The Day I Lost You: A heartfelt, emotion-packed, twist-filled read
‘Incredibly moving, it’s beautifully written and page-turning’ Susan LewisTHE DAY I LOST YOU WAS THE DAY I DISCOVERED I NEVER REALLY KNEW YOUWhen Jess’s daughter, Anna, is reported lost in an avalanche, everything changes.Jess’s first instinct is to protect Rose, Anna’s five-year-old daughter. But then she starts to uncover Anna’s other life - unearthing a secret that alters their whole world irrevocably . . .THE DAY I LOST YOU WAS THE DAY YOU TORE OUR FAMILY APARTThe perfect emotional and absorbing story for fans of Jojo Moyes and David Nicholls.
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Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
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Published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2016
Copyright © Fionnuala Kearney 2016
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2016
Cover photographs © Vaida Abdul/Arcangel Images (front); Shutterstock.com (back).
Fionnuala Kearney asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Source ISBN: 9780007593996
Ebook Edition © February 2016 ISBN: 9780007594009
Version 2016-03-11
Table of Contents
There are always before and after moments. Profound instants when, one second, life is a clear, high-pixel image and the next, it’s grainy, less focused.
The day it happened, the seventh of December 2014, had been a normal day – nothing unusual about it. A band of low Arctic pressure produced the sort of cold that froze my fingers through gloves and numbed my toes through sheepskin-lined boots. The winter sky – a perfect, crisp blue – was marred only by wispy white plane trails latticing through it.
Theo and I were on the Irish coffee stall at the Christmas fair all afternoon – the most dreadful baristas, unable to produce a straight line of cream along the top of the coffee and a little too liberal with the alcohol. It was the season of goodwill. Fairy lights flashed: home-made crackers with loo-roll centres were snapped; high-pitched carols were sung; crumbling, puff-pastry mince pies were trodden into the polished parquet floor of the school hall, and the heady scent of festive cinnamon and cloves filled the air.
I remember it being a fun-filled afternoon.
When I got home, I flicked the kettle on and turned the thermostat up. I sat a while, my hands wrapped around a cup of black tea, staring into the garden in the fading light, my feet tucked up underneath me. Much as I loved her, days without Rose were precious. I had so little time to myself that merely sitting, being, just the act of doing nothing was a joy. Right up until the moment the doorbell rang, it’s the ‘ordinary-ness’ of that day that I recall.
When the door pinged, I still didn’t stir – not until I heard Doug’s voice through the letterbox. Then I leapt from my seat.
‘Jess. It’s Doug. Can you open the door?’
I made my way to the hall, heard him moving about in the porch; foot to foot. Doug has not come to my door for a very long time.
From my jacket pocket, my mobile phone trilled. Seeing his number, I realized he would have heard it ring too.
‘Open the door, Jess. It’s important.’
I answered the phone and hung up immediately.
‘What do you want?’ I spoke through the four solid panels.
‘I need to speak to you. Please.’ His voice seemed to break on the last word and I opened the latch.
Doug, my ex-husband, the man whom I apparently ‘strangled with my love’ was standing there, shivering.
‘Can I come in?’
I looked over his shoulder, expecting to see Carol, his wife, there.
‘What do you want, Doug?’ I repeated.
‘Can I come in?’ he asked again.
And that was the moment. I made the mistake of looking in his eyes; the cobalt-blue eyes that Anna, our only child, had inherited from him. One generation later, Rose has those same eyes too. That was the split moment – between what was, and what would be. His next words tapped a slow, rhythmic beat in my head; each one etching itself on my brain like a permanent tattoo. And something happens when the body is forced to hear unwanted tidings; life-changing, cruel words. Adrenaline charges to the extremities, willing the frame to stay standing, despite the urge to fold; willing the heart to keep beating, despite the urge to snap into hundreds of tiny fragments.
