The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox

by Maggie O'Farrell

I couldn’t have my happiness made out of a wrong – an unfairness – to somebody else . . . What sort of a life could we build on such foundations? Edith Wharton

Another woman is searching for water to pour on flowers that perished long ago

It is always the meaningless tasks that endure: the washing, the cooking, the clearing, the cleaning. Never anything majestic or significant, just the tiny rituals that hold together the seams of human life.