The Last List of Mabel Beaumont

by Laura Pearson

Sometimes it feels like the world is unimaginably big, and other times it feels like you could hold it in your hand.

You can’t live in the past, I tell myself, but you can visit. And you can bring bits of it into the present, when you need them. All this time, I’ve thought of every year since Dot left as wasted, but perhaps it isn’t as bleak as all that. There have been pockets of happiness, there has been laughter and a certain kind of love. Raging bliss isn’t the only thing that’s real.

‘I think we’re all grieving for something. Our childhoods or a relationship or a dream.’