Then She Was Gone

by Lisa Jewell

That was how she’d once viewed her perfect life: as a series of bad smells and unfulfilled duties, petty worries and late bills.

All those hopes and dreams and talk of ballerinas and pop stars, concert pianists and boundary-breaking scientists. They all ended up in an office. All of them.

May was like the Friday night of summer: all the good times lying ahead of you, bright and shiny and waiting to be lived.

But she is remembering now. Cooking doesn’t just nurture the recipient; it nurtures the chef.

“Stories,” she says, “are the only thing in this world that are real. Everything else is just a dream.”

“When I read a book it feels like real life and when I put the book down it’s like I go back into the dream.”

“that a man who can’t love but desperately needs to be loved is a dangerous thing indeed.