What He Wrote in the Margins

The things Callum wrote in the margins of the copy of Rebecca he left on my doorstep with no note, which is the single most Callum sentence I have ever had to write.

Page 11, next to We can never go back again, that much is certain: in that small awful handwriting, two words. Can't we.

Page 94, beside nothing in particular: I read this chapter the autumn you left. I have read it every autumn since. I am aware of how that sounds.

Page 203: you were never the second anything. I need you to know I never once thought it. Whatever this town decided, I did not decide it with them.

Inside the back cover, pressed flat, a ferry ticket from fifteen years ago, dated the morning I left Thorngate. He kept the ticket. He gave me back the ticket. A man who will not say a sentence out loud will hand you the evidence and let you read it yourself. I have read it. I am going to the house.