near a computer. It only took her a moment to figure it out. The internet connection must have dropped out just as she’d sent it. It happened often. Once it was back up again, the email had transmitted. Right on midnight. Right on time.
Oh God, oh God, oh God.
She forced herself to read it. Phrase after phrase jumped out at her.
Everything seems to have gone wrong for us. Fake TV world. Having an affair. Married radio announcer. A debt-ridden mess. A very weird little boy. Like a different man these days. Think he might be having an affair.
It got worse.
I think something is wrong with me. I wouldn’t have married Nick. I wouldn’t have my four children. I wouldn’t be living here on an outback sheep station. Gone back home to my childhood sweetheart Will. Married him. We’d have had one child. Just the one.
Her eyes filled with tears. What had she been thinking when she wrote this? It read as if she regretted them all, as if she wished away her entire life here in favour of a different one. As if she hated Australia and wished she was back living in London. And she didn’t. Did she?
No. She loved them. She did. She and Nick had had a good marriage. A great marriage, until the past year or so. And that fantasy life of hers? It was just that, wasn’t it? A kind of meditation for her. Respite. Everybody thought like that sometimes, didn’t they? Looked back over their lives and wondered
What if?
Pictured how their lives might have been if they’d made different choices?
Of course they did. Of course.
She just needed to somehow explain all of this to Nick, to her daughters, to Ig. And to the other one hundred people who had received this email and were —
‘Are you done?’
She jumped at the sound of Nick’s voice. ‘Just need a few more minutes,’ she called back.
As she sat there, she noticed something else. Her inbox was filling, email after email slowly downloading to her account. She had five new messages. Ten new messages. It stopped at thirty-seven new messages. All with the same subject line:
Re: Hello from the Gillespies!
They were replies to her Christmas letter. She clicked on the first one. Read it. Clicked. Read. Clicked. Read. The emails were from all over Australia, across the world.
Thanks for the best letter ever! So glad we’re not the only family having ups and downs!
Happy Christmas to you all too. (Please send these monthly if you’re going to be this honest!)
Usually just delete these, glad something made me read it this time! Merry Christmas to you all too, if you get through it!
There were more specific responses:
OMG, Angela! Do you really think Victoria and that radio presenter were having an affair? I’m never listening to him again! That creep!! She should sell her story to the papers! Or I will if she won’t. (Joking, Angela! I’ll keep this between us, promise.)
Genevieve knows all the Hollywood gossip?? Can’t wait to hear it at the party!
Lindy’s back home again? That’s what I call a boomerang kid!
There were comments about Ig too:
Don’t worry about Ig, Angela. I work in a primary school and half the kids talk to themselves; it’s just a stage.
If I lived out in the middle of nowhere like you, I’d have a few imaginary friends too!!! (No offence!!)
My second cousin had an imaginary friend until he was fourteen. He became a paranoid schizophrenic. Not saying that will happen to Ig too, but thought you should know, in case you want to watch out for any other symptoms.
There were reactions about the mining lease, from people who hadn’t heard the news until now:
Angela, are you serious??? Have you any idea what a disaster that will be for all of us, for the whole Flinders Ranges?
Angela, is this a joke? You and Nick have sold out? I can’t believe it.
Even as she was reading those, more arrived. She clicked on them too.
Hope you don’t mind, but have forwarded your email to friends and family. You make us seem normal!
Angela, very sorry to
Barry Eisler
Beth Wiseman
C.L. Quinn
Brenda Jagger
Teresa Mummert
George Orwell
Karen Erickson
Steve Tasane
Sarah Andrews
Juliet Francis