Ghosted

Sarah Mackey has returned to England from LA for the anniversary of the car accident that killed her younger sister’s best friend, Alex, and prompted the estrangement between Sarah and her sister, Hannah. Sarah has formed a deep romantic attachment to Eddie, who is eventually revealed to be Alex’s older brother. Outside in the countryside at night, Sarah is reminded of Hannah and describes the feeling of trying to protect her but not knowing if she’d be able to. The narrative details include a vague sense that something has happened to Hannah.

Sarah suggests that she and Eddie camp for the night, and they kiss. Sarah remembers her failed 17-year marriage with Reuben. Eddie is planning to leave for a previously planned vacation with a friend the next day, and Sarah and Eddie plan to decide how to make their intercontinental relationship work when they see each other again after Eddie’s trip.

Fifteen days later, Sarah accompanies a close friend and former schoolmate, Tommy, to their old school, where he is launching a new sports program. Tommy is too nervous to attend on his own, as an old bully of his, Matthew, with whom he is collaborating on this project, will be there. Another close friend of theirs, Jo, is driving, and Jo’s seven-year-old son, Rudi, is in the car as well. Jo becomes increasingly irritated by Sarah’s insistence that something must have happened to Eddie. They pass the spot on the road where the car accident occurred 19 years earlier. Sarah has a visceral emotional reaction and Jo offers support.

As they drive, the friends discuss various theories about why Eddie may have “ghosted” Sarah. Tommy asks whether Sarah has updated the website for her charity, Clowndoctor, and she realizes that it still includes a page detailing Rueben’s role in the business. While Jo suggests that he would have just confronted her about it, Sarah immediately messages Eddie via Facebook to explain.

The narrative goes back in time as Sarah recalls meeting Eddie. He is “deep in conversation” with a sheep (30). Her first impression of him is familiar, like boys with whom she’d gone to school, and she thinks that he is the type of man she’d originally envisioned marrying. Eddie and Sarah bond with joking banter about the sheep. Sarah has been staying with her parents, but they have traveled to Leicester to assist her grandfather. She dislikes being in the house on her own, and is pleased with the opportunity to help Eddie return the sheep to its field and go to the pub for a pint.

Sarah reminisces on her goodbye with Eddie, which she describes as an au revoir with strong expressions of love from both parties. After a brief period of denial, she tells her friends that Eddie hasn’t called. She obsesses over this fact, paying little attention to national events surrounding Brexit and the happenings of the lives of those around her: her grandfather’s surgeries and Jenni’s IVF cycle.

The narrative returns to the car ride, and the group arrive at Tommy and Sarah’s old school. Observing Tommy’s terror at the imminent launch, Sarah reflects on the bullying that he suffered during school. Sarah reflects on the fact that she has nothing to be afraid of, as Mandy and Claire—old friends with whom Sarah later reveals that she was desperate to fit in—left the school in the 1990s. However, Tommy reveals that Claire married Matthew, and both women will be in attendance.

Back in time, Sarah and Eddie sit in the pub, getting to know each other over a drink on their first date. They discuss having grown up in the area and wonder if they crossed paths. Sarah explains her work with the Clowndoctor nonprofit, and he discusses his furniture building. They talk for hours, “a part of him always touching a part of [her]” (52). They return together to Eddie’s home and workshop, a converted barn, for the night, and the chapter ends as they share a kiss.

The majority of the chapter is in epistolary format, in which Sarah composes a Facebook message to Eddie. She explains that, while she is still technically married, her marriage has actually been over for a long time and that her inability to give Rueben a child proved the catalyst for the breakup. She describes the conversation in which her ex-husband requested the divorce, during which she cried out of a sense of obligation. She tells Eddie, “remember how it felt when we were together. I meant it all. Every kiss, every word, every everything” (55). Sarah deletes the message and replaces it with a much briefer one. Noticing that she is alone in the car, she acknowledges that she’ll need to get out to join Jo, Rudi, and Tommy inside the school.

At Tommy’s event, Jo switches between concern for Tommy—who gives his speech first before passing the microphone to Matthew—and Sarah, who dreads the prospect of seeing Claire and Mandy. As Jo instructs Rudi, who is playing with the physical education equipment, to stick to the smaller hurdles, Sarah notices an individual wearing a hood watching her. Later in the text, Walsh reveals that this threatening figure is Carole Wallace, Eddie’s mother.

Rudi injures his leg trying to jump over a hurdle, and Jo leaves for the hospital with him. Sarah attempts to collect herself in the bathroom and decides to post on Eddie’s Facebook wall, asking if anyone has seen him. A group of women, including Claire and Mandy, enter, gossiping about being disappointed to see Sarah there and that Tommy is looking well. They were surprised to hear that he has a girlfriend, Zoe, given that they used to gossip about him being gay. Becoming angry as they make fun of Jo’s body and the scene that Rudi made when getting injured, Sarah opens the door to her stall and faces the women, but she then leaves without saying anything.

Back in time, just before they part ways, Sarah and Eddie discuss how much they like each other. Eddie again offers to cancel his trip. After Sarah’s refusal and offer to pick him up at the airport in a week, he ensures that he has all possible contact information for her. They become friends on Facebook and make plans to meet each other’s families. Sarah asks Eddie not to watch her go, but to “make it feel like I’ve just popped out for some milk or something” (70) and he says he thinks he's fallen in love with her before she departs.

In another letter from “me” to “you,” Eddie (still unidentified) describes things that he misses about Alex, including childhood memories and things that he used to find annoying. Eddie notes that things aren’t going well for him and that he hopes that he won’t lose his mind, but he is sorry not to have been more cheerful.

Talked into extending her usually month-long trip to England by her parents, who haven’t been able to see her while caring for her grandfather, Sarah decides to stay in London until her parents return to their house. When Zoe returns from a tech law conference, she, Sarah, Jo, and Tommy have dinner together. Zoe asks Sarah about the man she’s “pining” over (75), and they discuss the situation. Sarah checks Facebook and finds that two people have replied to her post asking for information about Eddie. One is from the friend with whom Eddie was supposed to go to Spain, noting that he hasn’t heard from Eddie since he’d cancelled their holiday. The other is from a football teammate who notes that he hasn’t seen Eddie for several weeks. Tommy offers an apology after he sees the posts. Sarah’s phone rings, and there is “human silence” for a moment after she answers (79), then dead air. The phone call is revealed later to have been from Carole.

The narrative moves back in time again. The morning after their first night together, Sarah thinks about place; Eddie seems to be so rooted in the valley, and she doesn’t feel the same way about LA, though she loves it. They discuss Eddie’s hobbies, and Sarah says that she doesn’t have many and that she “cloaks” herself in her work (85). He asks her to stay. Although she asks if it’s okay to leave his mother—for whom Eddie is largely responsible because she has a mental health condition—Sarah agrees.

Sarah writes to Alan—the friend from football who replied to her post on Eddie’s Facebook—sharing the details of the last time that she saw Eddie and asking him to call her. She later notices that Alan has read her message but doesn’t reply. She becomes increasingly worried for herself, as well as for Eddie.

Before Sarah returns to Gloucestershire to meet her parents, she, Jo, and Tommy accompany Rudi to the Children’s Zoo for a farewell tea. Rudi watches the meercats, and Sarah reflects on Jo’s love for her son and feels a slight pang at her childlessness. She concludes, “it was right that I wasn’t going to be a mother, of course, but the pain of lost possibility sometimes left me breathless” (95). She checks her phone, remembering another phone call that she received from the anonymous silent stranger, this time for 15 seconds. They eat, and when Rudi notices that Sarah is distracted, he asks if the man broke her heart. Rudi picks up Sarah’s phone and notices that Eddie has read her messages but hasn’t replied. They all agree that Sarah needs to let Eddie go. While she agrees, she notes that she doesn’t know how to do so.

The night before her return to Gloucestershire, Sarah stays up late catching up with work emails. She briefly feels productive, then soon manic. She decides to call Jenni, her closest friend in LA. In the phone conversation, Sarah updates Jenni on the fact that she still hasn’t heard from Eddie, and Jenni tells her not to give up. She reminds Sarah that Rueben and his new girlfriend, Kaia, are expecting to meet Sarah in London the next day. Sarah feels guilty for not having checked in on the IVF cycle—Jenni has had three embryos implanted and will learn of the results in the next week. Jenni tells Sarah that she should tell Eddie about the accident via letter, remembering her experience of loving Sarah more when she’d been told about it. Sarah announces her plans to move on, and Jenni reminds Sarah that if she meant that, Jenni, a romantic and hopeless optimist, would have been the last person whom she would have called.

The narrative turns back on Sarah and Eddie’s fifth day together. They decide to go on a walk, and Eddie is excited to show Sarah something. It turns out to be a Wellington boot on a cut off tree branch, more than 60 feet in the air. They wonder at it together, and Sarah thinks about her happiness and wonders how she can return to LA.