If Only I Could Tell You

by Hannah Beckerman

stomach somersaults

elasticized waistband of her bottle-green skirt.

only then does she realize

the small white triangle of a boat’s sail visible in the distance.

tanned limbs, and sun-kissed cheeks,

outward appearance of well-being automatically filtered through to the inside. As though a perfectly appetizing apple couldn’t be rotten when you bit into it.

the palest purple hue forming half-moons under her eyes, or the frequency with which the muscles across her forehead pulled into a frown.

There was nothing to betray the truth that she was, in fact, dying.

She wondered how his parents would have borne the grief, the anger and the shame, how it had been a blessing, really, that neither of them had lived long enough to witness it. Sometimes Audrey envied them their ignorance, envied them being spared the guilt, the confusion, and the litany of unanswered questions that had plagued her all these years.

Her mum had said that she understood, that she’d be fine and had lots to sort through, that she’d have Mia for company. But Jess knew how difficult it was for her to give up the house she’d lived in for forty-five years, the house which had seen all the defining moments of her mum’s adult life.

Jess swallowed hard as she walked across the seventeenth-century mahogany floorboards into the first-floor drawing room, where Justin was sitting in a canvas-backed folding chair.

and yet no one to whom she could send a chatty unsolicited message without it seeming strange.

It was as if her address book were a directory of ghosts, a reminder of all the friendships she had allowed to lapse over the years.

Jess clicked the news tab, hoping it might bear more fruit. But there was nothing there that she hadn’t read before either. She didn’t know whether to feel relieved or exasperated.

location for a drama series about an affluent metropolitan family.

arrogantly handsome, oozing the kind of self-confidence that only extreme wealth and constant admiration could bring.

haughty, disinterested

screamed of teenage en...

Lily’s study, empty but for a stark metal desk, a MacBook, and a mobile phone.

carousel of dinner parties, cocktail parties, awards ceremonies, celebrity encounters. A diary filled months in advance with Saturday night plans, Sunday brunches, exotic holidays and, no doubt, an endless supply of friends to suit every occasion. Jess couldn’t remember the last time she’d gone out on a Friday or Saturday night, couldn’t remember the last time she’d had anyone around for dinner other than her mum.

clamoring for her attention: washing and ironing, sourcing the next freelance job, preparing her accounts, helping Mia with her homework.

the face so familiar yet so unknown—she