Scissors

SCISSORS

Word of the year:

schadenfreudenoun. Pleasure, joy, or self-satisfaction derived by someone from another person’s misfortune.

16th September 2020

Dear Adam,

It isn’t our wedding anniversary, but it has been six months since I came home, and I couldn’t resist writing you a letter. We’ve managed to put the past behind us, and we’re a family again: you, me, Bob, and Oscar, the house rabbit. Sometimes when you set something free it comes back. Nobody knows what happened in Scotland and nobody ever needs to.

It was hard at first, for both of us, returning to London to find so many traces of her in our home. But it was nothing that some bin bags, the local rubbish tip, and a lick of paint couldn’t solve. We’ve been returned to our factory settings, and everything is back how it used to be. Almost. Working at Battersea Dogs Home seemed out of the question—too many reminders of all the things I would rather forget—but that’s okay, I have a new job now: I’m a full-time writer.

Not that anyone knows, except you.

It’s been a busy six months. Rock Paper Scissors is going to be published next year. It might not be my name on the cover, but it’s my book, and it’s hard not to feel anxious about people reading it. So much of our real lives have gone into this novel. The screen rights have already been sold—to a company you have always dreamed of working with—and there is a watertight clause in the contract stating that you will be the only screenwriter on this project. Henry signed the deal himself, or at least I did. Sometimes I think it’s the fear of falling down that makes people trip up. We’re not born afraid. When we’re young, we don’t hesitate to run, or climb, or jump, and we don’t worry about getting hurt or fret about failure. Rejection and real life teach us to fear, but if you want something badly enough, you have to take the leap.

When the box of advance author copies arrived today, I cried. Tears of joy, mostly. I opened it using the vintage stork scissors I brought home from Scotland. I’d had them since I was a child, my mother bought two pairs—one for me and one for her. They were almost all I had left to remember her by, and they looked good as new once they’d been in the dishwasher made the experience extra special for me. I kept one pair and deliberately left the other set behind at Blackwater Chapel, because it’s time to move on, and some things are best left in the past. Those scissors marked the end of an unpleasant woman chapter in our lives, and today they helped to reveal our new future, by opening a box of books. The novel has already been sold all over the world—twenty translations so far. I don’t care whose name is on the cover, we know it’s our story and that’s all that matters to me.

Nobody needs to know that Henry Winter was my father.

Or that he is dead.

Or what happened to your second wife.

It still upsets me that she was ever your wife at all. It made me so happy when you took off your wedding ring while we were still in Scotland and threw it in the loch, as though you wanted to leave the past behind us too. I tried to remove your mother’s sapphire engagement ring from Amelia’s lifeless hand before we left. Not because I wanted it back, but because she never deserved to wear it in the first place. It wouldn’t come off her finger, no matter how hard I tried to twist or pull the damn thing, and it bothered me more than it should have. Some people are as stubborn in death as they are in life.

I’m not saying everything is perfect, there’s no such thing. Marriage is hard work sometimes. It can also be heartbreaking, and sad, but any relationship worth having is worth fighting for. People have forgotten how to see the beauty in imperfection. I cherish what we have now, despite it being bloodied and a little torn around the edges. At least what we have is real.

We still have secrets, but not from each other anymore.

I always think it is best to look forward, never back. But if we hadn’t got divorced, then next year would have been our thirteenth anniversary. The traditional gift is meant to be lace, and I already know what I’m going to give you. Although I’ll be the one wearing a new wedding dress, it will be for you. Everything I do always has been.

Your Robin

xx