Seven Lies (ARC)
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One day, at some point in your future, someone will tell you that
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lies breed lies and they will be right but they will say it as though it is a 01
problem when in fact it is the solution.
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“He said that he wanted me, that he’d always liked talking to me; he
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asked if I felt the same way,” I said. “His hand was touching me through
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my dress, and he was fiddling with the edge of the fabric, fingering it,
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the seams of it. When it was only his hand on me, touching me, I
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couldn’t be sure, you know. It might have just been too much to drink,
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not thinking, not noticing what he was doing. But when he started talk-
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ing, then I knew,” I said. “I knew it was intentional.”
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And she was unsure again.
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And was that a lie? Really? Because I truly think that another two
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minutes and that’s exactly what would have happened; he’d have said
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something just like that— I know he would have— because that was the
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man Charles was. He knew how to use words to manipulate, to con-
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struct a story. And the words gave credence to an action that on its own
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was deemed insubstantial, unimportant, in no way noteworthy.
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But, yes, okay. It was a lie. That was the third lie I told Marnie.
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It would be the last lie I’d tell her while Charles was alive.
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Chapter Fourteen
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Marnie asked me to leave. After everything had been said and
not said, she stood up straight and said, “I think you should
go now.”
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I sat shocked and didn’t move.
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“You can leave,” she repeated. “Now. Please.”
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Charles and I looked at each other and I could tell that we were
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thinking the same thing, that neither of us could confidently read Mar-
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nie’s expression. We could see that she wasn’t happy, not at all, but the 20
anger had dissipated, replaced instead by something less clear. I didn’t
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recognize the sharpness of her eyes, her pinched lips, rosy as ever but
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pressed tightly together. Her skin was sallow and heavy, the weight of
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it sinking into her jaw.
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I saw him tighten his grip around her waist, a gentle squeeze.
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She didn’t respond. She was frozen, her hands fixed against her hips.
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I stood up.
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“Okay, I’ll go,” I said. “But only if you’re sure that’s what you want.”
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Did I think she might reconsider? I certainly hoped so. But she didn’t.
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“I’m sure,” she replied.
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I walked into the hallway and plucked my raincoat from the row of
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pegs. My umbrella had been propped against the radiator and had left
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a puddle of water sliding across the wooden floor. I put my hand on the
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doorknob and then turned back to look at them. They were standing
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exactly as they had been before, side by side, his arm around her waist,
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but they were now peering over their shoulders and staring at me as
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though to make sure that, after all of that, I really did leave.
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I let myself out and I walked home. It took hours and the rain was
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relentless, but it was exactly what I needed in that moment. I needed to
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feel the water soaking through my shoes and my socks and my feet
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wrinkling within. I needed to feel the wind pulling at my umbrella, to
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have something to fight against. I needed to march, to stamp, to feel the 09
water splash at my ankles and my elbows grazing my hip bones.
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I stood outside my flat and rifled through my bag for my key, and by
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the time I had found it and let myself in so much water had dripped
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onto the carpet that a patch of the taupe fabric was damp, a murky
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brown. I had a hot shower and turned up the heating and I lay in bed
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and I couldn’t sleep. I needed to be somewhere else. London was too
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big and too busy, the people too fraught and stretched, the air too dense 16
and angry.
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I set my alarm and I was still awake when it echoed around my bed-
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room several hours later. The sun was finally shining and I went to visit 19
my mother— briefly, she didn’t recognize me and I didn’t have the pa-
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tience for her relentless questions and generic nonsense— and then
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caught another train, not back toward the city, but farther away, follow-
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ing in the footsteps of a younger version of myself.
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I arrived at Beer in the early afternoon. I had only a small rucksack.
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I went straight to our hotel, barely recognizing that my legs were pro-
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pelling me in that direction. Our room was available, just for the one
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night, on the first floor at the end of the corridor and with the window
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overlooking the beach.
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I left my bag on the bed and walked outside, toward the coast.
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I stood and stared and watched as the waves rolled in; the sun was
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out and yet they were angry, smacking against the pebble beach.
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“This way,” I heard him say. “Let’s go this way.”
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E L I Z A B E T H K AY
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I turned toward the cliffs, retracing the path I had walked four years
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earlier. The beachfront was busy, a draw for young families on a sum-
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sp; mer holiday and couples in love in their twenties or eighties or any-
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where in between. There were very few young women alone, although
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I can’t have been the first to bring her heartbreak to the beach. There
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were parasols and sand castles and children shivering in striped towels.
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There were badminton rackets and windbreakers and plastic shovels in
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reds and yellows and blues.
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I walked away from it all. I climbed the road, trudged along the
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pavement. The gulls were still there, squawking and flapping their
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wings overhead, and I wondered if they remembered me as I remem-
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bered them.
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I felt closer to Jonathan than I had in months. I hadn’t been near our
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maisonette since the morning of the marathon; I never returned. It was
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packed up and sold on without my involvement. And I never visit the
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places we loved. I haven’t been to The Windsor Castle since that eve-
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ning and I very rarely pass through Oxford Circus. And yet here, in a
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place that felt familiar, the ache sort of seemed to ease.
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I reached the café in the next village and I sat on the very same
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picnic bench and I watched the sea from the same spot, and I was
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frightened by how much my life had changed. And how much I dis-
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liked it. I so wanted to be the other me, the one who sat there with
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her husband at the beginning of a life together. She was optimistic—
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uncharacteristically so— looking ahead to future anniversaries and new
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homes and children and a lifetime of laughter and love. I didn’t want to
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be the newer version, the bitter, cold one who felt permanently unan-
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chored from the life she was meant to lead.
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I wish I could tell you that I found a way to move past that version
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of myself. Wouldn’t it be lovely if I could say now that I found a way to 30
let go of the sadness and the anger, that I had found something ground-
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ing and stable and secure? But I didn’t. I haven’t.
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There were no fishermen; they must have been there earlier in the
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day, when I was lying in bed waiting for my alarm, more than a hundred
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miles away, in a world filled with car horns and smog. I walked along
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the shore again, underneath the cliffs, the pebbles crunching beneath
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my soles, still damp from the tide that morning.
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I noticed the cutaway in the overgrowth at the foot of the cliffs. The
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thorn bushes were dense and the gap was barely visible, but I think I
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was looking for it, trying to find ways to be near to him. I remembered
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him marching ahead, zigzagging with the path, clambering over the
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nettles, so focused on the climb.
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I took my time.
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It had rained and the track was still slippery, mud resting against
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rocks and in the hollows where the path dipped. The trail was over-
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shadowed by tall branches with thick bushes on either side and I won-
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dered how long it took for the sun to dry out this small thread of a path.
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I couldn’t see the sea, but I could hear it. I couldn’t see the gulls, but I 15
could hear them, too. I was very much alone, but I knew that the world
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was still out there, mere minutes away.
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I reached the steps carved into the pathway, heading left and toward
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the bank above. That was the route I’d chosen the first time. It took me
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away from Jonathan, although admittedly only for a minute or two. But
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there is nothing I wouldn’t give now— no sacrifice too extreme— for
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just a minute or two together.
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I decided to turn right. There were no steps, just the muddy path,
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drier now that I was higher, but still slimy and unstable. I imagined
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where his feet had landed and I placed my boots in their long- gone
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tread. I pressed myself against the cliff edge and I wondered if his body 26
was once here, hugging these very same rocks. I remembered the feel of
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his hand against my back. His heart would have been beating calm and
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steady, though mine was floundering in my chest.
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There were nettles ahead, but I felt confident that everything would
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be all right this time. The sky above me was a glorious blue, not a cloud S31
in sight, and although I have never been a spiritual person— not at
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all— I knew that he was there with me. I turned, my back against the
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rock face, and looked out at the sea, at the waves crashing beneath. I felt 03
giddy, as though I was drunk, almost light- headed with the adrenaline.
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I thought I could do it. I thought that I could be as fearless as he
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once was.
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I was wrong.
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I continued to climb, my palms gripping the cliffs to my left and my
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feet moving forward, one in front of the other, a straight line, as close 09
to the rocks as I could possibly be. I stepped carefully over the nettles 10
and I kept my eyes up, looking ahead.
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“I will meet you at the top,” I whispered, mainly to myself but also
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to the space above the sea. “One day,” I said, “I will find you and I will 13
meet you at the top.”
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I noticed that my hands were trembling slightly and found some-
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what unexpectedly that I was crying. Breathe, I thought, but I couldn’t.
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The air kept catching in my throat, and I found that I was inhaling,
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gasping, over and over again. My breaths kept spilling from my lungs
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and congealing in my mouth, rushing so fast and so hard that I was
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shaking, like my bones were separating.
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I tried to balance my trembling body on the edge of that cliff, to
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keep my feet fixed in place, but I couldn’t. I shrank, sitting, trying to be 22
as small as possible, hoping not to fall, and stayed crumbled there until 23
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nbsp; eventually I was almost still but for the breaths softly shaking in my
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chest, hiccuping again and again and again.
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At last, I stood and retraced my steps, back toward the fork in the
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path, sliding my hand along the rocky edge, not thinking, not feeling,
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trying very hard not to hurt. I took the other route— the steps on the
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left, the path from the first time— and clambered to the top.
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I had failed. Again.
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I climbed higher up the grassy plinth. I sat down with my legs
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straight in front of me and facing out toward the sea.
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And then I cried.
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There have been just a few loves in my life, but I think it’s fair to say 01
that the greatest love of all will have been forged in death. I was madly 02
in love with Jonathan when he died. We hadn’t been injured by the
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crashing waves and blunt traumas of a long and well- lived life. We
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weren’t threadbare from a lifetime of ordinary love. We were still ob-
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sessed by each other, and the things I loved most— his pedantry, his
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efficiency, his unique way of folding his socks, his tousled hair in the
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mornings— hadn’t yet become mundane or irritating.
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If I’m being completely honest, I don’t truly believe that they ever
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would have. He was always the very best. When he poured two glasses of
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orange juice in the morning and gave me the first and kept the second for 11
himself, because he knew I didn’t like the thicker, bittier juice at the bot-12
tom of the carton. When he let me wear his gloves, because my hands
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were cold even though his must have been, too. When he drove the long
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distances, because I refused to learn to drive, because I hated the thought 15
of sitting still for that long. When I came home from work to the smell of 16
bleach and furniture polish and knew that he’d cleaned the entire place
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so that I wouldn’t have to, while I had been out with Marnie, having fun, 18
being happy. When he turned out the lights every night when we went
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to bed, so that I would never have to climb the stairs in the dark. He
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loved me in a million little ways. He believed in a love that proved itself, 21
again and again, that was present and generous and never unimportant.
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That love is forever frozen as it was when he left.
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Marnie is my second greatest love. And yet I felt that I had lost her,