet but intense, Bren’s hand clamped over her mouth to muffle the sounds she made at the end.
Georgina got up, walked to the window, and pulled the curtains back. The first flowers of spring were blooming. The Brazilian couple across the street were pushing their newborn baby in a pram.
Despite everything, life went on.
But some things took time to heal. Georgina’s bandaged right hand gave a twinge at the thought.
Jimmy was not coping well. He seemed to have forgotten how to laugh. He didn’t leave the house much these days except to potter around the garden. He always remembered to leave food and water out for the birds now. But the sadness that hung around him was so heavy it was palpable.
“I forgive you, Dad,” Georgina had told him, many times. “Now you need to forgive yourself.”
Last time they spoke, Jimmy told her, hesitantly, that he wanted to pay for a gravestone for Anne. He’d been anxious about Georgina’s reaction. This was the woman who had abducted her child, after all.
But Georgina didn’t hate Anne. Yes, she had subjected Georgina to the most terrifying hours of her life, but Anne had only been a child herself when she was raped, disowned, abandoned. During her therapy sessions, Georgina was trying to work through her confused feelings towards the woman who, in another life, would have been her loving aunt.
Her feelings towards her father were complicated too. Sometimes she still felt anger towards Jimmy, for everything he had concealed and what it had cost them, for all the things he’d failed to do.
But mostly she just felt sad for him. A painful sadness that sat behind her rib cage.
“Buy her a gravestone, Dad,” Georgina said. She didn’t say, Why do for her in death what you couldn’t do in life? All she added was: “Make sure it says ‘Mother’ on it.” Anne had been a mother, however brief the time she was allowed with her child. Her gravestone should reflect that.
Down on the street, Vera was bustling off somewhere, in her purple scarf and coat. Georgina waved.
Recently, Georgina had asked Vera about that strange comment she’d made about her family. I don’t really miss them at all… How could she not miss her daughter, son-in-law, and grandson after they’d gone from living under her roof to Australia?
<
br /> “Oh, don’t get me wrong!” Vera hastened to say. “I’d have rather they moved down the road than to the other side of the world. But at the same time—and don’t ever tell Lorraine I said this—I’m just so glad to have my house to myself again.”
Georgina was stunned. Vera went on, “I don’t miss being woken by a toddler at five a.m. Or minding Sean Monday to Friday. Do I sound terrible? I love my grandson, but I already raised my own child. I never planned to spend the rest of my life raising someone else’s.”
Georgina assured Vera she didn’t sound terrible. She felt a little abashed at the assumptions she’d made. It had never occurred to her that Vera might have interests beyond providing free full-time childcare.
“Now I sleep in whenever I want,” said Vera. “I watch what I want on TV. And I’m taking evening classes! I didn’t get to finish school when I was young, you know, and always felt I’d missed out on the opportunity. Now I’m studying history, and it’s just fascinating. I’m learning so much. In fact”—she’d glanced at her watch—“I can’t stand and chat too long, Georgina. I’ve lots of homework to do.”
And she’d trotted off, adjusting the purple scarf around her neck as she went. That evening, she’d dropped by to give Georgina a jar of homemade black currant jam.
As she watched Vera disappear down the street now, Georgina heard Cody calling from downstairs. “Mom?” And Bren saying, “Shush, Mom’s asleep…”
She pulled on her dressing gown, ruminating on Cody’s progress. He seemed to be coping remarkably well. The child psychologist with whom he was having weekly meetings had commented on his courage and tenacity. Georgina could only hope he’d inherited his real grandmother’s inner strength.
“Kids are resilient,” Bren had said recently. “More so than adults.”
“Maybe,” Georgina replied. “Or maybe we just don’t take their distress as seriously as we take our own.” She had been determined not to do that with Cody. In the aftermath of everything, she made sure to get professional help for Cody as well as herself.
Cody drew pictures of his new granny in heaven. He had, with his incredible seven-year-old’s capacity for forgiveness, got over her shouting at him, hitting him, and leaving him on the side of the road. “She did nice things mostly, Mom.” He also felt deep guilt that he hadn’t allowed Anne to hug him goodbye. “I should have given New Granny a hug. It wasn’t nice to kick at her.”
“No, sweetie,” Georgina told him fiercely and repeatedly. “Don’t ever feel bad about that. You did nothing wrong. Your new granny was a very sad and mixed-up lady, and it would have taken more than a hug to make her better. Okay?”
Cody had recently drawn a picture of Anthony as a superhero, saving his mom from the sea. Georgina felt a surge of uncomfortable emotions when she saw that drawing. She knew from Anthony’s expression when Cody presented him with it that he felt similarly, but he thanked Cody gravely and promised to put the drawing on his fridge.
Lily was allowed to visit Anthony at home now. She could often be seen running around his back garden with the new rabbit—a ball of white fluff Lily had christened Snowpuff—hopping around at her feet.
Sometimes, Cody and Lily would play together. It meant everything to Georgina to see her son playing with his new friend like a normal seven-year-old.
The TV was on downstairs. Bren’s muffled voice was followed by Cody’s laughter. Georgina checked her phone. She had a message from Kelly-Anne:
Remember—spa day tomorrow!! They’ll put cucumbers on your eyes and you will LIKE IT!! See you in the morning! xx
She laughed aloud. Tomorrow was their much-anticipated girls’ day out. Kelly-Anne had booked them in for an all-day experience: facials, massages, the lot. Georgina was actually looking forward to it.
Recently, she’d been taking one full day off a week, no studying allowed. And she had been surprised to find that she was still doing just as well at college. “Of course you are,” Bren said. “You were burnt out before. Taking time off is good for performance. It gives your brain a chance to recharge.”
Georgina and Bren were doing better these days too. She had filled him in on everything, all the parts she hadn’t told him before, including the time she’d climbed into Anthony’s garden. It felt like they were on the same team again.
Bren showed her every day that he was sorry, that he’d do anything to rebuild the trust. “As long as it takes, Georgina.” That he was committed. That he’d chosen his marriage, his family, this life.
Georgina looked around at their sunlit bedroom, the crumpled duvet. The sound of her son’s and husband’s laughter floated up the stairs. This was the life she chose too. Her marriage might not look exactly like she’d imagined, but… it was hers.
One thing that still amazed Georgina was that Rose had never known about Anne. If such secrets could exist in a marriage as happy and enduring as her parents’… It helped Georgina to forgive herself for the paranoid thoughts she had had about Bren.
Jimmy had framed one of the old photos of Anne and put it on the mantelpiece. After all those years, it had finally been dusted off and brought into the light. Anne beamed out of the photograph—dark hair, freckles, crooked teeth, mischievous grin. Frozen at fifteen, in a field in Kerry in summer, beside her beloved brother, smiling into the sun.
Acknowledgments
I’d like to begin by thanking Nita Pronovost at Simon & Schuster CA, without whom this book would still be a manuscript. I’d like to thank Sara Quaranta at Simon & Schuster US, whose meticulous editorial notes were invaluable. And I’d like to thank Hannah Wann and Anna Boatman at Little, Brown, for the thoughtful notes and for championing my work so fiercely. I’m extremely lucky to have had the guidance of such exceptional editors.
I’d like to extend a big thank-you to all the teams behind the scenes at Simon & Schuster CA, Simon & Schuster US, and Little, Brown. A wide range of talented people are involved in the process that resulted in you holding this book in your hands, and I’m grateful to each and every one.
An enormous thank-you to my wonderful agent, Marianne Gunn O’Connor, who picked my manuscript from the slush pile and believed in me from the beginning. I’d also like to thank Alison Walsh for the early guidance and support.
To my family and friends, it’s hard to know where to start. To my mother, who bought me books; to Lauren, my Theo van Gogh and biggest cheerleader; to Dylan, for always being in my corner; and to my father, who told his daughter to dream big—I love you guys beyond words. To Niamh and Darren, for exemplifying supportiveness, for everything. My achievements are yours too. To Cáit, for the unwavering belief since our school days. If I try to name everyone, this section will go on for pages and pages, so I’ll just say this: to each of you who cheered me on at every turn, who believed in me years before I had anything published, and who celebrated my wins as if they were your own, thank you, thank you, thank you. No writer could ask to have a more supportive gang in her corner.
About the Author
Rachel Ryan was born and raised in Dublin, Ireland. She can usually be found writing in coffee shops, hanging around libraries, or walking the streets of Dublin, making up stories. The Woman Outside My Door is her first novel.
SimonandSchuster.ca
www.SimonandSchuster.ca/Authors/Rachel-Ryan
@SimonSchusterCA
We hope you enjoyed reading this Simon & Schuster ebook.
Join our mailing list to get updates on new releases, deals, recommended reads, and more from Simon & Schuster.
CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP
Already a subscriber? Provide your email again so we can register this ebook and send you more of what you like to read. You will continue to receive exclusive offers in your inbox.
Simon & Schuster Canada
A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
166 King Street East, Suite 300
Toronto, Ontario M5A 1J3
www.SimonandSchuster.ca
This book is a work of fict
ion. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2020 by Caelainn Bradley
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address Simon & Schuster Canada Subsidiary Rights Department, 166 King Street East, Suite 300, Toronto, Ontario, M5A 1J3.
This Simon & Schuster Canada edition November 2020
SIMON & SCHUSTER CANADA and colophon are trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Simon & Schuster Special Sales at 1-800-268-3216 or [email protected].
Interior design by Erika R. Genova
Cover design by Min Choi
Author photograph by Ailish Kerr
Cover photographs by Getty Images / Igor Ustynskyy & Shutterstock / Theerawat Auanduangdee
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Title: The woman outside my door / Rachel Ryan.
Names: Ryan, Rachel, 1991– author.
Description: Simon & Schuster Canada edition.
Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20200242571 | Canadiana (ebook) 20200242628 | ISBN 9781982155971 (softcover) | ISBN 9781982155988 (EPUB)
Classification: LCC PR6118.Y34 W66 2021 | DDC 823/.92—dc23
ISBN 978-1-9821-5597-1
ISBN 978-1-9821-5598-8 (ebook)