4 years later
She’s stalking me like a hunter. I sit by the river, the early evening light sparking in the water as I relax with a beer. And she creeps up, my maddening, beautiful, stealthy girl.
I watch her from the corner of my eye. This is one of our favourite games, along with chase. She loves to be chased, my girl, and I love to pretend to be her big-bad. Sometimes she chases me and I run, though I could never be afraid of her physically. But in matters of the heart… Ah, there she has me caught.
I wait until the last second, as she is about to jump onto my back, before I spin and scoop our daughter up into my arms with a playful growl. She giggles helplessly, her chestnut brown hair flying.
“Daddy!” She screams with glee as I twirl her around, holding fast. Then I crush her to my chest. For a moment she hugs me in return. Then she wriggles and makes complaints of, “Squash! Too tight!” and I free her immediately.
It’s been four years since Olivia and I died, and now my whole time in London feels like a vivid play I had to act in compared to the sweet reality of our life now.
“Trudy!” Olivia walks out of our house and instantly spots us down by the river. The house is full of life now, as it should be. No longer just my refuge, it’s our paradise. Mine and Olivia’s.
Olivia swims in the river every day. She’s been teaching Trudy and there’s nothing that makes my heart fuller than watching my two girls have fun together. My wife and my daughter.
A few miles away, by the road, Olivia has a plant nursery. It makes a tidy profit and she likes that independence, even though we don’t need the money because my investments cover everything we’d ever need. More lucrative than the dirty business I used to have to do.
Olivia’s little knife is mounted on the wall, well out of reach of Trudy. A memento of how we finally found each other. Maybe one day we’ll tell our daughter about her namesake, and see if she wants to take her place as a Princess of Camden. I quietly keep in touch with Flint, who has promised that our daughter’s inheritance is hers, should she want it.
Every year we take her to her grandfather’s grave, just outside London. We found him. Eventually.
Olivia and my eyes meet and she smiles.
“Dinner’s ready,” she says.
“Then bedtime. Maybe Mummy will have a swim while I read you a story,” I say to Trudy, but I look at Olivia.
That blush. She knows what I’m suggesting.
It’s summer and the days are long. The evenings are warm and scented with heather and gorse. Our daughter goes to sleep in the light and there will still be time before the sky is stained red and orange and pink with sunset.
I’m filled with a deep contentment. Everything I need is here. This little house, my wife, my daughter. That’s all I need. We might be dead in the eyes of the world, with new names and new lives outside of London, but we’re finally living.
And there will be plenty of time this evening for me to chase and catch my beautiful wife.
