The Legacy of Lucy Harte: A poignant, life-affirming novel that will make you laugh and cry
This beautiful, heartbreaking novel is a must read for fans of bestselling authors Jojo Moyes, Kelly Rimmer and SD Robertson.‘Sometimes time is all we have with the people we love. I ask you to slow down in life. To take your time, but don’t waste it….’Maggie O'Hara knows better than most that life can change in a heartbeat. Eighteen years ago she was given the most precious gift- a second-hand heart, and a second chance at life.Always thankful, Maggie has never forgotten Lucy Harte – the little girl who saved her life. But as Maggie's own life begins to fall apart, and her heart is broken in love, she loses sight of everything she has to live for…Until an unexpected letter changes Maggie’s life.It seems Lucy's final gift to Maggie is much more than the heart that beats inside her. It's a legacy that Maggie must learn to live by, a promise to live, laugh, fall in love and heal her broken heart for good.Because as the keeper of a borrowed heart, Maggie's time is more precious than most. She must make every cherished second count…Praise for The Legacy of Lucy Harte:‘An inspiring read…beautifully written, Emma Heatherington keeps you guessing on each turn of the page’ Irish News‘A wonderfully compelling read, beautifully written and a most heart-warming story’ Upstairs Downstairs
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The Legacy of Lucy Harte
EMMA HEATHERINGTON
A division of HarperCollinsPublishers
HarperImpulse an imprint of
HarperCollinsPublishers
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HarperImpulse 2017
Copyright © Emma Heatherington 2017
Cover images © Shutterstock.com
Cover design by Holly Macdonald
Cover layout design by HarperCollins
Emma Heatherington asserts the moral right to
be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for 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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Ebook Edition © January 2017 ISBN: 9780007568826
Version 2017-11-21
For Ciaran and Ashley
#donatelife
Table of Contents
I thought I saw you once on a train to Dublin.
You were about six years old. You were slurping on an ice-cream, your face covered in chocolate sprinkles and you were laughing so hard at the little boy beside you that I thought you were going to choke.
I thought I saw you a few years later, but this time you were a curly-haired toddler in a park throwing a high-pitched tantrum when you couldn’t reach the swing. A handsome man scooped you up in big strong arms and took you to a pram, where you kicked and screamed, your little arms stretched out, your hands opening and closing and reaching back towards the play area.
I thought I saw you as a lanky teenager one sunny afternoon when I was in London as you shopped for clothes with your mother, arguing with her over a pair of ripped jeans versus a pretty floral dress.
I think I see you all the time, even though I have no idea what you look like, who you are or what your story might have been.
You are inside me. You are part of me. You are within my every move.
I feel like I know you, Lucy Harte, I really do.
But you will never, ever know me.
Monday 10>th April
I am dying.
I am drowning, or else I am having a heart attack, but either way, whatever it is, I can’t breathe and I’m definitely dying this time. How ironic it would be for me to die today, of all days…
Oh God, please help me.
I sit up on my brand-new bed and automatically fall back again, my squinted eyes unable to open just yet and my shaking body needing much more time to recuperate from my latest ‘party for one’.
This is no ordinary hangover. Hell, no. My head is like a bowling ball, I can’t open my dried-out mouth, the phone is ringing off the hook and I wish whoever it is would just stop already because I don’t want to talk to anyone.
Not Flo, not my parents, not my boss and definitely not my excuse for a husband.
I really can’t listen to lectures or ‘I told you so’, not today, not today of all days, please no. Plus… I can’t remember where I was or what I did last night and I’m afraid. I am so afraid that if I answer the phone I will hear what I did last night and I can’t face up to that truth ever.
Did I do something wrong? Did I leave my apartment? I can’t remember!
No, no I didn’t. I definitely didn’t. Not this time.
With relief I get glimpses of flashbacks of turning off the TV, stumbling into bed in my pyjamas (always a good sign when you wake up wearing pyjamas), so I can’t have done that much damage, can I?
Unless I was texting everyone about how miserable I am or sharing my suffering on Facebook. Please no! Or even worse, I could have been texting him.
Ah Jesus! Oh why do I do the things I do? It wasn’t me, it was the wine. Oh, for God’s sake Maggie get it together!
But I can’t get it together and the phone won’t stop ringing! Why can’t they leave me alone? I don’t want to talk to anyone and I just can’t bring myself to look at it to see who has woken me from my deep, drowning, drunken sleep so I shove the phone from its usual perch on the bedside locker and feel instant relief when it hits the bedroom floor in silence and falls into three pieces – the front, the back and then the battery.
