The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox

by Maggie O'Farrell

—E

I couldn't have my happiness made out of a wrong—an unfairness—to somebody else ... What sort of a life could we build on such foundations? —EDITH WHARTON

It is always the meaningless tasks that endure: the washing, the cooking, the clearing, the cleaning. Never anything majestic or significant, just the tiny rituals that hold together the seams of human life. The

in this

'You know what it says here?' she says. 'That a man used to be able to admit his daughter or wife to an asylum with just a signature from a GP.' 'Iris—' 'Imagine. You could get rid of your wife if you got fed up with her. You could get shot of your daughter if she wouldn't do as she was told.'

We are all, Esme decides, just vessels through which identities pass: we are lent features, gestures, habits, then we hand them on. Nothing is our own. We begin in the world as anagrams of our antecedents.

prophesied

She eyes the razor on the bath edge and smiles. The girl has left it there so casually. Esme has forgotten what it is like to be among unsuspicious people.