As she went to pick up one of the fallen boxes, she saw that Patrick had carefully written “Miscellaneous” on the side. She laughed. It was meant to be a gentle, loving laugh at her imperfect but adorable husband-to-be, but it came out an unpleasant, bitter-sounding bark, as if she’d been unhappily married to him for years and this was the last straw.

Then she said, “Oh, please don’t” as the bottom of the box broke and another flood of “miscellaneous” items crashed to the floor.

She dropped the soft dusty sheets of cardboard and stamped her foot. Her home would never be hers again. It was going to disappear under a mountain of rubbish. She scratched viciously at her wrist as an itchy feeling of rage enveloped her, as though tiny bugs were crawling all over her body.

This is an inappropriate reaction. You need to breathe. In and out. Imagine a white light is filling—

“Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!” she screamed in the empty hallway.

She looked about for something, anything, to distract her.

She bent down and picked up the photo album.

The first photo she saw was of an impossibly young-looking Patrick wearing a puffy-sleeved white shirt with a blond girl sitting on his lap. She had on white jeans tucked into her boots, padded shoulders, earrings with dangling orange feathers. Patrick and Colleen. Young love in the late eighties.

She flipped the pages.

Photo after photo of Colleen posing for the camera, presumably held by Patrick. Hands on her hips, pouting her lips, opening her eyes wide, smiling seductively.

Ellen’s seventeen-year-old self, the one who had worn a very similar pair of earrings when she was a schoolgirl but would never have had the confidence to model like that for a boyfriend, responded bitchily. “Yes, you’re pretty hot stuff.”

Her better self spoke up: Ellen! What’s wrong with you? She’s a little girl! Seventeen and she’s going to die young. Give the poor girl a break.

She turned the page.

“Oh, lordie me,” she said, this time in her grandmother’s voice.

She was looking at naked photos of Colleen. Her blond hair slick against her head like she’d just stepped out of the shower. Without the dated clothes and hairstyle, she’d lost that faintly silly look that people have in old photos. Now she wasn’t just a pretty eighties girl, she was a classic beauty, with high cheekbones and big eyes. Ellen studied each photo, feeling both weirdly excited and slightly sick. Colleen had a perfectly proportioned body, slim and curved in all the right places. She could have been a model.

There wasn’t anything  p**n ographic about the photos. They were innocently sensual; Ellen could feel the raw intensity of first love.

There was one beautiful photo of Colleen lying completely naked on a single bed with her eyes closed, sunlight across her face. Ellen imagined how Patrick must have felt as a horny teenage boy looking at this gorgeous girl. Ellen had been perfectly attractive as a teenager, a “pretty” girl—but she’d never had a body like this, and now her skin was aging and her body was thickening with pregnancy and she was filled with a feeling of pure envy. She wanted to be that young girl, lying naked on a bed with the sunlight on her face, and the truth was she never had been and she never would be.

Stop looking, she told herself. This is highly personal, private stuff! You have no right! It’s disrespectful. Your reaction is emotionally immature. Everyone has photos of their high school sweethearts tucked away in old boxes, it’s no big deal! Shut the photo album, put it somewhere safe where Jack can’t find inappropriate photos of his dead mother, and go and research prams for the baby on the Internet, or do your taxes or something.

She sat down cross-legged on the floor among all the miscellaneous junk and kept looking, and as she did, she felt a strange longing to have a girl-to-girl talk with Saskia.

“Do you think he’s still in love with his wife?” she could ask her. “Do you think he ever really got over her? Do you think neither of us really ever had a chance with him?”

She felt like Saskia would be the only person who would truly understand why she couldn’t stop looking at these photos.

Chapter 15

You’ll never forget your first age regression!

—Flynn Halliday

Describe what’s going through your mind,” said Ellen. Alfred Boyle, the humble accountant who wanted help with public speaking, was sitting in the green recliner displaying all the signs of an ideal hypnotic state: His cheeks were flushed, his eyes moved restlessly behind his eyelids, his well-polished black business shoes splayed outward.

It was Ellen’s second session with him and she was doing an age regression.

After their first appointment, it had become obvious to Ellen that Alfred’s fear of public speaking was a full-blown phobia. He trembled and stammered just talking about it. It was having a serious impact on his life. He regularly called in sick on days he was due to give a presentation.

Alfred had already regressed to his first job as a trainee accountant, when he’d made such a hash of a short presentation, his boss had eventually interrupted, “Don’t worry about it, mate.”

Now Alfred was describing an incident in high school where he’d had to give an impromptu speech on the topic of music.

“I feel sick,” said Alfred. His voice sounded younger. Not as deep. Even the awkward way his jaw moved reminded Ellen of a teenage boy. “I’ve got nothing to say about music. Music. What is music even? Like, sounds and shit? I cannot think of a single word to say about music. They’re all staring at me. They think I’m an idiot. I am an idiot.”