The Legacy of Lucy Harte

by Emma Heatherington

I thought you were going to choke. I thought I saw you a few years later, but this time you were a curly-haired toddler in a park throwing a high-pitched tantrum when you couldn’t reach the swing. A handsome man

your story might have been. You are inside me. You are part of me. You are within my every move. I feel like I know you, Lucy Harte, I really do. But you will never, ever

How ironic it would be for me to die today, of all days… Oh God, please help me. I sit up on my brand-new bed and automatically fall back again, my squinted eyes unable to open just yet and my shaking body needing much more time to recuperate from my latest

I will hear what I did last night and I can’t face up to that truth ever. Did I do something wrong? Did I leave my apartment? I can’t remember! No, no I didn’t. I definitely didn’t. Not this time. With relief I get glimpses of flashbacks of turning off the TV, stumbling into bed in my pyjamas (always a good sign when you wake up wearing pyjamas), so I can’t have done that

phone from its usual perch on the bedside locker and feel instant relief when it hits the bedroom floor in silence and falls into three pieces – the front, the back and then the battery. There now. All is quiet at last. But the constant pounding of my head from dehydration, and the voices of my nearest and dearest echoing,

Test note

over me and you!’ (My husband, I mean, ex-husband, Jeff.) ‘You really need to stop drinking so much. It’s not helping’ (All of the above.) I really should stop drinking. I really should stop avoiding them all. I really should just answer the phone and face up to their concerns, or at least reassure them that, yes, I am certainly having a shit time coping with this whole marriage break- up thing

quiet

hazy, drunken limbo between marriage and dreaded divorce and I have no idea of who I am or what I’m supposed to be doing. ‘Please stop calling me! Please stop!’ I sob into the spongy new pillow that smells like lavender – a tip from my mother to help me sleep, but the scent of it makes me want to retch. ‘It’s much better than

hazy, drunken limbo between marriage and dreaded divorce and I have no idea of who I am or what I’m supposed to be doing. ‘Please stop calling me! Please stop!’ I sob into the spongy new pillow that smells like lavender –a tip from my mother to help me sleep, but the scent of it makes me want to retch. ‘It’s much better than

realise it’s Monday. Ah, Jesus. It’s Monday. I have no idea what time it is or if I am meant to be in work right now. Normally, on waking up like this, I would already be in the shower in a blind fit of panic and praying for time to stand still so that I could get to my latest appointment or show my face in the office and convince everyone that I am

slowly and steady myself and consider what to wear, but I don’t really care about that either. It’s time for me to go. It’s time for me to talk to Lucy Harte. It’s weird thanking someone from the depths of your soul when you can’t see them, have never met them, when they can’t hear you and when they have no clue who you are. It’s a bit like talking to God, I suppose. It takes faith and belief, so