The Soulmate: A Novel

Pippa runs outside to Gabe and guides him inside. Pippa has always worried about the day when Gabe wouldn’t be able to save someone and the toll it would take on him.

The police arrive and question Gabe about the incident. He says that the woman said her husband was unfaithful and then screamed and jumped. The officer asks if Pippa saw anything out the window. She realizes that Gabe’s hands were outstretched the way they might be if he had pushed her instead of reaching out to save her—but she doesn’t say anything.

Pippa doesn’t know why she lied to the police since they have nothing to hide. She is usually “the epitome of a good citizen” but feels the need to protect Gabe (13). She watches the crime scene out the window. It is several hours before they find the body.

Pippa checks on her sleeping daughters. Her parents, who live nearby, text to see how Gabe is doing, and Pippa reflects on how much they love him. They were immensely supportive 18 months ago when Pippa and Gabe’s life “hit rock bottom” (16). Now, Pippa is working full-time, and Gabe is their daughters’ primary caregiver. When the family moved to Portsea, Pippa’s parents moved there too, along with Pippa’s sister, Kat, and her wife, Mei. Pippa’s family has always been close and supportive.

Amanda tells the reader that she is dead. She remembers the sudden shock of it, especially because she didn’t go to The Drop to die.

The next morning, when Pippa gets up, Gabe is already gone, and she knows that he has gone surfing. She worries since they haven’t talked about what happened. While she waits for Gabe to return, she thinks about her girlfriends, who don’t understand the unconditional love she has for Gabe—they are much more critical of their own husbands.

Pippa goes down to the shore, where Gabe is standing on the rocks and looking out at the ocean. She sees him drop something small between the rocks. When he hears her, he turns, and she can see that he is crying. Pippa suggests that he see his therapist, whom he hasn’t visited in months. She broaches the topic of how he was standing the night before, and he admits that he tried to grab the woman. When she asks him what he just dropped, he tells her that it was a piece of surfboard wax.

The narrative flashes back to when Pippa and Gabe first meet in a park. Pippa is heartbroken and crying in her pajamas, and Gabe is the best man at a wedding taking place in the park. He walks away in the middle of the ceremony to ask if she is okay. Gabe asks for Pippa’s phone number and returns to the wedding. He doesn’t call Pippa for three weeks.

Amanda reflects on how death “isn’t so bad” (32). Knowing this would’ve made her feel better when her mom died. Amanda’s mother spent her life with Amanda’s father, an abusive man who was chronically unfaithful. Amanda spent her childhood humiliated by her father’s behavior and angry that everyone acted like her mother was to blame. When Amanda was 10, her father left them for her teacher, and Amanda’s mother never recovered. She insisted until her death that he was her soulmate. Amanda decided that she would never marry her soulmate. Her marriage would be a contractual matter so that she would never end up like her mother.

In death, Amanda watches Max getting the news of her death. When the officer tells him that her body was found at The Drop, he is stunned. She hadn’t considered how the news would affect him, especially considering that his mother and brother both died by suicide. Max refuses to believe that Amanda died by suicide and begins to cry. Despite herself, Amanda feels heartbroken for him.

The narrative shifts to Amanda’s past. Thirty years ago, she meets Max when she is serving tables at his parents’ anniversary party. As she’s leaving, he asks her to dinner, and she gives him her phone number.

The police are at The Drop all the next day. Freya and Asha watch through the window and ask Pippa questions. Pippa’s parents, Kat, and Mei come over to support Pippa. They talk about what it would be like to see someone die. Pippa says that she couldn’t handle it, and Kat remarks that Pippa might handle it better than anyone else, a comment that Pippa doesn’t understand.

Detective Tamil comes to their door and asks Gabe some questions. Pippa invites herself along, and they go out to the cliff. Gabe walks Tamil through what happened, and Pippa reflects that she doesn’t remember the scene as he describes it. He admits that he tried to grab the woman, but when he demonstrates, Pippa notes that his arms aren’t in the right position. Tamil doesn’t seem to suspect anything, but Pippa can’t stop thinking about it.

Gabe calls Pippa three weeks after they first met and explains that he’s been in the hospital with a broken leg. He was hit by a car while helping an elderly wedding guest cross the street. On their first date, Gabe and Pippa go to the botanical gardens, and it is perfect. She spends the next two nights at his apartment. Three weeks after their first date, they get engaged.

Pippa loves that Gabe is always the first one to help someone, but over time, she begins to notice other things too: He is “all or nothing” (53). Pippa wonders if Gabe’s spontaneity and instability are what attracted her to him, as it is so different from her safe and stable upbringing.

While Gabe reads the girls a bedtime story, Pippa pours herself a glass of wine and searches online for information about the woman, but there is nothing. She wonders if the woman’s family was prepared for her death by suicide. It reminds her of a conversation she had with Gabe. She’d come home one day in the middle of the afternoon to find Gabe on the couch in his pajamas. He described a feeling of universal sadness, and she wonders if that’s how the woman felt.

In the first year of their marriage, Gabe moves jobs five times. Each one captures his interest completely until the next job catches his eye. When a wealthy landscaping client offers him an internship at a media company, Gabe rises quickly in the company, and that success boosts his confidence. He works a lot of late nights and does a lot of work-based socializing.

Gabe leaves the house one morning, excited to be pitching to new investors. He doesn’t come home all night. The next morning, Pippa is about to call the police when a taxi pulls up and he gets out. He smells like cigarettes and alcohol but is excited because he won the pitch. As he talks about the deal, Pippa is excited too. She calls in sick to work and stays home, and he tells her all about it.

Pippa is on a video call with clients—she is a wills and estate lawyer. Although most people don’t go into law thinking of her specialty, she did. She likes the control she offers people over their lives. Her father arrives while she’s working, and she can hear him in her kitchen, unloading the dishwasher.

That morning, Gabe took the girls to school. Their teacher, Mrs. Punch, adores Gabe and praises everything he does. He will be staying at the school to help that day, and Pippa knows that Mrs. Punch will be thrilled.

After she ends her call, Pippa goes into the kitchen and looks through the local newspaper. She sees an article about the recent suicide and is stunned when she reads the woman’s name.

Amanda is still watching Max, who hasn’t eaten since he found out about her death two days before. She knows that it is because he suspects something wrong about her death. Max knows some shady people who could be involved. Amanda thinks that she should be enjoying watching him torture himself, but she’s not.

When Max first comes to Amanda’s house and meets her mother, Amanda is nervous. She and her mother live simply, and Max is from a wealthy family. However, Max is a perfect gentleman and gains the love and approval of her mother. While her mother speaks of love, however, Amanda corrects her, saying, “He’s a good choice […] It makes sense” (74).

Over the years, Max and Amanda have dinner regularly with her mother. When Amanda’s mother dies suddenly one day, Max’s grief is so pronounced that the hospital staff think she was his mother, not Amanda’s.

Pippa recognizes the woman’s name in the newspaper: Amanda Cameron. Amanda was the wife of Max Cameron, Gabe’s former boss. Pippa immediately goes to the school and shows Gabe the newspaper. He apologizes for not telling her that it was Amanda: He’d only met her a few times and hadn’t recognized her at first. The fact that it was Amanda changes things for Pippa. Her comments on the clifftop about her husband’s unfaithfulness show that she knew about Pippa and Max.