Somebody in the congregation is crying audibly. A few coughs punctuate the silence between sobs.
Abdi takes a piece of paper from his pocket and unfolds it, spreading it out flat on the lectern. His handwriting covers the page. He wrote this speech with Sofia’s help. It doesn’t say everything he wants to say, and it’s not as nuanced as he would like it to be, because this is not the time or place. But there’s truth in it. In most of it.
Dear Noah,
You wrote me a letter just before you died, and this is my reply.
I feel angry with you for taking your own life, but I understand why you did it.
You did it because you spent years suffering from your disease, and you didn’t want to suffer anymore. You did it because you wanted to save yourself and your family and your friends from seeing and feeling some horrible things in your last few weeks. You did it because you were tired of the disease that had owned you for more than half your life.
I never knew you without your disease. When I met you, it was already part of you, and I saw that you had to get up every day and deal with the fact that there was something destructive inside you. It must have been hard to live like that.
But I wish you hadn’t ended your life early, because it means you stole from the people who loved you and the people who cared for you. You stole time, and you stole our goodbyes. We would have liked to spend your last weeks with you, whatever it was like, and we would have liked to be able to say a proper goodbye.
This is my goodbye. These are things that I would have said to you if I’d had the chance.
You were a good friend to me because you were funny. You were my favorite chess partner, even if you were impossible to beat sometimes. You helped me out sometimes. When I felt stupid, you told me I was smart. When I felt like I didn’t belong, you told me that I did. When I felt like I couldn’t do something, you told me I could. You judged me on my inside, not my outside. You drove me nuts sometimes, but you made up for it at other times.
I believe that you were a better person than you thought you were.
I will miss you.
Rest now.
Your friend, Abdi
Acknowledgments
This story owes thanks to many. Enormous amounts of gratitude must go to the following people, without whose support, talent, and hard work this book and my career would be far lesser things: Helen Heller, Emma Beswetherick, Emily Krump, Liate Stehlik, Amanda Bergeron, Tim Whiting, Cath Burke, Jen Hart, Molly Waxman, Lauren Truskowski, Elle Keck, Julia Elliott, Aimee Kitson, Stephanie Melrose, Dom Wakeford, Thalia Proctor, PFD agency, Camilla Ferrier, Jemma McDonagh, and the team at the Marsh Agency, the publishers and editors of my translated editions, and the wonderful sales teams who get my books out into the world.
Special thanks to Elsie Lyons for the stunning cover design.
My research would be sorely lacking if it wasn’t for the two retired detectives who very kindly advise me on police procedure and other related things. Thank you both. Thanks must also go to Frank Hemsworth, who patiently fielded my questions about IT. Any mistakes made in the novel are mine alone!
On the home front, thanks go to my writing partner, Abbie Ross, and to all my wonderful friends and family who prop me up and regularly lose me to my writing, but put up with both very gracefully. Biggest, warmest, and most grateful thanks of all are reserved for Jules, Rose, Max, and Louis, all of whom have no choice but to live through the writing process with me every single day, and somehow remain generously and unfailingly supportive throughout. I couldn’t do it without you.
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About the Author
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Meet Gilly Macmillan
About the Book
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The Story Behind Odd Child Out
Questions for Discussion
Read On
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About the Author
Meet Gilly Macmillan
GILLY MACMILLAN is the bestselling author of What She Knew and The Perfect Girl. She grew up in Swindon, Wiltshire, and lived in Northern California in her late teens. She worked at The Burlington Magazine (UK) and the Hayward Gallery before starting a family. Since then she has worked as a lecturer in photography and now writes full-time. She resides in Bristol, England.
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About the Book
The Story Behind Odd Child Out
A long time ago, one of my children was diagnosed with a rare cancer. He was a thirteen-month-old infant with gray-blue eyes and skin on his temples as soft as velvet. He had an infectious, mischievous laugh and perfect small hands that would grip yours hotly and tightly.
Early on in his grueling treatment I left the hospital one morning to visit a local supermarket to buy some supplies. There was no shop or restaurant on-site for parents to use, even though we camped by our children’s bedsides day and night.
The walk to the supermarket was a welcome break from the pediatric oncology ward and the institutional machine that is hospital life. The movement felt good, the fresh air felt good, the freedom felt good. For a few minutes.
As I walked the aisles of the supermarket, I experienced a numbing wave of disorientation at the sight of the other shoppers moving purposefully between the rows of products packaged in hues that were oversaturated and overstimulating to my ward-worn eyes. I was acutely aware that these people didn’t know where I had been ten minutes before or what I had seen. As I stood—probably reeking of despair, as my hair and my clothes had surely absorbed the smells of the hospital—I realized that my son’s illness and treatment had comprehensively destabilized me. But if you had glanced at me, you’d have seen nothing more than an ordinary youngish woman contemplating the sweet-smelling shelves of bakery goods. You would never have known how the fear I felt silted my mouth, coursed through my blood abrasively like grains of sand, and whitened the tips of my shaking fingers, which were well hidden under the cuffs of my coat.
I bought nothing. I left the store and returned to the hospital. I raced up the stairs and along the corridors to my son’s room. I leaned into his crib and smoothed down the silken hair on his head. I traced the curve of his ear with my fingertip and watched the rise and fall of his chest while my husband went out instead of me.