Ghosted: A Novel

Dear You,

Hello, Hedgehog.

Nearly two weeks have passed since you should have celebrated your birthday, but I still think about you every day. Not just birthdays.

Sometimes I like to imagine what you would be doing if you were still here. Today I imagined you living in Cornwall; a young, broke artist with paint in her hair. In this version, you study Fine Art at Falmouth and then take over a derelict building high on a hill with your arty friends. You like headscarves and you’re probably vegetarian, and you’re busy getting Arts Council grants, organizing exhibitions, teaching painting to kids. You’re electrifying.

Then comes the pendulum swing of grief and I remember you’re not in that crazy house on a hill. You’re scattered in a peaceful corner of Gloucestershire, a quiet hum of memory where once was my sunbeam of a sister.

I wonder if you know about what I’m doing tomorrow morning. I wonder if you know who I’m meeting on the beach. And if you do, I wonder if you will forgive me.

Because I can’t not go, little Hedgehog. I have to know how you were on the day you died: what you were doing, what you were saying, what you were eating, even. When I had to identify your body, I was pooled in the corner like something melted. It took me hours to get up and drive home. But when I got there, I found a half piece of toast by the sink. Cold and rigid, with the indentation of your little teeth on a corner. Like you’d considered the idea of a final mouthful but then skipped off to do something else.

What else did you eat that day? Did you sing a song? Did you change your clothes? Were you happy, Hedgehog?

I have to ask these questions. And I have to figure out why, in spite of everything, I am still in love with the very person who took you away from us all.

I feel like I’m letting you down so desperately by going tomorrow. I hope you can understand why I am.

I love you.

M