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you were nowhere to be found. If only you’d been a modern gal who keeps her own name in case old boyfriends try to look her up.’
    I laugh.
    ‘Seriously,’ she says. ‘You’re thirty-six and gorgeous. You’re a good person, a great mother—even if Aimee doesn’t think so at the moment—and whatever you felt deep down, you were a good wife. So it’s guaranteed that you’re going to find another man. But there’s still this unfinished business in you. And even if he lives in another country, even if you’ve not spoken to him in fifteen years… who’s to say that there’s absolutely no way it can ever happen? What have you got to lose by looking him up? Really? When you think about it, Celine—nothing.’
    I give her a sweaty hug. ‘You talk a load of pipe-dreams, but I love you nevertheless.’
     
    ~ * * * ~
     
    I go home and Google breaking up. How did I ever exist before I used the Internet to find out how I’m feeling? There is so much written on divorce. All the distasteful puns by men about ex-wives taking them to the cleaners. Quotes from Zsa Zsa Gabor to Margaret Atwood. There’s “Wikihow” to cope with going solo again. Apparently God has a lot to say on the subject too. And best of all, there’s the jargon that sounds impressive, by the so-called relationship experts, but no one has a clue what it means. My favourite being:
    ‘When you and that person have changed to any extent, it is necessary to let go of the relationship, so that each of you can fulfill your life path.’
    Life path. Wasn’t I on a life path? If I wasn’t, then what was it? If I wasn’t already fulfilling it, then what the hell was I doing?
    ‘Refusing to let go of the painful past will serve as a roadblock to love.’ Yes, and you’ll become just like my mother: one of those stung by life people who can’t exactly love themselves either.
    ‘Letting go of your old self and letting the new you emerge can be frightening. But by taking a leap of faith into the unknown, it might reveal what you are truly capable of becoming.’
    The new me. A leap of faith into the unknown?
    I think about this for a while, not minding this one, actually. Didn’t the old me used to be such a daring girl? I dove headlong into life, and the thrill of it was fantastic. Then marriage made everything feel a little too certain for my comfort level.
    I click off there, and think of Jacqui egging me on to do this.
    Then—madly—I type in Patrick’s name.

Five
     
     
    There are countless articles on him. Many of which I’ve seen before, because, of course I’ve Googled him way more than I’ve ever admitted to anyone, which always felt like a form of infidelity in itself. Would I have liked Mike looking up the same ex-girlfriend? Would I have been able to convince myself that it was enough that it was me he’d married? But then again, perhaps infidelity is not the worst thing that can happen to a marriage; it’s giving up.
    I digest everything on him like it’s new to me. Wikipedia references. Career profiles. Something about him winning an Emmy for his coverage of Hong Kong being returned to China. A fascinating interview with him in Frontline magazine. But it’s the image results that spellbind me. So many of them I have seen before, when I combed over them to answer that one question: was it him I’d seen in London?
    There’s a new one on. He’s wearing a khaki combat jacket, and is posing against a parched mountainous backdrop of some foreign warzone. It looks like it’s probably recent. It’s his most ‘close-up’ shot on here. The face is older: shockingly so; the cheeks fuller and softer with age, a flush of a suntan across the bridge of his prominent nose. His once fair hair is greying, and there is a sadness and seriousness that never used to be there in his eyes. ‘Wikipedia’ tells me his birthday—which I already knew. Patrick is forty-three now. ‘Journalisted’ catalogues every article he’s written on