Ghosted

“Often you appear when I expect it least. Earlier today I was trapped in some pointless dark thought or other, my body clenched like a metal fist. Then suddenly you were there: a bright autumn leaf cartwheeling over a dull pewter lawn. I uncurled and smelled life, felt dew on my feet, saw shades of green. I tried to grab hold of you, that vivid leaf, cavorting and wriggling and giggling. I tried to take your hand, look straight at you, but like an optical black spot you slid silently sideways, just out of reach.”

From the letter that comprises Chapter 1, this quote emphasizes the connection between memory and natural landscapes particularly by highlighting ephemerality. Autumn leaves and dew are both natural images that do not last for long—that are “just out of reach.” Walsh uses both simile and metaphor in the passage. Eddie describes his body as being clenched “like a metal fist” but describes Alex as being “a bright autumn leaf” rather than like “a bright autumn leaf.” This indicates that Eddie thinks of Alex as in some ways more real than even himself, despite being “just out of reach.”

“The necessity of protecting Hannah—not just as she slept in this tent, but always—felt like molten rock in my stomach, a volcano barely contained.”

Walsh provides a visceral, sensory description of the sense of responsibility that Hannah feels for her sister, which is so strong that it produces physical discomfort. This early reference to Sarah’s drive to protect her sister foreshadows her actions in the car accident and mirrors Eddie’s impulse to take care of his mother.

“I’d combed through every glowing, lambent moment of my time with him, searching for cracks, tiny warning signs that he might not have been as certain as I was, and I’d found nothing […] I phoned and messaged him; I even sent him a pathetic little tweet. I downloaded Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp and checked throughout the day to see if he’d surfaced […] Flattened by both shame and desperation, I’d even downloaded a bunch of dating apps to find out if he was registered. He wasn’t.”

Walsh explores the motif of written communication to highlight the indignity of being rejected via multiple potential communication platforms at once. Sarah’s desperate reaction to try every possible mode of communication is also related to the uncertainty that ghosting entails and