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People We'll Never Know

Chapter 1: Forgotten Answering Machine Cassette Tapes

Eleanor’s husband had been dead for two days.

She was still in shock. Not that “non-responsive, zoned out space cadet” kind of shock; just that weird sort of limbo where one side of your brain is able to function like normal – organise funerals, make arrangements and cancel dead spouse’s gym memberships – while the other side of your brain hasn’t quite processed this abrupt new reality.

His name had been Graeme, and he was killed in a car crash on his way back to Vancouver from up near the east side of Garibaldi Provincial Park.

There was nothing suspicious about the crash – it appeared that Graeme’s attention to the road had simply lapsed at a crucially unfortunate moment. There were plenty of bends on this particular backroad, and Graeme hadn’t noticed one.

Nevertheless, the police were now at Ellie’s door to ask why she thought Graeme had opted for the backroads over the more direct (and much more common) route from Shookumchuck to the leafy Vancouver suburb of Burnaby, where Ellie and Graeme owned a house together.

Ellie replied that Graeme enjoyed the BC scenery, which was true, but she had a feeling the real reason was that he wanted to prolong his drive home. As much as the two of them were in love, Graeme had always seized any opportunity to enjoy solitude… especially lately.

Still, the image of Graeme driving along backroads reminded her of the road trips he would take her on when they first started dating. They used to get in his car and drive to places like Calgary and Edmonton, or across the border to Seattle and Portland, to check out all the thrift stores for telephone answering machines.

Sounds bizarre, right? There’s a story behind it.

When they’d first started dating, Graeme had planned to surprise Ellie with a very romantic evening for their three-month anniversary. She was supposed to come home from work to find Graeme waiting out the front of her share-house in a suit, with flowers in his hand.

However, Ellie got held back at work, with no idea that Graeme had a whole evening planned. She didn’t even know they were going to see each other that night. So after waiting out the front of Ellie’s house for 75 minutes, Graeme knocked on the door to ask her housemate Nick if he could use the toilet. “Of course you can!”

When Graeme emerged from the bathroom, Nick offered him a cold beer and invited him to a game of Gran Turismo on the couch. When Ellie finally arrived home from work, exhausted and frustrated, she laid eyes on the bouquet of flowers first (casually placed on the dining room table), a rather extravagant blazer second (hastily draped over the living room armchair), and her boyfriend third, sitting tensely on the edge of the couch in matching vest and trousers, heavily engaged in a riveting Gran Turismo race with her friendly stoner housemate.

As down as Graeme got on himself for ruining the surprise, Ellie found it more charming that he’d stood outside for 75 minutes, needing to piss while he waited for her until he’d finally given in.

Anyway, by that point they’d missed their dinner reservations and probably the opening act for the jazz gig Graeme had bought tickets for (much to Ellie’s dismay, who apologised profusely about 17 times and offered to reimburse him for the tickets no less than eight times).

Graeme suggested they just order takeout and play Gran Turismo with Nick all night, but by this point Ellie had changed into something nice to match Graeme’s outfit.

Instead, they went for a walk to find dinner and some entertainment for the evening, equipped with most of a bottle of whisky to make their stroll into town a bit more interesting… it was Nick’s hasty three-month anniversary gift as they’d been walking out the door.

What Ellie and Graeme found was a questionable food truck parked outside an old thrift store, which strangely was open until 10pm.

After a quick peruse of the thrift store while they waited for their poutine, Graeme emerged from the shop with an old battery-powered answering machine with the cassette tape still in it. He said he wanted to hear if there were any old voice messages on the tape that the previous owner had forgotten to delete. Could be funny.

The new couple found themselves sitting in a quiet corner of the parking lot, eating mediocre food truck poutine, washing it down with whisky and listening to anonymous voicemail messages sent by people they’ll never know.

Some of the voicemails were hilarious, some were humiliating and others were quite intense.

It was the most fun either of them had ever had, with each other and with anyone else.

They played that tape over and over again, and then Ellie went back into the shop right before closing and pinched old, forgotten cassettes out of four more answering machines. They sat together in that parking lot all night, laughing and drinking until the sun came up.

It became their thing. Fuck fancy dinners, movie nights and jazz bars… Ellie and Graeme wanted to get pissed, smoke cigarettes and listen to private monologues that were never meant to be heard by anyone other than the original owner of the answering machines they were snatching up all across town.

They did this several nights of the week, occasionally bringing all the cassettes back to Ellie’s house and listening to them with Nick while the three of them drank beers on the couch.

And then suddenly, they ran out of forgotten answering machine cassette tapes.

Ellie and Graeme had literally cleared out Vancouver’s thrift shops of all answering machines with cassette tapes left inside. Now what?

That’s when the road trips started. Ellie and Graeme went regional with their answering machine cassette tape thievery. First, they raided small towns on the outskirts of Vancouver. Next, they were raiding smaller towns on the outskirts of the outskirts of Vancouver.

It wasn’t long before Ellie and Graeme were venturing as far as Calgary, Edmonton, Seattle and Portland to find new answering machine cassette tapes. Of course, by that point it wasn’t really about the voice messages anymore – they were just an excuse for the long road trips, which became the foundation of Ellie and Graeme’s relationship.

Those overnight drives were when Ellie and Graeme truly got to know each other, and fall deeply in love. They were the best days of Ellie’s life.

One of the police officers cleared his throat and snapped Ellie back to the present.

“So he usually preferred to take the scenic route home?” he asked.

Ellie blinked. “Yes, yeah he would always come home that way unless he was in a hurry to get back, or we had plans or something – then he would take the highway, but there was no rush this time.”

“Thanks for your time, Mrs. Gill,” the other policeman said. “We’ll leave you be.”

The two policemen walked back to their car, and Ellie went back inside to cook dinner.

Chapter 2: Hometown Tourist

Three days after Graeme had died, Ellie got another knock at the door.

If you want to be alone after the death of a loved one, home is the last place to be. Even if you ignore people’s calls, texts and emails, there’s always someone at the front door wanting to check up on you.

This time it was her neighbour, an elderly man named Phil.

“Sorry to bother you Ellie, I just thought I’d take care of some of those overgrown tree branches for you,” he said, holding up a pair of hedge clippers.

Ellie flashed him a tired but warm smile. Graeme had arranged to borrow Phil’s clippers later this week and do some garden maintenance. “You’re too kind, Phil.”

Ten minutes later, Phil was standing on a step-ladder in Ellie’s backyard, going to work on the hedges. Ellie came out with a cup of tea for him, as he wrestled with one particular branch that had grown over from his side of the fence and was threatening to cause trouble with the guttering.

“Thanks Ellie,” he grunted as she placed the tea on a chair by the step-ladder.

“If you’re still working in an hour, I’ll follow it up with a beer,” she replied.

Suddenly, the sight of the overgrown tree branch got Ellie choked up with an overwhelming sense of nostalgia, and she was eager to get back inside. It reminded her of the tree branch that had grown out of control in front of Graeme’s old apartment balcony.

Ellie had met Graeme at a backpacker hostel on Granville Street, a lively main street in downtown Vancouver. The hostel had organised a bar crawl that evening, and Graeme was among the 15 or so guests who showed up, along with Ellie.

As it turns out, the two of them were the only Canadians on the bar crawl, and this broke the ice.

Ellie’s reason for being there was that she’d just relocated from Ontario, and didn’t know anyone she could stay with while she got settled.

Graeme was from Vancouver, but his reason for staying at a hostel in his own hometown was that he’d accidentally locked himself out of his own apartment with nothing but his wallet. Instead of popping into a nearby shop or perhaps his local café and politely asking to call a locksmith like a normal person, he’d instead opted to check in to his local hostel for the night and sign up for the bar crawl.

This ridiculous reason for being there right now (along with his vibrant personality and the fact that he was tall, dark and handsome) was enough to pique Ellie’s curiosity, and she never strayed too far from Graeme’s side the entire bar crawl.

Every time they entered the next bar, Ellie would order a drink and then deliberately wait to take a seat until Graeme had returned from the counter with his own drink, so that they’d end up sitting together.

This bar crawl sparked the flame that led to their nine-year relationship. And then another spark ended it three days ago, when the fuel tank caught alight and exploded while Graeme had still been frantically scrambling with his doorhandle, which was jammed because the driver door panel was warped and mangled from the crash.

Back to the overgrown tree branch though…

It didn’t take long for the rest of the bar crawl to hear about Graeme’s temporary homelessness, and he became the star of the evening.

The thing is, though, Graeme only lived on the second floor of the building, and there was a humungous tree on the street corner with a thick branch that had basically grown right into his balcony, which also happened to be where he kept his well-stocked liquor cabinet…

This was a group of backpackers on a budget, and if there’s an opportunity for cheaper drinking somewhere else, it’s always going to triumph over paying for pints in a bar.

The bar crawl ended prematurely (or underwent a hasty route revision) and minutes later there were 15 foreigners and an Ontarian standing on the street corner outside Graeme’s apartment building, watching Graeme demonstrate how to climb the trunk, shimmy across the branch and jump the final few feet onto the balcony.

The situation that followed resembled some kind of boot camp team-building exercise, where everyone followed Graeme up the tree, across the branch and onto the balcony one by one.

Each safe landing on the balcony ledge was met with a cheer, and by the end of it there was just enough room on the slim balcony for the entire bar crawl to stand shoulder to shoulder, swigging from whatever liquor bottles Graeme had in the cabinet by the glass sliding door.

Some of these travellers had only been in the country for nine hours, and they already had a great story to tell of their Canadian adventures. Ellie could see in Graeme’s eyes that he was ecstatic to have given these backpackers what would surely become a fond Vancouver memory.

If Ellie had been somewhat infatuated by Graeme before this, then the sheer pleasure he was getting just from hosting everyone on his balcony tipped her head over heels.

Eventually everyone either paired up and went back to the hostel, or felt like dancing and found another bar to head to, but Ellie stayed on the balcony with Graeme. She asked him if he’d ever actually planned on sleeping at the hostel that night, when his home was right around the corner.

He considered her question for a long time, and Ellie couldn’t quite make out his facial expression in the moonlight. And then, out of nowhere, Graeme jumped to his feet, picked up a large pot plant beside the liquor cabinet, and hurled it at the glass sliding door.

The glass cracked slightly, and the heavy pot clattered onto the balcony floor at his feet.

After all these years, Ellie still found it amusing that the glass hadn’t shattered on the first attempt – it was obviously what Graeme had been expecting.

Now he had no choice but to pick up the pot plant again, throw it again (this time the whole glass panel cracked in a spider-web pattern), pick it up again, throw it again, until finally the glass shattered on about the fifth throw.

By this point there were lights flicking on in apartment windows across the street, and Ellie giggled as Graeme rushed her inside.

Whether he’d been planning to sleep at the hostel that night or not, Ellie never actually found out. But he didn’t sleep there in the end, and as it turns out, neither did she.

Of course, their love-making might have been a little more passionate if concerned neighbours hadn’t kept knocking on the door to make sure Graeme wasn’t being burgled.

Chapter 3: Seashells & Eggshells

Ellie couldn’t switch her brain off. As calm and subdued as she looked on the surface, her mind was racing every minute of the day since Graeme had died. She didn’t know what to feel or how to react.

Ellie had already climbed into bed for the night when she suddenly remembered that she and Graeme were supposed to go to Costa Rica later in the year. The trip wasn’t for another few months so it really wasn’t a priority right now, but Ellie was keen for an excuse to sit up in bed with a hot drink.

She made herself a tea, grabbed her laptop and climbed back into bed to send a few emails as well as cancel the flights, accommodation and other bookings they’d arranged during their stay there.

Ellie had never been one to plan every little detail of a holiday, but she and Graeme had both been excited about Costa Rica for months. Every few days one of them would add something else to the itinerary, as they counted down the days.

Things had been a little dull and monotonous for Ellie and Graeme lately – without either of them saying it out loud, it was pretty obvious that this trip was a bit of an attempt to put the spark back into their marriage.

Ellie thought back to the first real trip they’d planned together.

They’d booked flights to Hawaii on a whim, and were all set to spend a week learning how to surf, hiking up volcanoes and lazing about on beaches with cocktails.

When they arrived at Vancouver airport, Ellie was horrified to realise that her passport had expired a few months ago. They couldn’t go.

Graeme had been furious. Ellie had never seen him like that. He flew off the handle right there at check-in while she bawled her eyes out, to the point where security had to intervene because he was causing a scene.

They continued their row outside in the taxi rank, where Graeme worked himself into a wild frenzy over the fact that Ellie hadn’t thought to check her passport expiry. How could she not have known her passport was expired?! It’s ridiculous!

The entire taxi ride home was spent in silence, except for the occasional convulsion and hiccup from Ellie as she tried to stifle her sobbing. When they arrived at Graeme’s apartment, he paid the driver, went upstairs with his luggage ahead of Ellie, closed the door behind him and locked it.

Ellie heard the lock click from the stairwell, and slumped on the stairs with her luggage for a few moments, confused. Leaving her bags on the steps, she approached the door and gently knocked a few times, before realising Graeme had no intention of letting her in.

She thought he’d want to talk it out, clear the air, apologise, and then maybe they’d make dinner, watch a movie and she’d stay the night. But nope.

She dragged her luggage back downstairs, hailed another cab, arrived back at her share-house and didn’t hear from Graeme for three days.

By this point, Ellie assumed their relationship was over. She’d moved on from feeling horrible about her passport mistake, and now she was mad at Graeme for reacting in such an aggressive manner.

They could have tried to get some money back for the accommodation, and at least gone to a bed and breakfast somewhere in BC. Or they could have taken the spending money they’d set aside for their holiday and had a great couple of days in Vancouver, going out to dinner and hitting the bars like they’d done right at the start of their relationship.

They managed to work things out, and even though Graeme never quite let Ellie forget about the trip to Hawaii that he paid for but never got to enjoy, the dust settled and things gradually went back to normal.

As Ellie sat in bed, sipping her tea and reminiscing about that awful week now, she considered that this incident might have been the first time she started acting reserved around her boyfriend, as if she was walking on eggshells all the time.

Chapter 4: Reluctant Immigrations

Graeme’s funeral was bittersweet in a way. Ellie was treated to some familiar faces, some of whom she hadn’t realised how much she even missed until she laid eyes on them.

Nick showed up; she hadn’t seen him since her wedding! Once again, her stoner former housemate was looking very out of place in a suit, and Ellie rushed over to give him a hug.

“It’s so good to see you, Nick,” she said. “I’m sorry it’s been so long.”

They reminisced about old times, and Ellie asked if Nick had managed to get on his feet since he lost the house.

Ellie had been quite content living with him back then, and always considered herself extremely lucky to land such a nice room with a friendly housemate within a week of relocating to Vancouver.

She was devastated when their arrangement had abruptly ended because Nick lost his job at a time when he was already shockingly far behind on his mortgage payments – he was forced to sell the house, and Ellie had no choice but to move out.

She’d already been actively hunting for another room in a share-house when Graeme suggested that she move into his apartment.

He’d mentioned it a few times previously, because he couldn’t understand why they were each paying rent on two different places when they spent every night together anyway. They could both save money by splitting the rent on his one-bedroom apartment together.

Ellie had always resisted; she loved her share-house. Even now that she had to find a new one, she was still hesitant to move in with Graeme because she still considered herself new to Vancouver, and this move was supposed to be an adventure.

Although Ellie wasn’t proud to admit it, she’d been living with her parents right up until she left Ontario. She didn’t want to jump from her parents’ house to a long-term boyfriend’s house so quickly… now that she was enjoying true independence for the first time in her life, she wasn’t ready for it to end yet.

However, apparently it was a bad time of the year to be looking for a room, and things were looking pretty dire for Ellie. She moved into Graeme’s apartment with the intention of finding her own room again down the line, but it never happened – she got comfortable, and that was that.

Graeme was a full-time working professional, hence the nice apartment. It was already fully-furnished and well-decorated, so even once Ellie moved in, it only took about half an hour for her to empty her backpack of clothes and two boxes of stuff into a few drawers and cupboard shelves.

The apartment was still very much Graeme’s, and as things got more serious between them, Ellie became resigned to the fact that she might have missed her chance to ever have a space all to herself.

“Ellie?”

Nick was still standing in front of her. “Want me to get you a glass of water or something?”

“Sorry, no I’m okay,” she said. “Just off in a daze.”

“I’m sorry for your loss, Ellie,” Nick said. “I know me and him had our differences, but I also know he loved you very much.”

Chapter 5: Jagged Transitions

Ellie found herself chatting to Nick for most of the wake. She couldn’t believe how refreshing it was to be engaged in conversation with an old friend.

Nick, like Graeme, had been there from the very start of Ellie’s new life in Vancouver. He’d met her when she was a clean slate, and watched her grow through shit jobs, relationship dramas and all of life’s other inevitable hurdles.

There was only one other person in this city who had also been there for Ellie from the beginning, and her name was Lara. Just as Lara sprung to mind, Ellie spotted her over Nick’s shoulder, standing awkwardly in the doorway and looking around the room.

A day or two after Ellie’s bar crawl and balcony adventures all those years ago, she’d set off around town with her resume and was lucky enough to secure a trial shift at a Mexican restaurant and cocktail bar by the end of the day. As soon as she arrived for her first shift, her new co-worker Lara had taken Ellie under her wing, and the two instantly hit it off.

As Lara rushed across the room to give Ellie a warm hug and offer her condolences, Nick chose to take his leave. However, Ellie noticed that Nick stole a quick glance at Lara’s chest as he turned to walk away.

Ellie chose not to let it bother her… Lara had quite big breasts, and always seemed to dress in a slightly provocative manner. Even now in all black, she somehow managed to reveal slightly too much cleavage and perhaps a little too much leg, considering the occasion.

As much as Ellie didn’t like to think about it, she caught herself recalling one horrible night a few years ago, when Graeme had indulged in a few too many drinks at a party Ellie was hosting.

After securing a professional day job that Ellie had worked very hard to get, she was throwing a house party to celebrate her resignation from the Mexican restaurant. Naturally, the theme was Mexican Party Dress.

Most of the guys showed up in ponchos, sombreros and elaborate fake moustaches. Lara had opted for what had already been a rather revealing poncho, even before she’d cut it in various places to show off her best features. Instead of an actual skirt, Lara had wrapped the Mexican flag around her waist like a sarong.

Needless to say, Lara’s outfit raised a few eyebrows at the party, which is no doubt what she’d been hoping for. But what made Ellie’s heart sink is that Graeme didn’t take his eyes off her all night.

Graeme never bothered to make a whole lot of effort with Ellie’s friends, as he was a fairly busy guy and had plenty of colleagues to socialise with. But that particular night, he seemed very interested in getting to know Ellie’s friends.

As much as Ellie did her best to convince herself she was imagining it, or exaggerating, a few of her closer friends at the party delicately raised the subject once or twice. Eventually, even Lara herself approached Ellie about it.

The whole night was incredibly humiliating, but Ellie waited until the following day to speak to Graeme about it, at which point he immediately got defensive and after a few days of stalemate, the whole incident was dropped and they moved past it in time… although, Ellie eased up on the social gatherings after that.

There’s something tremendously heartbreaking about knowing that your partner is attracted to a friend of yours, and Ellie couldn’t bring herself to see Lara anymore. Just as the Mexican restaurant had transitioned from a job to a fond memory, Lara transitioned from a close friend to a distant acquaintance.

Now that she was standing right here offering her condolences, Ellie hugged Lara tight and broke down with emotion. Everyone at the wake glanced over and accepted it as grief for her late husband.

But it wasn’t grief. Ellie hadn’t realised how much she’d missed having people like Nick and Lara in her life – people who knew the old Ellie. When it hit her, she was overwhelmed.

“I’ve missed you so much,” Ellie sobbed. “It’s so good to see you.”

Chapter 5: Black Coffee

Eight days after Graeme had died, Ellie grew fed up of being cooped up inside the house.

She spent every morning and night lying on her side of the bed, staring across at the empty side with a tight knot in her stomach. People talk about the heartbreak of losing a loved one, but it was Ellie’s stomach that seemed to be carrying all her emotions.

As for the afternoons, Ellie mostly spent them answering phone calls and knocks at the door. Everyone wanted to check up on her; make sure she wasn’t feeling lonely or struggling to cope on her own. Ellie found it strange – she’d never felt so social now that a tragedy had occurred in her life.

People handle grief differently, and Ellie wasn’t the type who needed constant nurturing and pampering from others. For true solitude at a time when she needed it most, it was ironic that Ellie had to leave her empty house and go outside.

She threw on some clothes, locked up the house and made a beeline for the coast – about an hour’s stroll from Burnaby.

Along the way, she stopped for a takeaway coffee and a croissant. Ellie hadn’t eaten properly in days; not since people with the best intentions had practically force-fed her at the funeral.

It was one of those hole in the wall cafes, and as Ellie placed her order, a beautiful campervan pulled into the parking lot behind her. She’d always wanted a campervan.

If she’d had the money before she left home, she would’ve taken her sweet time relocating from Ontario in a campervan that she could have slowly fixed up along the way.

That plan had changed to, “I’ll just fly to Vancouver, find a job, get settled, save, and then buy the campervan.” Once Ellie met Graeme, the plan changed to, “Okay, this trip to Hawaii will only set me back a month or two on the campervan plan, and then we’re all systems go.”

After that, the plan changed ever so slightly again and again, until Ellie completely lost sight of what was going on anymore. As far as Ellie could recall, the final obstacle standing between her and the campervan of her dreams had been Graeme, and his persistent nudging towards the two of them buying a house.

It was time, he’d say. There’ll be plenty of time to buy your campervan afterwards, but now is the time to secure a house in the suburbs.

From there, time had passed like sand in an hourglass, and Ellie hadn’t even thought about campervans for a couple of years now, until she laid eyes on this magnificently decked-out van pulling up outside the cafe.

In her absent-mindedness, daydreaming about past aspirations for a campervan, Ellie had simply repeated the order of the customer who had been standing in line ahead of her. She’d managed to order herself a black coffee instead of a latte by mistake.

Thing is though, she didn’t realise her mistake until she took a sip of her coffee. And while her initial reaction was, “shit – this is a black coffee”, she decided it still tasted rather delicious.

The last time she’d tried a black coffee was 10 years ago, and she’d absolutely hated it. But people change, and Ellie was a different person now to the person she’d been a decade earlier.

Apparently not different in every way though, Ellie thought, as she watched the campervan pull out of the parking lot and rumble away down the road, before turning out of sight.

Chapter 6: Carefree Individuals

Vancouver had actually been Ellie’s back-up plan.

Back when she was still living with her parents in Ontario, Ellie had applied for an incredible job as a crew member on a bicycle tour that travelled from Egypt all the way down to Cape Town in South Africa.

She made it all the way through the interview process, and waited months to hear back from them, only to get turned down for the position. As disappointing as the rejection had been, Ellie was in Vancouver a few weeks later and the sting quickly faded.

But for the last nine years, Ellie had continued to follow this cycling tour company through email subscriptions, and was always eager to see pictures and read blogs from the field.

Two weeks after Graeme’s death, Ellie decided that four months on a bicycle in Africa might just be the perfect way to spend her grieving process. She was nearly a decade older now, and she didn’t need to be a crew member anymore – she could be a customer.

Ellie couldn’t find a good reason not to do it. She had some money saved… she could go on this adventure, find herself again, and then come home and buy a campervan. Why not?

Once Ellie had the idea, she was booking her place on the next tour within minutes. It was one of those big decisions that was somehow easier to make then choosing which brand of milk to buy, because of the circumstances surrounding it.

As she clicked “confirm payment”, Ellie felt like she’d found an old piece of herself that had been lying dormant inside her for so long that she’d forgotten it ever existed. It wasn’t just that she felt free… she felt like herself again.

Ellie felt like the young, fresh-faced woman who had stepped off the plane at Vancouver airport nine years ago, ready for an adventure.

The tight knot in her stomach was gone, and she realised that the feeling hadn’t been heartbreak… it was burden. She’d been feeling pressure, and now that she’d acknowledged she was her own woman again, it had subsided.

Her heart was still broken that Graeme was gone forever – she missed him dearly. But it was being overpowered by another feeling…

Relief.

Of course, this relief made her feel guilty. Ellie was a mess.

It had only been two weeks since her husband had died a tragic death, and Ellie felt depressed, anxious and devastated. She was still in shock. She also hadn’t felt this carefree since the days of road tripping in search of forgotten answering machine cassette tapes to steal.

The truth is, they were the best times Ellie and Graeme had ever spent together. They were both happy, independent individuals, and this is what made them fall for each other in the first place.

Then they went to work changing each other.

Ellie and Graeme had both been different people before they met each other. The moment they started to fall in love, those previous versions of themselves began to die. They each made concessions to keep the other one happy, and changed themselves in obscene ways.

Ellie thought about the voices on all those answering machine messages she and Graeme had listened to over the years, and the anonymous people those voices had been speaking to. The two of them had been eavesdropping on people they’d never know.

By the time Ellie and Graeme had gotten married, they weren’t even Ellie and Graeme anymore. The real Ellie and Graeme were people that this married couple would never know.