Free The Dead Wife's Handbook by Hannah Beckerman

they compare to her, to Rachel’s beautiful bright eyes and her quizzical expression and her eloquent mouth. I know it’s stupid and I know it’s not going to happen, but Rachel’s is the only face I want to see right now.’
    Max has spoken slowly, quietly, the smallest of wistful smiles upending the edges of his lips as though there’s an entire movie of memories spooling through his mind that he’d rather view alone.
    ‘But, Max, Rach isn’t here any more. I know how much you miss her – or, at least, I think I have some sense of it – but you refusing ever to go out with anyone else isn’t going to bring her back.’
    Max takes a deep breath that he lets out slowly, wearily.

    ‘That’s not the point, Harriet. You’re missing the point. It’s not about thinking I can ever have Rachel back. It’s about not really being able to cope with her being gone. There’s a big difference. When Rachel died, I didn’t just lose her. I lost the amazing, intangible thing that Rachel and I had together. It’s like there was me and there was Rachel and then there was this third entity, the alchemy of the two of us combined. And when you have that thing – call it a good relationship, I suppose – you get so used to living slightly outside of yourself in order to inhabit this other place with this other person that you forget how to live on your own, with only your own thoughts and opinions for company. It’s not as simple as losing a partner. It’s losing the part of yourself that went into creating that relationship. And that’s what I don’t ever expect to have with anyone else. I know how lucky I was to have it once.’
    There’s a look of appeal in Max’s eyes, the hope that Harriet’s going to understand something he’s perhaps only just beginning to come to terms with himself.
    ‘I get it, Max. But it’s not like you can’t think for yourself any more, or make decisions on your own. You’re still a grown-up capable of making your own choices.’
    ‘Of course it’s not that I can’t make decisions for myself any more. It’s just that I’m out of practice and, quite honestly, I wish I didn’t have to. When you’ve been used to sharing your thoughts with someone else for over a decade, and used to having those thoughts come back to you reworked, improved, often more comprehensible than they were when you set them off, it’s hard – it’s really hard – to live without that. I keep trying to invoke Rachel’s voice in my head. I know it probably sounds stupid but Iask her opinion on things and try to hear what she has to say about Ellie and work and how she thinks I’m coping without her. Sometimes I manage it and that’s great and I feel like I still have a little part of her alive in my head. But a lot of the time I feel that she’s just out of reach and that’s when it hits me all over again that I’ve lost her. That I’m never going to be able to talk to her about anything ever again. That she’ll never give me advice or help me out or laugh at my stupid jokes or tell me off. And I can’t imagine anyone else ever filling that space. I can’t imagine ever having that alchemy with anyone else. So if I can’t have it with Rachel, I really would rather just be on my own. Just me and Ellie.’
    Max drops his head, as if exhausted by so much honesty. There’s a hint of salt water in the corner of his eye that he tries and fails to blink away inconspicuously.
    I’m sorry for doubting you, Max, even for a second.
    Harriet stares out of the patio doors, feigning absorption in Ellie’s antics in the garden, leaving her gaze averted just long enough for Max to compose himself.
    ‘I’m sorry I overstepped the mark, Max. You know I’d never do anything to piss you off deliberately, right?’
    ‘I’m not angry, Harriet. I’m just sad and I feel quite private and I think it’s going to be a while before I start to feel any differently.’
    ‘Well, listen, I won’t do anything with