The figure that beckons from a previous life—particularly when that life is genuinely good and gone, when it is not a question of real options, a marriage to be repaired, a life to be restored, either right or left, yes or no—can be uncannily persuasive. There is a reason why the living are haunted by the dead, the living cannot haunt the living in the same way. When it is a question of joining the living, you are reminded of all the reasons why you would rather not (or in most cases, as was the case with Christopher and me, you hardly need the reminder). But with the dead, who are sealed off
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