Then She Was Gone

by Lisa Jewell

She used to do this every day. Cook interesting, tasty, healthy meals. Every day. Sometimes twice a day. She’d cooked for her family, to show them that she loved them, to keep them healthy, to keep them safe. And then her daughter had disappeared and then reappeared as a small selection of bones, and the body that Laurel had spent almost sixteen years nurturing had been picked apart by wild animals and scattered across a damp forest floor and all of those things had happened in spite of all the lovely food Laurel had cooked for her. So, really. What was the point?

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.” Laurel and Paul smile and nod. Then they turn to each other and exchange a look. Not a wry look this time, but one of disquiet. Ellie used to read two books a week and when they teased her about always having her nose in a book, Ellie used to say, “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.”

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

I want you to tell them all that I’m sorry and that I love them more than anything in the world and that none of them must feel bad about what happened to me because I am brave and I am brilliant and I am strong. Yours sincerely, Ellie Mack