It did occur to me—somewhere deep in the core of those nights, pacing another cheap rental carpet, the silence crammed with the hum of too many people sleeping on every side—to wonder whether I ever left that first hospital. The Ivy House, when I think about it, seems heartbreakingly improbable, a murmuring haven from a battered childhood book, suffused in all my memories with a golden haze that has something frighteningly numinous about it; could that place really have existed, in this drab grinding vapid world of Twitterstorms and carb-counting, gridlock and Big Brother? and Hugo, wandering vague and shabby and benevolent through its rooms, could he have been real? did I ever have cousins at all? In the morning, jammed onto the Luas with hundreds of other commuters steaming rain and swiping manically at their phones, I know that’s nonsense, but at night: I can’t stop myself from wondering, with a stunning rush of grief, whether everything since that night has been no more than a last burst of light from a dying star, the last rogue fizzles of electricity along the shorting wires.
In the end, I suppose, it doesn’t matter, or anyway not as much as you’d think. Either way, after all, here I am: in yet another apartment that smells of unfamiliar meals, too high off the ground, too many bare hundred-watt bulbs, too many locked windows and doors. And while sometimes I can’t stop my mind from reaching for the alternate realities (pacing the wooden floorboards of that white Georgian house, drowsy baby snuffling on my shoulder, Melissa asleep in the next room) I’m very aware that, of all the possibilities, this is at least far from the worst.
Maybe this is why I still consider myself a lucky person: now more than ever, I can’t afford not to. If I’ve realized nothing else, you see, in the long strange time since that April night, I’ve realized this: I used to believe that luck was a thing outside me, a thing that governed only what did and didn’t happen to me; the speeding car that swerved just in time, the perfect apartment that came on the market the same week I went looking. I believed that if I were to lose my luck I would be losing a thing separate from myself, fancy phone, expensive watch, something valuable but in the end far from indispensable; I took for granted that without it I would still be me, just with a broken arm and no south-facing windows. Now I think I was wrong. I think my luck was built into me, the keystone that cohered my bones, the golden thread that stitched together the secret tapestries of my DNA; I think it was the gem glittering at the fount of me, coloring everything I did and every word I said. And if somehow that has been excised from me, and if in fact I am still here without it, then what am I?
Acknowledgments
I owe huge thanks to the amazing Darley Anderson and everyone at the agency, especially Mary, Emma, Pippa, Rosanna and Kristina; Andrea Schulz, my wonderful editor, whose enormous skill, patience and wisdom have made this book so much better than I thought it could be; Ben Petrone, who is just plain great, and everyone at Viking; Susanne Halbleib and everyone at Fischer Verlage; Katy Loftus, for her faith in this book and for putting her finger on the one thing that would make the most difference; my brother, Alex French, for the computer bits and for sending me the link to the case of Bella in the Wych Elm; Fearghas ó Cochláin, for the medical bits; Ellen at ancestrysisters.com, for genealogy help; Dave Walsh, for his enormous help with the intricacies of police procedure; Ciara Considine, Clare Ferraro and Sue Fletcher, who set all this in motion; Oonagh Montague, Ann-Marie Hardiman, Jessica Ryan, Karen Gillece, Noni Stapleton and Kendra Harpster, for talks, laughs, drinks, moral support, practical support and all the other essentials; David Ryan, I’m vilifying you, for God’s sake, pay attention; Sarah and Josie Williams, for being meeptastic; my mother, Elena Lombardi; my father, David French; and as always, beyond words, my husband, Anthony Breatnach.
AUTHOR’S NOTE: As of May 25, 2018, Susanna’s line on this page is outdated: with the repeal of the eighth amendment to the Irish constitution, pregnant women will have the legal right to give or refuse consent to medical treatment.
About the Author
Tana French is also the author of In the Woods, The Likeness, Faithful Place, Broken Harbor, The Secret Place and The Trespasser. Her books have won awards including the Edgar, Anthony, Macavity and Barry Awards, the Los Angeles Times Award for Best Mystery/Thriller, and the Irish Book Award for Crime Fiction. She lives in Dublin with her family.