The Love of My Life

“Her eyelashes are often wet when she wakes, as if she’s been swimming in a sea of sad dreams.”

Leo describes Emma, giving the impression that she has sadness in her past that she often dreams about. Leo doesn’t know what this sadness might be because the Emma he knows is a happy, well-adjusted, intelligent woman. This begins the revelation of secrets that Leo learns about Emma. Walsh returns to this image later in the novel and reveals that Emma wakes with wetness on her eyelashes because she dreams of the child she gave up for adoption. This adoption is a secret Emma kept from her husband and one he slowly learns the truth of.

“I understand why she wouldn’t want me to do it, of course, but these words aren’t meant to be a betrayal. They’re meant to be something beautiful. A hymn to this woman I love so deeply, completely.”

Leo promises Emma he will not write her obituary, but he has been writing it all through her struggle with cancer. The fact that Leo recognizes it might be a betrayal of her wishes speaks to the theme of The Danger of Secrets in a Relationship. Leo is keeping a secret from Emma that he knows might be seen as a betrayal, having no idea that she also has kept secrets from him that he could potentially see as a betrayal. Not only does it introduce a theme about secrets, but it also shows that each person within the relationship personally justifies keeping those secrets based on love, but it fails to take into account the emotional reaction to a feeling of betrayal that comes with learning a partner’s secret. For Leo, this secret is an example of his deep love for Emma. Still, it also foreshadows a time when Emma will use the same excuse for keeping her secret, and Leo will dismiss it as her underestimating his capacity to understand her motivations.

“The problem with lying to your husband is that it changes everything and nothing.”

Emma reflects on the lies she’s told her husband, aware of the impact it has had on their relationship. Emma understands that her lies have altered her relationship with Leo, even as she worries that the truth will cause him to end their relationship. It’s stressful to keep up a lie for multiple years, and Emma is clearly feeling this as the novel begins. With his statement, Walsh is foreshadowing the revelation of Emma’s lies, Leo’s reaction, and how it alters their relationship.

“In the weeks to come I will think back to this afternoon, these last few moments before the world starts to spin at a different angle, and I’ll envy myself this fantasy—this belief that I am one of only two people who knows about Emma’s inner world.

This belief that I know her at all.”

Leo finds himself looking back from some future moment to the time before he learned Emma’s secrets. There is a change of tone in this statement from the previous section, foreshadowing the devastation Leo will feel when he learns Emma’s secret. Leo felt he had a certain status in his relationship with Emma, but that status changes after he learns the truth. There’s a certain level of disappointment in Leo that is revealed with this statement, and possibly anger, but the tone is overall one of hurt. This goes back to the idea of betrayal that Leo is the first to mention in an early chapter.

“With hindsight, however, I’ve come to see that the most agonizing thing about that day was the jolt of recognition I felt as I tore through the adoption paperwork. It had never crossed my mind that I might not fully belong in that family, and yet—in my heart, my nervous system, somewhere, everywhere—I had known. Those papers had simply legitimized my lifelong feeling of non-belonging.”

It is revealed that Leo already has experience with discovering a secret that had been kept from him all his life. This secret explores the motif of adoption and the theme of The Danger of Secrets in a Relationship. Leo learns he was adopted, but he didn’t know until he is an adult, and when he learns, it’s by accident. There are a lot of emotions that come with learning someone has lied to one their whole life, but in this case, Leo’s sense of betrayal is mixed with the realization that he never really belonged to the family he grew up in. This knowledge makes his sense of betrayal grow, damaging his relationship with his parents. Emma witnesses this, unaware of this added sense of not belonging, and assumes Leo is biased by the idea of adoption, causing her to refuse to tell him about her own experience with adoption.

“But his generosity only makes the guilt more acute. He has no idea what I’m risking, every time I come up here. He thinks I come only to heal.”

Emma reflects on Leo’s kindness when she tells him she’s depressed and would like some time alone in Northumberland. He doesn’t know that the reason she goes there is less about her search for a specific crab and more about the child she gave up for adoption that Leo doesn’t know about. Not only does this touch on the theme of The Impact of Guilt by exploring Emma’s guilt in using Leo’s generosity to avoid telling him the truth, but it also foreshadows the revelation of Emma’s connection to Northumberland and the Rothschilds.

“I feel unarmed and vulnerable, as if in a combat zone wearing nothing more than a shirt. This is not how I ever imagined feeling about the family I chose. This is not how I imagined feeling about my wife.”

As the secrets reveal themselves in Leo’s marriage, he begins to describe the betrayal that overwhelms him with each new revelation. Leo is not close to the truth at this point but knows enough to believe his wife has lied to him about simple things, such as why she was fired by the BBC and the firing of her agent. These are small things compared to what Leo imagines at this point, and it makes him wonder if Emma can lie about such small things, what are some of the big things she’s lied about? This explores the theme of The Danger of Secrets in a Relationship and the impact of those secrets as they slowly are revealed. Leo is unhappy, foreshadowing his emotional state once all the secrets are revealed.

“I go to check Ruby is breathing.”

On multiple occasions, Emma checks on Ruby’s breathing. At one point, Leo comments that it is unusual for a mother to worry that a child Ruby’s age might stop breathing. However, these moments of a mother’s insecurity go deeper than just a new mother of a child wondering if that child is alive and well. These moments foreshadow the revelation that Emma attempted to smother her infant son when she had postpartum psychosis. There is also irony in these checks when it is revealed that Janice lied about Emma attempting to smother Charlie.

“The penultimate document I see, before my phone starts ringing, is a birth certificate. The name on it is Emily Ruth Peel, a woman I have never heard of, although she shares a date of birth with my wife.”

Leo is still gathering information on Emma. He discovers a document that proves she changed her name. This is a shock to Leo that hints at something more sinister than the things Leo has believed Emma might be involved in, such as an affair with Jeremy. This discovery is bigger than any of the things Leo has discovered up to this point, and it foreshadows that there are even bigger issues that Emma is still keeping from Leo. Linked to the theme of secrets in relationships, this revelation underscores all of Leo’s doubts regarding Emma and foreshadows the continuing revelation of secrets. Finally, this discovery adds tension to the novel’s plot as it develops, preparing the reader for the final secret to be revealed.

“It was not OK. By the time I’d thought to take a pregnancy test, I was fifteen weeks and a day: termination as still possible, but when I read about what would be involved this far into the pregnancy, I couldn’t face it.”

Emma, then known as Emily, tells the story of how she found out she was pregnant and part of her reaction to it. Emily foreshadows her care and concern for the unborn child in explaining why she didn’t have an abortion. Later, she will struggle to separate herself from this child and accept the idea of adoption despite all the difficulties she faces as a single mother raising a child alone while attempting to finish a university degree. Emily shows her intelligence and the logic that goes into facing an unwanted pregnancy while also exploring the emotional side of a difficult situation.

“My mother died in childbirth: a postpartum hemorrhage was spotted too late, and within days of becoming a father Dad was widowered.”

Emily describes her childhood, focusing on her mother’s death and how it drove her father into depression and alcoholism. This goes to Emily’s character and her many reasons for not feeling comfortable raising a child alone. Emily is intelligent and independent, but the death of her parents did not prepare her for raising a child on her own. At the same time, she does not have the support system someone else in her situation might have. The only family Emily has at this time is her 80-year-old grandmother.

“What I’m trying to say, although, God knows, it’s not easy—is that Janice and I would be open to a discussion about adopting the baby. If the idea held some appeal. And I appreciate that it might not.”

Jeremy calls Emily shortly after getting a letter informing him that she is pregnant with his cousin David’s child. He is awkward in his request that she might allow him and Janice to adopt the baby, but his words are thoughtful and kind, revealing the kind of man Jeremy really is. Up to this point, Jeremy has been painted as a man who might have done something to cause his wife’s disappearance and a man who might have had a long-term affair with Emma. This conversation shows the genuine side of Jeremy, showing that he’s a kind, sensitive man who only wants to make those around him comfortable and happy.

“But what really got me was a line he wrote about how her baby cried all the time. That image of a sweet baby—my sweet baby—stuck in a damp bedsit with a mother who had no idea how to look after her (I was certain my baby was a girl) kept me awake at night. A baby who could otherwise have lived in a warm, comfortable house with proper grown-ups like Jeremy and Janice Rothschild.”

Emily thinks a lot about Erica, a 19-year-old girl her father attempted to help when she was a toddler and he was still a parish priest. As she remembers the way her father wrote about Erica in his diary, she begins to put herself in that young woman’s place and understand what she has to offer her child—a lack of support and financial means—and compares it to what the Rothschilds have to offer are very different. This is the motivation Emily embraces in deciding to give her child to the Rothschilds. She wants the best the world has to offer for her child, a better childhood than she had. Not only does this touch on the theme of motherhood, but it also touches on the theme of guilt, her guilt that she cannot provide for her child as well as the Rothschilds.

“I didn’t want to be with her anymore. I didn’t want to be anywhere near this woman, who already felt that this was her baby.”

Emily has an episode of bleeding halfway through her pregnancy while visiting Northumberland with Janice. As they discuss what should happen next, Emily realizes that Janice already thinks of the baby as her own, and this brings out a fierce sense of connection for Emily with her baby. Despite her concerns for her baby’s future, Emily’s fear that she might lose the baby sends her into an emotional struggle in which she realizes she’s not fully ready to give up her child. This is when she begins to feel connected to the child, leading to her changing her mind about the adoption. Touching on the theme of motherhood, this is when Emily accepts her pregnancy, the child who will soon be born, and her desire to be that child’s mother.

“I was twenty years old, my baby had been stolen, and I had no one on my side.”

With postpartum psychosis, Emily convinces herself that her baby was born a girl, just as she’d been convinced she would be throughout her pregnancy, and someone switched her child with a newborn baby boy named Charlie. Her confusion over this issue leads to a hospitalization and medications to help her recover. Postpartum psychosis is not uncommon; it is a version of postpartum depression that affects one in every 500 women, and it is a medical emergency. Emily’s experience leaves her feeling alone and persecuted, but over time she begins to return to reality and come to terms with her condition.

“I didn’t know what was happening, only that it was bad. They’d reduced my antipsychotic drugs two days ago. Had I done something crazy? I tried to rewind the last hour but nothing was there, just a red sea of panic.”

Janice accuses Emily of trying to smother Charlie. Emily doesn’t remember doing anything wrong, showing how vulnerable she was at that moment and how open she was to the power of suggestion. Emily comes to believe she did smother Charlie and that she cannot provide a safe home for him. If not for this moment, Emily likely would not have given her child up for adoption, a fact revealed later in the novel. This moment sets up the story’s climax, in which Janice attempts suicide in response to Charlie’s knowledge of this moment.

“I’d sat at the bus stop opposite the Trevi, watching Charlie trying to eat spaghetti in a table by the window. I’d watched them in the corner shop opposite the Hen and Chickens, I’d watched them twice in the park. I never stayed longer than a couple of minutes: just enough to calm my system; to dull my screaming nerves.”

Emily admits to following the Rothschilds around a year after she surrenders custody of Charlie to them, trying to catch glimpses of her child. She becomes obsessed with needing to see her son, with a desire to be close to him. These episodes, seen through Emily’s point of view, show her desire to look but not touch. She only wants to know Charlie is safe. However, these same scenes seen through the eyes of Janice and Jeremy read very differently. Janice struggled for years to have a child and now lives in constant fear of losing that child because of Emily’s behavior. It is a complicated situation that creates tension between Janice and Emily and sets up the climax of the novel.

“But she did tell someone, I realize, as the truth presses silently in. Jill, who turned up at our house just before Ruby was born, who wouldn’t budge until Ruby was two weeks old. Jill, who never left Emma on her own with Ruby, even when they were napping together on the sofa.”

Leo has finally heard the whole story, and pieces of his past are starting to fit together in a way he was not anticipating. When Leo considers the idea that Emma had postpartum psychosis, he struggles with the fact that she didn’t tell him even when she was pregnant with their daughter, Ruby. Jill’s appearance in their home during the postpartum days confused him and even angered him to a small degree, but now he understands why she was there. Rather than soothe his emotions, this fact makes him even angrier because he feels he should have been the one watching for signs of a recurrence of Emma’s postpartum psychosis. This begins to explore the full impact of Emma’s lies on Leo and, as a result, their relationship. It adds tension as the question of whether Emma and Leo will remain a couple comes up.

“A man with my face and a male body.

With longish hair that needs washing and a once-red-T-shirt, sun-baked to pink. He stands in the doorway, looking at me with fear and curiosity.

I would know my son anywhere. Even if I hadn’t spent years looking at pictures of him on the internet, I would know.”

Emma meets Charlie face-to-face for the first time in Jill’s apartment. Her response to him is highly emotional, bringing up memories of peeking at him from a distance when he was a toddler playing in the park. This is a monumental moment for Emma because she has always believed Janice would not allow this moment to happen. Ironically, this moment happens because Janice is missing and Charlie is looking for information on her. This moment also foreshadows a developing relationship between Emma and Charlie later in the novel. This moment also validates everything Leo has just learned about Emma and Charlie from Charlie’s father, Jeremy.

“I knew David Rothschild was married. One of his friends told me. I could have told you, that night, but I didn’t, because I was jealous of you, Emma. They were all after you. All of them. I wanted to make you feel stupid and small for a minute. But then you got pregnant, and your life fell apart. And that’s on me. So yes, I’ve done everything I can to help you, ever since. But it’ll never be enough.”

Exploring the theme of The Impact of Guilt, Jill admits to the guilt she has carried around for nearly 20 years regarding Emma’s pregnancy. Jill knew David was married, but she did nothing to warn Emma. If she had, Emma might have made a better choice that night and not gotten pregnant with Charlie, she never would have met the Rothschilds, and she would not have had postpartum psychosis. This is a lot for one woman to take on for one mistake. Not only that, but Jill can’t know that if Emma had known the truth, she wouldn’t have made the same choices. But she carried this guilt, which explains why she spent the past 20 years attempting to help Emma. This also shows how the motif of adoption and the themes within this novel impacted not only just Emma and Leo but also those who love them.

“Then: ‘You didn’t do it,’ he says. ‘Mum made it up.’”

Charlie visits Emma again and announces that she didn’t attempt to smother him when he was a baby. Emma doesn’t believe him at first, thinking he’s trying to be nice or protect her because of their relationship. However, she learns it is true and the basis for Janice’s disappearance. This moment is shocking for Emma revealing events she was unaware of and switching roles as she realizes that Janice lied all those years ago. This also explains Janice’s fear after taking custody of Charlie, convinced that Emma might change her mind someday. It wasn’t just the fear she would change her mind. It was a fear that Emma would remember that she hadn’t attempted to smother Charlie and use that information to get him back. At the same time, Janice worried that Charlie learning the truth would destroy their relationship. This moment is the motivation for Janice’s actions throughout the novel and the actions that led to Leo finding out the truth. Without Janice’s lie, most of the plot would not have happened.

“I don’t know if my grief is for Emma or for myself. For Ruby, perhaps, or the chaotic, warm life the three of us have had together. I don’t know anything, other than that it’s only when something’s damaged beyond repair that we realize how beautiful it was.”

Leo now knows everything. Emma does as well. Now is the time to consider how the revelation of these secrets will impact the relationships directly impacted, especially Leo and Emma’s. Leo feels compassion for Emma because of the lie Janice told, but he is still hurt and angry about the lies Emma told. He also finds her reasons for keeping the truth from him weak. The discovery of his adoption is very different from the discovery of Charlie’s adoption, and Leo is disappointed his wife couldn’t see that. However, this situation has highlighted both the strengths and weaknesses in their marriage and altered it permanently. He is grieving this change. However, whether or not the marriage will survive continues to add suspense and tension to the plot.

“It isn’t long before I see the shed. It’s not exactly as I remembered, but that’s the thing with memory: it makes up its own stories. They harden and calcify in just the same way as facts, and most of the time we have no idea which is which.”

Emma takes Charlie to the place where she believes Janice might have sought sanctuary in the aftermath of Charlie discovering her lie. It is a place that still holds a certain level of affection in her mind, a rare moment of happiness during her pregnancy and relationship with Janice. However, the reality is not living up to her memories, making her reflect on how memories can sometimes be altered by time and emotion. This can be applied to much of her past and how Janice saw the events of their shared past. This moment opens the door to forgiveness between Emma and Janice and between Emma and Leo.