THE
SECRETS OF LOVE STORY BRIDGE
Author:
Phaedra Patrick
ISBN: 9780778309789
Publication
Date: April 28, 2020
Publisher:
Park Row Books
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Summary:
Fredrik Backman meets The Cactus in THE SECRETS OF
LOVE STORY BRIDGE (Park Row Books; April 28, 2020; $25.99 US/$32.50 CAN),
in which a cynical single father has a surprise encounter on the famous love
lock bridge, sparking a journey of self-discovery that may lead him to a second
chance at love.
Single father Mitchell Fisher
hates all things romance. He enjoys his job removing padlocks fastened to the
famous "love lock" bridges of Upchester city. Only his young
daughter, Poppy, knows that behind his disciplined veneer, Mitchell grieves the
loss of her mother, Anita.
One fateful day, working on the bridge,
Mitchell courageously rescues a woman who falls into the river. He’s surprised
to feel a connection to her, but the woman disappears before he learns her
name. To Mitchell’s shock, a video of the rescue goes viral, hailing him as "The Hero on the Bridge."
He’s soon notified by the mysterious woman’s sister, Liza, that she has been
missing for over a year. However, the only clue to where the woman could have
gone is the engraved padlock she left on the bridge.
Mitchell finds himself swept up in
Liza’s quest to find her lost sister. Along the way, with help from a sparkling
cast of characters, Mitchell’s heart gradually unlocks, and he discovers new
beginnings can be found in the unlikeliest places...
Excerpt
The Lilac Envelope
The night before
As he did often, over the past three years, Mitchell
Fisher wrote a letter he would never send.
He sat up in bed at midnight and kicked off
his sheets. Even though all the internal doors in his apartment were open, the
sticky July heat still felt like a shroud clinging to his body. His nine-year-old
daughter Poppy thrashed restlessly in her sleep, in the bedroom opposite.
Mitchell turned on his bedside lamp, squinting
against the yellow light, and took out a pad of Basildon Bond notepaper from
underneath his bed. He always used a fountain pen to write—old-fashioned he
supposed, but he was a man who valued things that were well-constructed and long-lasting.
Mitchell tapped the pen against his bottom
lip. He knew what he wanted to say, but by the time his words of sorrow and
regret travelled from his brain to his fingertips, they were only fragments of
what he longed to express.
As he started to write, the sound of the
metal nib scratching against paper helped him block out the city street noise
that hummed below his apartment.
Dearest Anita
Another letter from me. Everything here is fine, ticking along. Poppy is
doing well. The school holidays start soon and I thought she’d be more excited.
It’s probably because you’re not here to enjoy them with us.
I’ve taken two weeks off work to spend with her, and have a full
itinerary planned for us—badminton, tennis, library visits, cooking, walking,
the park, swimming, museums, cooking, a tour of the city bridges, and more. It
will keep us busy. Keep our minds off you.
You’ll be amazed how much she’s grown, must be almost your height by
now. I tell her how proud I am of her, but it always means more coming from
you.
Mitchell paused, resting his hand against the
pad of paper. He had to tell her how
he felt.
Every time I look at our daughter, I think of you. I wish I could hold
you again, and tell you I’m truly sorry.
Yours, always
Mitchell x
He read his words, always dissatisfied with
them, never able to convey the magnitude of grief and guilt he felt. After folding
the piece of paper once, he sealed it into a crisp, cream envelope, then
squeezed it into the almost-full drawer of his nightstand, amongst all the
other letters he’d written. His eyes fell upon the slim lilac envelope he kept on
top, the one addressed to him from Anita, that he’d not yet been able to bring
himself to open.
Taking that envelope out, he held it under
his nose and inhaled. There was still a slight scent of her on the paper, he
thought, of violet soap. His finger followed the angle of the gummed flap and
then stopped. He closed his eyes and willed himself to open the letter, but his
fingernails dented crescents into the paper.
Once more, he placed it back into his drawer.
Mitchell lay down and hugged himself,
imagining Anita’s arms were wrapped around him. But, when he closed his eyes,
the words from all the letters weighed down upon him like a bulldozer. As he
turned and tried to sleep, he pulled the pillow over his head to force them
away.
1. A Locked Heart
The lovers who attached their padlocks to the bridges of
Upchester might see it as a fun or romantic gesture but, to Mitchell, it was an
act of vandalism.
It was the hottest year on record in the city
and the morning sun was already beating down on the back of his neck. His
biceps flexed as he methodically opened and squeezed his bolt cutters shut, cutting
the padlocks off the cast-iron filigree panels of the old Victorian bridge, one
by one.
Since local boyband Word Up filmed the video
for their international smash hit “Lock Me Up with Your Love” on this bridge,
thousands of people were flocking to the small city in the North West of
England. They brought and attached locks marked with initials, names, messages,
to demonstrate their love for the band and each other, on the city’s five
bridges.
Large red and white signs that read no padlocks studded the pavement. But as
far as Mitchell could see, the locks still hung on the railings like bees
swarming across frames of honeycomb. The constant reminder of love surrounding
him, other people’s, made him feel like he was fighting for breath.
As he cut off the locks, he wanted to yell,
‘Why can’t you just keep your feelings to yourselves?’
After several hours of hard work, Mitchell’s
trail of broken locks glinted on the pavement like a metal snake. He stopped
for a moment and narrowed his eyes as a young couple strolled toward him. The
woman glided in a white floaty dress and tan cowboy boots. The man wore shorts
and had the physique of an American football player. With his experience of
carrying out maintenance across the city’s public areas, Mitchell instinctively
knew they were up to something.
After breaking away from his girlfriend, the
man walked to the side of the bridge while nonchalantly pulling out a large
silver padlock from his pocket.
Mitchell tightened his grip on his cutters.
He was once so easy and in love with Anita, but rules were rules. ‘Excuse me,’
he called out. ‘You can’t hang that lock.’
The man frowned and crossed his bulging arms.
‘Oh yeah? And who’s going to stop me?’
Mitchell had the sinewy physique of a
sprinter. He was angular all over with dark hair and eyes, and a handsome
dorsal hump on his nose. ‘I am,’ he said and put his cutters down on the
pavement. He held out his hand for the lock. ‘It’s my job to clear the bridges.
You could get a fine.’
Anger flashed across the blond man’s face and
he batted Mitchell’s hand away, swiping off his work glove. Mitchell watched as
it tumbled down into the river below. Sometimes the water flowed prettily, but
today it gushed and gurgled, a bruise-grey hue. A young man had drowned here in
a strong current last summer.
The man’s girlfriend wrapped her arms around
her boyfriend’s waist and tugged him away. ‘Come on. Leave him alone.’ She cast
Mitchell an apologetic smile. ‘Sorry, but we’re so in love. It took us two hours and three buses to get here. We’ll
be working miles away from each other soon.
Please let us do this.’
The man looked into her eyes and softened.
‘Yeah, um, sorry, mate,’ he said sheepishly. ‘The heat got the better of me.
All we want to do is fasten our lock.’
Mitchell gestured at the sign again. ‘Just
think about what you’re doing, guys,’ he said with a weary sigh. ‘Padlocks are
just cheap chunks of metal and they’re weighing down the bridges. Can’t you get
a nice ring or tattoo instead? Or write letters to each other? There are better
ways to say I lov– Well, you know. . .’
The man and the woman shared an incredulous
look.
‘Whatever,’ the man glowered, and he shoved
his padlock back into the pocket of his shorts. ‘We’ll go to another bridge
instead.’
‘I work on those too . . .’
The couple laughed at him and sauntered away.
Mitchell rubbed his nose. He knew his job
wasn’t a glamorous one. It wasn’t the one in architecture he’d studied hard and
trained for. However, it meant he could pay the rent on his apartment and buy
Poppy hot lunch at school each day. Whatever daily hassle he put up with, he
needed the work.
His workmate Barry had watched the incident
from the other side of the road. Sweat circled under his arms and his forehead
shone like a mirror as he crossed over. ‘The padlocks keep multiplying,’ he
groaned.
‘We need to keep on going.’
‘But it’s too damn hot.’ Barry undid a button
on his polo shirt, showing off unruly chest curls that matched the ones on his
head. ‘It’s a violation of our human rights, and no one can tell if we cut off
twenty or two hundred.’
Mitchell held his hand up against the glare
of the sun. ‘We can tell, and Russ wants the bridges cleared in time for the
city centenary celebrations.’
Barry rolled his eyes. ‘There’s only three
weeks to go until then. Our boss should come down here and get his hands dirty,
too. At least join me for a pint after work.’
Mitchell’s mouth felt parched, and he
suddenly longed for an ice-cold beer. A vision of peeling off his polo-shirt
and socks and relaxing in a beer garden appeared like a dreamy mirage in his
head.
However, he had to pick Poppy up from the
after-school club to take her for a guitar lesson, an additional one to her
music class in school. Her headteacher, Miss Heathcliff, was a stickler for the
school closing promptly at 5.30pm, and it was a rush to get there on time. He lowered
his eyes and said, ‘I’d love to, but I have to dash.’
Then he selected his next padlock to attack.
Excerpted from The Secrets of
Love Story Bridge by Phaedra Patrick, Copyright © 2020 by Phaedra Patrick.
Published by Park Row Books
Author Bio:
Phaedra Patrick is the author of
The Library of Lost and Found, Rise and
Shine, Benedict Stone and The Curious
Charms of Arthur Pepper, which has been published in over twenty countries
around the world. She studied art and marketing, and has worked as a
stained-glass artist, film festival organizer and communications manager. An
award-winning short story writer, she now writes full-time. She lives in
Saddleworth, UK, with her husband and son.
Social
Links:
Twitter: @PhaedraPatrick
Instagram: @PhaedraPatrick
Facebook: @PhaedraPatrick
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